On this day in history ...

One of the deadliest train crashes in US history took place during a strike of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, some of whose members operated elevated trains for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT).  To keep service running, the BRT brought in inexperienced motormen to replace the striking workers.  That evening, a five-car train derailed in the Malbone Street tunnel after negotiating a curve too quickly, killing 93.  How many hours of training had the train's operator received?  More...

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• 1993 Maastricht Treaty comes into force

  The Maastricht Treaty that created a common currency, the Euro, for European Union countries came into force
  

• 1955 United Airlines Flight 629 blows up over Colorado

  A bomb hidden in checked luggage of United Airlines Flight 629 exploded over Longmont, Colorado killing all 44 people on board.
  

• 1952 First large hydrogen bomb tested by the U.S.

  The bomb, codenamed Mike, was part of Operation Ivy and was tested in the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands.
  

• 1911 First bomb dropped from an aircraft

  Prior to this, bombs were dropped using unmanned balloons. The first bomb launched from an aircraft was used by the Italians in the Italo-Turkish War.
  

• 1894 Nicholas II became Tsar of Russia

  The last Tsar of Russia took over the reign of the empire after his father, Alexander III died. Nicholas was forced to abdicate in 1917 and was executed a year later along with his family.
  

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  Historic Trivia
In Barnsley, England, in 1984, Percy the Chihuahua accompanied his owner, Christine Harrison, on a visit to her parents' home. Percy refused to stay in the yard, darting into the street, where he was hit by a car. The dog displayed no signs of life, so Christine asked her father to bury her pet. Percy was put in a heavy paper sack and entombed in a two-foot-deep grave in the garden. However, Mick, a terrier belonging to Christine's parents, refused to leave the grave. He dug up Percy dragged him to the house, and stimulated his circulation by licking him. Percy was still unconscious but now had a faint heartbeat, and he eventually recovered. Interestingly enough, Percy and Mick hated each other, and continued to do so after this incident.

The Balfour Declaration was a British government statement promising the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine that would not disturb non-Jews already living there.  The British anticipated gaining a mandate over Palestine after WWI and hoped to win over Jewish public opinion for the Allies.  They also hoped that pro-British settlers would help protect the approaches to the Suez Canal, a vital link to Britain's South Asian possessions.  Who actually wrote the declaration?  More...

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• 1982 Ronald Reagan signs a bill to create Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

  The day, observed every year on the third Monday of January, commemorates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. a leader of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
  

• 1964 Coup in Saudi Arabia

  Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud takes over the government of Saudi Arabia while his half-brother, King Saud is overseas for medical reasons.
  

• 1938 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation established

  Officially known as CBC/Radio-Canada, the network is Canada's public radio and television broadcaster.
  

• 1930 Haile Selassie I becomes the emperor of Ethiopia

  Considered as a leading figure in the Rastafari movement, Selassie reigned over Ethiopia for 44 years.
  

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Historic Trivia
Over a period of 500 years, a secret religious sect in India called the Thugs ritually murdered about 12 million people. The term "thug" originally was Hindi for "swindler". Starting in the thirteenth century, the Thugs travelled about India in bands, preying on travellers, whom they would strangle and rob. The Thugs were fanatically devoted to Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. They lasted until around the 1830s, when the occupying British destroyed the destructive sect.

 
The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was established in 1838.  Since then, both the name of the newspaper and the name of the city have changed.  In 1861, 134 years before Bombay was renamed Mumbai, the paper was renamed The Times of India.  Today, The Times of India, an English-language daily, has the largest circulation of any English-language newspaper in the world.  How many copies of each edition are printed every day?  More...

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• 1978 Dominica gains independence

  The Caribbean Island nation gained its independence from the British after being colonized in 1805.
  

• 1973 NASA launches Mariner 10

  The last of the Mariner Program, Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to flyby two planets - Venus and Mercury. The probe flew by Venus on February 5, 1974, and did 3 flybys of Mercury on March 29, 1974, September 21, 1974, and on March 16, 1975, after which communications with the probe were terminated.
  

• 1954 Godzilla released

  The Japanese science fiction starring a mutated monster of the same name became an instant hit.
  

• 1868 John Willis Menard elected to U.S. House of Representatives

  He became the first African-American to be elected to the house.
  

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  Historic Trivia
The Bluetooth technology is named after a tenth-century king of Denmark and Norway, Harald Bluetooth. Harald was known for uniting various warring tribes in Denmark and Norway, as the technology is intended to unite various other technologies.

In 1979, an Islamic revolutionary government overthrew Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran.  When the exiled shah was admitted to the US for medical treatment, a crowd of about 500 seized the US embassy in Tehran, demanding the shah's extradition.  US President Jimmy Carter halted Iranian oil imports and froze Iranian assets, but his diplomatic initiatives proved fruitless, and a US rescue mission failed.  Fifty-two hostages were held for 444 days until the end of the crisis in 1981.  How did it end?  More...

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• 2008 Barack Obama is elected

  The first African-American to be elected President of the United States, Obama is the 44th person to occupy the Oval Office. He succeeded President George W. Bush and he has been elected to the office twice.
  

• 1995 Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

  He was the Prime Minister of Israel when he was killed in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir, an Israel who opposed the role that Rabin played in the Oslo Peace Accords. The Accords were a collection of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that set up the process of Palestinian self-determination and created the Palestinian Authority.
  

• 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis

  The 444-day crisis began when a group of students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostages. The crisis led to a breakdown in American and Iranian diplomatic relations.
  

• 1952 US National Security Agency formed

  The NSA as it is popularly known is an intelligence organization that is responsible for monitoring and collecting signal intelligence around the world. The agency was preceded by the Armed Forces Security Agency.
  

• 1925 First woman governor of a state in the US

  Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first and only female governor of the state of Wyoming in the United States. In addition to being the first woman to be ever elected as a state governor in the US, she was also the first female director of the United States Mint.
  

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  Historic Trivia

The man to blame for adding tips to bills

Who came up with the idea of adding service charges to bills? Possibly this man, who wrote to The London Magazine in 1768 with such a proposition, having suffered abusive staff pestering for tips: “I speak of the licensed beggars you meet at every inn, when no sooner is the bill called for, but the setters prick up their ears, and scamper to obstruct the avenues of retreat.
“The appearance on the way to your horse and carriage of everyone concerned to deliver what you have ordered, give intimations of their demands upon you, as you hear them bawl out: ‘Pray remember the ostler’, ‘the waiter’, ‘the boot-catcher’.
“Let landlords pay their servants sufficient wages, and at the bottom of the bill, write attendance, leaving a blank for the person to give what he pleases; you will find it much easier to make the landlord an allowance for that purpose, than to cram the hungry jaws of his gaping cormorants, who are so irregularly fed.”

Angered by King James I's refusal to grant more religious toleration to Catholics, a group of conspirators plotted to blow up Parliament and kill the king.  The plot was discovered, and conspirator Guy Fawkes was arrested in a cellar under the palace at Westminster, where he had concealed 36 barrels of gunpowder.  Under torture, he revealed the names of his coconspirators, and they were all either killed while resisting arrest or executed in 1606.  How is November 5 celebrated in England today?  More...

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• 2009 13 killed at Ford Hood, Texas

  Major Malik Hasan opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Fort Hood, Texas and killed 13 people, injuring 30.
  

• 2007 China's first lunar satellite enters lunar orbit

  The Chang'e 1, an unmanned lunar-orbiting spacecraft sent the first pictures of the Moon on November 26.
  

• 2003 Green Valley Killer pleads guilty

  Gary Ridgeway, a serial killer also known as the Green Valley Killer plead guilty to killing 48 women in the 1980s and 1990s.
  

• 1995 Assassination attempt on Canadian Prime Minister

  André Dallaire tried to assassinate Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
  

• 1943 Vatican City bombed

  Vatican City was bombed by a fascist Italian aircraft breaching the neutrality of Vatican during the second World War
  

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  Historic Trivia
Margaret Dixon, a Scottish criminal, was hanged at Musselburgh in 1728. A few hours after the execution, however, she climbed out of her coffin. She was reprieved and given a free pardon; however, her husband was considered a widower because she was officially dead. So, to conform with Scottish laws, they had to marry again.

As a US senator, Davis advocated states' rights but tried to discourage secession.  Still, when Mississippi seceded, he resigned from the Senate, was appointed major general of the Mississippi militia, and soon was chosen to be president of the Confederacy.  After Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered without Davis's approval in 1865, Davis fled Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, hoping to continue the fight until he could secure better terms from the North.  What happened to him?  More...

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• 1999 Australians reject referendum to become a republic with a president as its head

  The referendum was held to amend the Australian constitution, which would make the country a republic with a president as its head. If the referendum has passed the British monarchy would no longer have been a constitutional monarchy.
  

• 1985 Palace of Justice is Seized in Colombia

  25 guerrillas from the 19th of April Movement or the M-19 took over the Palace of Justice which houses the Colombian Supreme Court. They took 300 people hostage. The ensuing fight between the rebels and the government's forces left more than 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court justices dead.
  

• 1962 United Nations passes resolution to condemn Apartheid in South Africa

  The UN General Assembly asked its member states to stand up against apartheid and to cut off relations with South Africa in order to make a point. Apartheid was an official policy of racial discrimination and segregation followed in South Africa. Despite the UN Resolution, it remained governmental policy until 1994, when democratic general elections were held in the country.
  

• 1947 Meet the Press makes its TV debut

  The longest running TV news show was first hosted by journalist and creator Martha Rountree and aired on NBC.
  

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  Historic Trivia
Pope Gregory IV must have been a real dog person. The 13th-century pope stated that black cats were instruments of Satan and ordered that they be exterminated throughout Europe. His followers followed his orders and decimated the population of felines.
But cats may have gotten the last laugh, as the reduction in their population is among the factors that led to a spike in the population of plague-carrying rats. It's just one of the interesting historical facts that changed life as we know it.

The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought between US forces and the forces of Tecumseh, the Shawnee leader who sought to stem US expansion by establishing a confederacy of Native American tribes.  Led by Tecumseh's brother, the Shawnee attacked US forces camped near their village.  Both sides suffered similar losses, but the battle dealt a serious blow to the Native American military movement and was ultimately considered a victory for the US.  What was done to the bodies of the fallen after the battle?  More...

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• 1987 Coup in Tunisia

  In a bloodless coup in Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took over the Presidentship of Tunisia from President Habib Bourguiba.
  

• 1947 Coup in Thailand

  The military staged a coup against Thawan Thamrong Nawasawat and installed Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister.
  

• 1917 October Revolution

  The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, took over the winter palace and ended the rule of the post-Tsarist provisional government and transferred all powers to the communists in Russia
  

• 1916 First woman to be elected to US Congress

  Jeannette Rankin from Montana became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
  

• 1869 First inter-city cycle race

  The first city to city cycle race was held between Paris and Rouen. James Moore, an Englishman living in Paris at that time won the race.
  

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  Historic Trivia
Something often forgotten about Prohibition is that the government did not just try to dissuade drinking through fines and imprisonment, but by actually poisoning the industrial alcohol that was legal.
Sure, this stuff was nasty already and not meant for drinking. But when desperate drinkers made a habit of imbibing rubbing alcohol, officials began to "denature" it, adding iodine, chloroform, and even gasoline and kerosene to make it nauseating and even deadly. People still drank it, and an estimated 10,000 people were killed because of it.

In 1960, Kennedy a US senator, earned the Democratic nomination for president.  In the campaign that followed, he engaged in a series of televised debates with his Republican opponent, Richard M. Nixon.  After a vigorous campaign managed by his brother Robert F. Kennedy and aided financially by his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, he defeated Nixon by a narrow popular margin.  At 43, he became the youngest person ever, and the first Catholic, elected president.  How did the debates affect the election?  More...

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• 1972 - Home Box Office launched
  The premium TV channel, informally known as HBO, is the oldest paid TV channel in the United States. The first program to screen on the channel was Sometimes a Great Notion, a movie starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.
  
  
• 1971 - Coup in Thailand
  Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn staged a coup against his own government and dismissed the parliament citing increasing communist influence.
  
  
• 1939 - Assassination attempt on Hitler
  Johann Georg Elser, a German woodworker, attempted to kill Adolf Hilter and other high ranking members of the Nazi party during the 16th anniversary observances of the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup attempt by Hitler in 1923. The time bomb Elser used in a beer hall called Bürgerbräukeller in Munich went off but failed to kill Hitler. Elser was caught and imprisoned in Dachau for 5 years.
  
  
• 1923 - Beer Hall Putsch
  On this day, Adolf Hitler and other members of the Nazi party attempted to overthrow current government by marching to Berlin. They started the march at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich. The coup attempt was eventually unsuccessful and Hitler was captured and imprisoned for 2 years.
  
  
• 1895 - First person to observe X-rays
  German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen accidentally discovered X-rays, also sometimes called Röntgen rays while working on cathode rays. X-rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation that are often used today in medicine. Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his discovery.
  

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  Historic Trivia
In the Victorian era, it was popular for people to photograph relatives after they had died, often placing them in lifelike poses.

In the 1984 World Chess Championship, 1980 World Junior Champion and international grandmaster Gary Kasparov faced reigning world champion Anatoly Karpov.  The longest title match in chess history, it was aborted after 5 months of play and 48 games, after chess officials concluded that it was taking too great a psychological and physical toll on Karpov, who was leading but appeared likely to lose.  Kasparov won a rematch 6 months later, becoming the youngest world champion ever.  How old was he?  More...

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• 2009 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall

  On this day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the last soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish ex-president and Noble Prize winner Lech Walesa walked through Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  

• 1994 Darmstadtium created for the first time

  The heavily radioactive element with an atomic number of 110 and symbol Ds, was created at Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (Institute for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Germany, the city after which the element is named.
  

• 1967 Rolling Stone makes its debut

  The biweekly popular culture magazine was founded by Jann Simon Wenner in San Francisco. The magazine launched the careers of many famous authors and published the early versions of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
  

• 1938 Night of broken glass

  A pogrom against Jewish businesses, synagogues, and Jews in Germany and Austria was carried out by Sturmabteilung troops and civilians. The series of attacks that killed about 70 people and put 30,000 jews in prison is known as night of broken glass or Kristallnacht
  

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  Historic Trivia

John James Audubon's pioneering paintings of birds are so stunning that many overlook the fact that to get such detail, the artist would often kill his subjects, posing freshly killed birds into active poses so he could create a realistic painting without worrying they would fly away.

The Hope diamond is one of the largest blue diamonds known.  Discovered in India, the original 115-carat stone was sold to King Louis XIV in the 1660s and remained part of the French crown jewels until a theft in 1972.  In 1830, London banker Thomas Hope purchased a 45.5-carat diamond, now believed to have been cut from the stolen French jewel.  After changing hands many times, the Hope diamond was eventually donated to the Smithsonian by jeweller Harry Winston.  Why do some think the gem is cursed?  More...

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• 1969 Sesame Street premieres

  Sesame Street, the long-running American children's television series, premiered on TV stations.
  

• 1951 North American Numbering Plan begins

  The plan standardized distance calling and gave phone numbers in cities a fixed 3 digit prefix, also called an area code. This made making long-distance calls faster and easier and without the involvement of an operator. The first call under the plan was made between the mayors of Englewood, New Jersey and Alameda, California.
  

• 1903 Windshield wiper patented

  The US patent office granted inventor Mary Anderson a patent for automatic windshield wipers - a device that is used to remove or wipe the front and back windshields in automobiles.
  

• 1898 Wilmington riots begin

  Thought to be one of the only incidents of insurrection against a local government in the United States, the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898 or the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 began after an election voted in a biracial city council. In retaliation, white supremacists overthrew the council, destroyed a lot of property and killed many black people in the city over the course of a few days.
  

• 1775 US Marine Corps is created

  The elite military force capable of operating on land, sea and air was founded in Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. A resolution of the Second Continental Congress formed two battalions of Continental Marines that became the forerunners of today's marine corps.
  

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  Historic Trivia

• The Taj Mahal in Agra, one of the world's most beautiful buildings, was built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan (1627–1659) as a mausoleum for one of his wives, Mumtaz Mahal, who, on her deathbed in 1631, extracted a promise from her husband to take care of her children and to build a suitable monument for her. Masons from northern India, calligraphers from Baghdad and Shiraz, and various specialists from all around the Muslim world designed and supervised building activities as well as planning the garden. The work was coordinated by Ustad Isa from Lahore.
  
• Until the British took over India, guards were posted at the Taj Mahal with a warning that any non-Muslim who tried to enter would be put to death.
  
• The Taj Mahal was scheduled to be torn down in the 1830s so that its marble facing could be auctioned off in London to the landed English gentry. Wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds and work was about to begin when word came from London to cancel the demolition. The first auction of marble facades of Indian buildings had been a failure, so tearing down the 200-year-old mausoleum would not be worth it.
  

In the early 18th century, English criminal Jonathan Wild maintained a highly organised gang of thieves and long escaped punishment by posing as an instrument of justice and helping the authorities catch other criminals independent of, or rebellious to, his control.  One such criminal was Blake, who was arrested after a burglary.  He was tried, convicted, and hanged.  What other notorious criminal - Blake's partner in crime - escaped from prison when Blake attacked a witness at his trial?  More...

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• 1999 - House of Lords Act 1999 passed
  The act removed the right to a place in the House of Lords based on peerage and hereditary rights.
  
  
• 1975 - Angola independence
  Angola gained its independence after over 300 years of Portuguese rule.
  
  
• 1965 - Rhodesia declares its independence
  Rhodesia, a region that is comprised of present day Zimbabwe declared its freedom from the United Kingdom under the leadership of predominantly white leaders. It lasted for 14 years when it was renamed the Republic of Zimbabwe after being recognized by the UN and the UK.
  
  
• 1926 - Approval of numbered highways in the US
  Under this system odd numbered highways run north to south while even numbered highways run east to west. Lower odd numbers are in the west, and higher odd number are in the east. Lower even numbers are in the south, and higher even numbers are in the north.
  
  
• 1918 - World War I ends
  An armistice was signed to formally end the war. With 17 million casualties, the First World War was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.
  

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Historic Trivia

You probably knew that Castro had a target on his back, but you probably didn't know it was quite so large. According to the former director of Cuba's intelligence service, there were more than 600 attempts made to kill the Cuban dictator—by political opponents, criminals, and the United States, among others. These ranged from an exploding cigar, a poisoned diving suit, and psychedelic drugs to make him sound crazy when speaking in public.

In 1993, terrorists detonated a car-bomb in an underground garage of the World Trade Centre complex in New York City, killing six, injuring more than a thousand, and causing more than $300 million in damage.  In all, ten militant Islamist conspirators were convicted of involvement in the bombing, including Yousef, who also bombed an important Shia shrine in Iran in 1994 and later planned a large-scale terrorist scheme that included killing the pope.  What alleged 9-11 mastermind is Yousef's uncle?  More...

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• 1991 Dili massacre

  Several pro-independence protesters were shot at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor by Indonesian soldiers. about 250 people were killed in this event, which is also known as the Dili massacre or the Santa Cruz massacare
  

• 1990 Coup in Lesotho

  Justin Metsing Lekhanya staged a coup against King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho and took over the government of Lesotho. Lekhanya was deposed a few months later in another military coup.
  

• 1984 First salvage operation in space

  Astronauts Dale A. Gardner and Joseph P. Allen aboard space shuttle Discovery performed a series of space walks to salvage parts from two satellites, the Palapa B-2 and the Westar 6 which had steered away from their orbits.
  

• 1981 STS-2 launched

  The second space shuttle mission by NASA, space shuttle Columbia was launched from NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the first time a manned space shuttle had been launched twice.
  

• 1966 First images of a Solar Eclipse taken from space

  The crew of Gemini 12 which included Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin were able to view and take pictures of the total solar eclipse over South America.
  

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   Historic Trivia
Before there were alarm clocks, there were “knockers-up”, who were hired to shoot dried peas from a blow gun at people’s windows in order to wake them up in the morning.

In 1991, after a three-year investigation, US and UK authorities announced indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.  During a trial held a decade later in the Netherlands, one of the defendants was found guilty and sentenced to llife imprisonment.  Whose presence on board the airplane has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories about the motivations behind the bombing?  More...

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• 2015 - Terrorist attacks in Paris
  A series of coordinated terrorist attacks that included suicide bombs and mass shootings took place in France's capital city. Venues attacked included the Stade de France and the Bataclan theater during a concert. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or Daesh (ISIL) took responsibility for the attacks that killed about 130 people.
  
  
• 1994 - Sweden votes to join EU
  The referendum passed with over 50% of Swedish citizens voting to join the European Union. The Nordic country officially joined the EU on January 1, 1995.
  
  
• 1985 - Armero tragedy
  The late evening eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia caused volcanic mudflows, called lahars, and flooded the city of Armero, killing 25,000 of its residents. The Armero tragedy is considered to be one of the deadliest volcano related disasters in the 20th century.
  
  
• 1950 - Assassination of Carlos Delgado Chalbaud
  The Venezuelan president and head of the military Junta was kidnapped and killed by rebels headed by Rafael Simón Urbina. Chalbaud came to power after a coup against Rómulo Gallegos in 1948.
  
  
• 1887 - Bloody Sunday in London
  Protests by poor and unemployed Londoners over their hardships in Trafalgar Square took a violent turn when the police charged on those protesting with batons. By the end of the day, 2 or 3 people were killed and several hundred protestors were injured.
  

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   Historic Trivia

• Christmas was once illegal in England. In 1643 the Puritans outlawed all Christmas celebrations, banned the keeping of Christmas trees, and criminalized the singing of Christmas carols. These laws were maintained until the English monarchy was restored.
  
• At Christmas, Judge Tom DuBois of Columbia City, Tennessee strikes a deal with minor offenders. He lets them off provided they show up in court and sing a Christmas carol.
  

The construction of the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, was authorised by Congress in 1934.  In 1939, US President Franklin Roosevelt presided over a ceremony during which the cornerstone of the monument was laid.  Completed and dedicated in 1943, the white marble buillding, designed by John Russell Pope, is a circular structure with a domed ceiling, surrounded by 26 columns.  Inside is a bronze statue of Jefferson.  Why was a temporary plaster statue initially erected there?  More...

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• 2006 - Al Jazeera English launched
  The English language 24-hour news channel is owned and run by Al Jazeera Media Network based in Doha, Qatar.
  
  
• 1988 - State of Palestine created
  The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) declared the creation of the state while in exile in Algiers, Algeria. The declaration designated eastern Jerusalem as the state's capital. Today, almost 70% of all UN members state recognize it as an independent country.
  
  
• 1956 - Elvis Presley makes his movie debut
  Love Me Tender, a black-and-white musical starred the American singer, who is also sometimes called the King of Rock and Roll. The movie was named after Presley's hit single by the same name.
  
  
• 1949 - Assassins of MK Gandhi Executed in India
  Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte and 6 other co-conspirators of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi were hanged at the Ambala jail. On January 30, 1948, Godse who was unhappy about Gandhi's accommodation of India's Muslims shot Gandhi while he was out for his evening prayers.
  
  
• 1920 - League of Nations meets for the first time
  The general assembly of the international organization got together for the first time after being founded in January 1920. The League was created as a response to World War I and was entrusted by member states to maintain peace in the world.
  

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  Historic Trivia

Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story in 1838, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", in which three shipwreck survivors in an open boat kill and eat the fourth, a man named Richard Parker. In 1884, in the real world, three shipwreck survivors in an open boat killed and ate the fourth, whose name was Richard Parker.

In 1992, a tenant farmer in the village of Hoxne, England, lost a hammer and asked a friend for help finding it with a metal detector.  While searching the field, the friend discovered silver utensils, gold jewelley, and numerous gold and silver coins.  Archaeologists notified of the find excavated the site the next day and found what has become known as the Hoxne Hoard - the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain.  What objects are among its treasures?  More...

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• 2001 - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone released
  The film version of the popular book by the same name written by author J. K. Rowling starred Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and followed Potter's first year at Hogwarts, a school for magic.
  
  
• 1988 - Estonians declare sovereignty from USSR
  Estonians issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration as part of the Singing Revolution. The Declaration declared Estonian sovereignty from the Soviet Union and declared Estonian laws paramount over Soviet laws. The day is now celebrated as the Day of Declaration of Sovereignty.
  
  
• 1965 - Soviets launch Venera 3
  Part of the Venera program, it was the first space probe to land on another planet - Venus. Unfortunately, due to technical issues, it was not able to send any data back to Earth. The first space probe to send data from another planet to Earth was Venera 7.
  
  
• 1945 - UNESCO founded
  The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a special branch of the United Nations which promotes peace and well-being through education, scientific collaboration and cultural understanding and exchange. It is headquartered in Paris, France and has 195 state members.
  
  
• 1940 - Warsaw ghetto sealed
  The largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Warsaw ghetto, was created in October 1940 by a German decree. According to the decree, all Jews in the city had to move to the ghetto, which was closed off by a 10 feet wall and had soldiers and police guarding it from the outside 24 hours a day. The ghetto was the scene of one of the largest Jewish uprisings during the Second World War in 1943.
  
  

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  Historic Trivia
On September 27, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was supposed to travel from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia. He was going to help a fellow writer edit some poetry … but Poe never made it to the City of Brotherly Love. Instead, he somehow wound up in Baltimore, Maryland. Nobody knows how he got there or what was doing there, but when he was discovered on October 3, the author was in serious trouble.

Poe was found lying in the street outside a saloon called Gunner's Hall, barely conscious and wearing somebody else's worn-out clothes. Tragically, the writer spent his last days either unconscious, or delirious. When he wasn't in a coma, he was thrashing around so badly that he had to be strapped down. And while he never could explain what had happened to him, he kept repeating the name, "Reynolds."

The writer eventually died on October 7 — since then, there have been all sorts of wild theories about the cause of his death, ranging from mercury poisoning to rabies. But while there's no shortage of speculation, there is one theory that seems more likely than the rest. Many historians think Poe was the victim of cooping. See, in the 19th century, voting was actually kind of dangerous. Crooks known as "coopers" would grab people off the streets, beat them up, and get them drunk or high on opium. The victims were then forced to vote at multiple polling places, but in order to disguise these drugged-up voters, the coopers would dress their victims in shabby disguises.

The cooping theory accounts for both Poe's change of clothes and his delirious state. Even more convincing, Poe was discovered on Election Day, in front of a saloon that doubled as a polling place.

The son of Victor Emmanuel II, Umberto I was king of Italy from 1878 to 1900.  Increasingly authoritarian, he favoured imperialistic and pro-German policies and disregarded the recommendations of parliamentary leaders.  His orientation helped lead to the conclusion of the Triple Alliance.  Facing increasing social unrest, he supported the imposition of martial law and created a period of turmoil that culminated in three attempts on his life.  He survived the first two.  Who was the third assassin?  More...

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• 2003 Arnold Schwarzenegger sworn in as Californian Governor

  The bodybuilder and actor best known for his role as a cyborg in the science fiction movie, The Terminator, replaced then Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was elected for another term as governor in 2007.
  

• 1989 Velvet Revolution begins

  A week after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a demonstration of by students commemorating International Students Day in Prague was violently shut down by riot police. The incident led to mass strikes and nonviolent around the country that ended communist rule in erstwhile Czechoslovakia and paved the way for the first democratic elections in the country in 41 years.
  

• 1973 Athens Polytechnic Uprising Ends

  The popular protests against the military junta under Georgios Papadopoulos began on November 14 when students at the polytechnic went on a strike. On the morning of November 17, the military crashed into the campus grounds using a tank and put an end of the protests. While no one was thought to have been killed on the polytechnic campus, many people were killed in clashes around the city. Today, all schools and universities are closed on November 17 to commemorate the uprising.
  

• 1869 Construction on Suez Canal finished

  The 120 miles (193 kms) long artificial waterway connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea took 10 years to be built and was opened to ships. The canal connected Europe to Asia without ships having to go all the way around Africa.
  

• 1858 The start of Modified Julian Date

  Mostly used by astronomers and astrophysicists, the Modified Julian Date (MJD) is a dating method that is defined by subtracting 2,400,000.5 days from the current Julian date (JD), which is calculated by counting the number of days past since Noon January 1, 4713 B.C.E. The MJD gives the number of days past Midnight November 17, 1858. MJD was first used in 1957 by scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to track satellites.
  

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  Historic Trivia
In 1898, fourteen years before the Titanic sailed in April 1912 on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, Morgan Robertson's novel Futility was published. It was about an unsinkable and glamourous Atlantic liner, the largest in the world. Like the Titanic, the fictional vessel was triple-screw and could make 24-25 knots; at 800 feet it was a little shorter than the Titanic, but at 75,000 tons its displacement was 9,000 tons greater. Like the Titanic's, its passenger list consisted of many of the top names in high society, and there were insufficient lifeboats (24 in the novel, 20 on the Titanic). On a cold April night, the fictional "unsinkable" vessel strikes an iceberg and sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic. The name of this liner was the Titan.

Tell is a famous Swiss folk hero who is remembered in a 15th-century chronicle as an expert marksman who assassinated a tyrannical Austrial governor.  According to the legend, the governor of Tell's Swiss canton hung his hat on a stake and ordered all the townsfolk to bow to it whenever they passed.  When Tell refused, he was ordered to shoot an apple off his son's head with a crossbow as punishment.  He succeeded and later escaped imprisonment to kill the governor - an event that led to what?  More...

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• 1978 - Mass suicides in Jonestown
  Over 900 people committed suicide at the behest of Jim Jones the founder and head of a group called Peoples Temple. Formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the mid-1050s, members of the group moved to Guyana in 1974 and set up a settlement outside Georgetown and called in Jonestown.
  
  
• 1963 - Push button phones are used for the first time
  Bell systems started replacing rotary dial phones by push button phone in the United States. Push button phones use keys or buttons to dial a number.
  
  
• 1916 - End of the Somme Offensive
  The battle was bought between German forces on one side and British and French forces on the other during the First World War. Thought to be one of the bloodiest battles of the 20th century - the conflict started on July 1, 1916, and was fought on the banks of the river Somme in France.
  
  
• 1903 - Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty signed between Panama and the US
  The treaty created the Panama Canal Zone and set up the terms for the construction of the Panama Canal. Until 1979, the Panama Canal Zone was a territory of the United States. The French began construction on the Panama Canal in 1881 but had to stop due to engineering problems. The US took over the construction in 1904 and finished building the canal in 1914.
  
  
• 1883 - Canadian and American railroads adopt time zones
  Prior to this, most cities had their own local time, making it difficult for railways to be on time and confusing passengers. To solve this problem, private railways decided to divide the continent into 4 distinct time zones - the lines of which are very close to the time zone lines today.
  

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   Historic Trivia
At the 1936 Olympics, the heavy favourite to win the women's 100-metre dash was Poland's Stella Walsh. At the previous Olympics, in 1932, she had run the 100-metres in 11.9 seconds, beating the second-place Hilde Strike, a Canadian. However, this time, a young American named Helen Stephens ran Walsh into the dirt, finishing with a time of just 11.5 seconds. Walsh and Polish officials cried foul, claiming that Stephens was a male ringer disguised as a woman. Officials eventually decided that the only way to settle the controversy was for Stephens to disrobe in front of female attendants. She did, proving that she was a woman, and won the gold medal. Walsh later moved to the United States, where she was killed by a bank robber in 1980. After "her" death, it was discovered that Walsh was, in fact, a man. Following this discovery, Strike was declared the gold medal winner in the hundred-metres in the 1932 Olympics.

In 1969, four months after the Apollo 11 mission culminated with the first moonwalk, Apollo 12 returned to the Moon with astronauts Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon.  The craft touched down on the Ocean of Storms near the Surveyor 3 probe, which had landed there in 1967, and Conrad and Bean walked to the probe to remove some of its instruments to take back to Earth for study.  What were Conrad's first words when he set foot on the lunar surface?  More...

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1977 - Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visits Israel
Sadat was the first Arab head of state to visit Israel and address the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. His visit came under severe criticism both in Israel and in the Arab world. Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for their attempts to bring a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

1969 - Second Moon Landing
The second spacecraft to land on the Moon, Apollo 12 was the 6th manned flight of NASA’s Apollo program. Crew members Charles Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean became the 3rd and 4th humans to step on the surface of the Moon. The first 2 were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

1969 - Pelé’s 1000th goal
The Brazilian footballer, often considered to be the greatest athlete of the 20th century, made his 1,000th professional goal against Vasco da Gama at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

1943 - Janowska camp uprising
The concentration camp in occupied Poland was set up in 1941. In November 1943, in anticipation of the advancement of Soviet troops, the Nazis tried to evacuate the camp and used the inmates to remove traces of executions and mass killings in the past. On this day, the inmates staged an uprising and attempted to escape. Most escapees, however, were recaptured and killed.

1794 - Signing of the Jay Treaty
The treaty, officially known as, Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty and The United States of America, was signed between representatives of the United States and Britain. It called for the British to surrender northwestern posts to the U.S. and for them to consider the United States as a most favored nation for trade between the two countries.

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  Historic Trivia

The eruption of the volcanic island of Krakatoa, in 1883, was so violent that it was heard 4,600 kilometres away, on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean.

In 1819, the whaling ship Essex left Massachusetts for the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales.  On November 20, 1820, in an incident that would inspire Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the Essex was rammed multiple times by a sperm whale and sank 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off the coast of South America.  The crew took three small boats to a nearby island, but many soon set out again.  Conditioins in the boats worsened, and the sailors had to resort to cannibalism.  How many survived?  More...

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• 1998 - First module of the International Space Station launched
  Called Zarya, the module is Russian-built and American owned. The International Space Station (ISS) is a manned artificial satellite was built and operated by 5 space agencies – the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, US’s NASA, Russia's Roscosmos, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. The brightest man-made object visible to the naked eye from Earth, ISS orbits the Earth at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour) at an average distance of 248 miles (400 kilometers) from Earth.
  
  
• 1985 - Windows 1.0 released
  Nearly two years after it was announced, Microsoft released its first graphical operating system. The OS made it easier for users to navigate on their computer screens. It came with Paint, Notepad, Calculator and a game called Reversi.
  
  
• 1959 - Declaration of the Rights of the Child
  The United Nations General Assembly adopted the document that laid out the rights of children around the world. The day is also annually celebrated as Universal Children's Day.
  
  
• 1945 - Nuremberg trials begin
  The trials were led by the International Military Tribunal and were held to prosecute high-ranking members of the Nazi party for war crimes committed during the Second World War. Of the 23 people tried, 14 were sentenced to death.
  
  
• 1923 - Traffic signal patented
  American Garret Morgan was awarded the patent for an automated traffic signal. Morgan’s invention was not the first of its kind, but unlike the other traffic signals which just had stop and go signals, his traffic light had a third signal that warned drivers about changes in the stop and go lights. This signal was the precursor for today’s yellow light.
  

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   Historic Trivia

• The first automobile in the United States was built over 200 years ago. In 1804, Philadelphia ordered a steam-dredge from Oliver Evans, inventor of the high-pressure steam engine and other technology. Evans' shop was a mile and a half from the Schuylkill River, so he mounted one of his engines within the dredge-scow and ran the scow on rollers by steam to the river, making this device the first American automobile. When he reached the river Evans substituted a paddle for the rollers and steamed away to Philadelphia, also making this device one of the first steamboats.
  
• From 1836 to 1895, the Road Locomotive Act (also known as the Red Flag Act) in England required that any self-propelled vehicle be preceded by a man carrying a red flag by day and a red lantern by night. It also placed high taxes on steam-powered vehicles. This regulation, by essentially limiting the speed of such vehicles to that of a person and otherwise making them impractical, inhibited the development of automobiles for 60 years in Great Britain. While previously Great Britain had been in the forefront of the development of automobiles and several steam coaches had been built, over the next six decades the French, Germans, and Americans would take the lead.
  

Funded by the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), ARPANET was the first digital network that utilised packet switching, a method of data transmission.  A revoluntionary technology, it ultimately led to the creation of the modern Internet.  The network's first permanent connection was made between computers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Stanford Research Institute.  By 1983, more than 300 computers were connected.  What was the first message sent through ARPANET?  More...

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• 1979 - Mob burns down US embassy in Pakistan
  The mob was allegedly incensed by a rumor that the United States was involved in an attack on a mosque in the holy city of Mecca.
  
  
• 1964 - Verrazano Narrows Bridge opens in NYC
  The suspension bridge connects Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City and at the time of its opening, it was the world’s longest suspension bridge, until the Humber Bridge in the UK opened in 1981.
  
  
• 1962 - War between China and India ends
  The month long war began over a border dispute between the two countries and ended with a unilateral ceasefire by the Chinese.
  
  
• 1941 - Tweety Bird makes its debut
  The fictional cartoon canary also just called Tweety made his first appearance in A Tale of Two Kitties, a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon. Tweety was created by animator Bob Clampett who worked on Loony Tunes cartoons.
  
  
• 1920 - Bloody Sunday in Ireland
  A key event in the Irish War of Independence, which was a conflict between the British government and Irish revolutionaries in Ireland, Bloody Sunday began with the killings of 14 people by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) under the leadership of Michael Collins. Two other violent incidents against civilian and IRA members during the day added to the death count, which was over 30 by the end of the day.
  

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   Historic Trivia

The oldest known road in the world is in England. Called The Sweet Track, the road, a mile long and only 12 inches wide, is around 6,000 years old. It was only used for about a decade before it was flooded and covered by 30 feet of peat, and only recently rediscovered.

Juan Carlos was groomed for the role by his predecessor Francisco Franco, the Spanish leader who abolished the republic and declared Spain a representative monarchy.  He acceded to the throne two days after Franco's death, becoming the first Spanish king since his grandfather was deposed in 1931.  A popular monarch, he presided over Spain's transition to democracy and acted to maintain political stability.  He competed in what Olympic event in 1972?  More...

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• 2005 - Angela Merkel takes office as German Chancellor
  The physical chemist from former East Germany became the first female chancellor of the country.
  
  
• 2004 - Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine
  The revolution began after an election that was marred by widespread rumors of corruption and fraud. The protests resulted in electoral reforms in the country and November 22 was declared a Day of Freedom in 2005. The holiday was then moved to January 22 in 2011.
  
  
• 1995 - Toy Story released
  Produced by Pixar, the movie which follows the adventures of human-like toys, was the world’s first feature-length computer-animated movie. Considered to be one of the best animated films every released, Toy story won 3 Oscars including Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song.
  
  
• 1986 - Mike Tyson wins fight against Trevor Berbick
  The victory won Tyson the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship and made him world’s youngest heavyweight champion at the age of 20 years.
  
  
• 1963 - John F. Kennedy assassinated
  The 35th President of the United States was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. He was the 4th American president to be assassinated while in office. The other 3 were Abraham Lincoln, James Abram Garfield, and William McKinley.
  

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  Historic Trivia
The country of Liberia was founded as a voluntary haven for freed American slaves. The American Colonization Society purchased the land from tribal chiefs in 1822; the price included, among other items, a box of beads, three pairs of shoes, a box of soap, a barrel of rum, and 12 spoons.

Minutes after taking off from an Athens airport on November 23, 1985, EgyptAir Flight 648 was hijacked by five Palestinian terrorists.  The plane was forced to land in Malta, where authorities attempted to negotiate with the hijackers.  The terrorists shot two Israelis and three Americans before Egyptian commandos launched a disastrous raid in which nearly 60 hostages were killed.  Remarkably, three of the passengers shot by the terrorists survived.  How did one of the terrorists almost escape?  More...

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• 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines

  Considered to be the worst attack on journalists in recorded history, the massacre occurred in the southern Philippines, when 57 citizens and journalists en route to register voters in Esmael Mangudadatu for the upcoming gubernatorial elections, were killed by gunmen and buried. 34 journalists were killed on the day.
  

• 2005 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected as President of Liberia

  The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner is also the first woman to be elected as head of state in an African country.
  

• 1976 First person to dive 100 meters in the sea without breathing equipment

  Frenchman Jacques Mayol, who is also sometimes known as Dolphin Man, was 49 years old at the time. He broke his own record 7 years later by diving 105 meters.
  

• 1963 Doctor Who debuts on TV

  The longest running science fiction TV show first aired with an episode called An Earthly Child on the British Broadcasting Channel. The show that has had 11 different actors play the lead role, follows the time-traveling adventures of Doctor Who, who uses the Time and Relative Dimension in Space or TARDIS to jump around in time and space.
  

• 1910 Last person to be executed in Sweden

  Johan Alfred Ander was convicted of murdering Victoria Hellsten during a robbery of a currency exchange. He was the only person in Swedish history to be executed using a guillotine. Capital punishment in the country was abolished for all peacetime crimes in 1921 and for all crimes in 1973.
  

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   Historic Trivia
One of the deadliest train disasters ever was not caused by a collision, derailment, bridge collapse, or fire. On the night of March 2^nd, 1944, Italian freight train number 8017 left Salerno, headed south through the Apennine mountains. Over 650 people had stolen a ride on the 47-car train, intending to barter cigarettes and other items with farmers in exchange for milk, eggs, and other rationed foods. The train passed through Balvano, which lies between two tunnels. In the first tunnel, the train waited nearly an hour for a downhill train with locomotive trouble. In the second, the mile-long Galleria delle Armi, the overloaded train stalled fighting the steep grade, leaving all but the last three cars trapped inside the tunnel. The tunnels trapped the carbon monoxide produced by the locomotives burning their low-grade coal, causing 526 people to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Darwin, a British naturalist, formed the basis of his theories of evolution during his scientific survey expedition to South America aboard the HMS Beagle from 1831-1836.  He developed his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859.  Darwin's controversial theory was quickly accepted in most scientific circles.  What three words were added to the final sentence of the second edition of Darwin's book?  More...

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• 2012 Fire breaks out in a clothing factory in Dhaka

  Over 110 people were killed and about 200 people were injured at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The tragedy brought to light poor working conditions of workers who made export clothing in Bangladesh. It also led to major labor reforms in the country and in the fashion world, which promised to take steps to ethically source their products.
  

• 1971 Hijacking of Northwest Orient Airline 305

  Considered to be one of the only unsolved hijacking cases in American history, a man named DB Cooper or Dan Cooper hijacked the Seattle, Washington bound plane. After his demands of $ 200,000 in cash and parachutes were fulfilled at the Seattle airport, he released the passengers, refueled the airplane and asked to be flown to Mexico. On the way, however, he used a parachute to escape from the plane. Cooper has never been identified or caught.
  

• 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald shot

  Oswald had assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th American president, two days prior to being shot by Jack Ruby while being transported by the police. The murder was broadcasted live on TV.
  

• 1877 Black Beauty is published

  The classic novel about the life of a horse called Black Beauty was written by English author Anna Sewell. The book quickly gained popularity and became an important part in the animal rights movement. It was Sewell’s only published work.
  

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   Historic Trivia
In 1877, during the height of violent labour unrest in the United States, three men were found guilty of the murder of a foreman of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and sentenced to hang. Two of them went stoically to their deaths, but the third, Alexander Campbell, swore that he was innocent. As he was being dragged from his cell to the gallows, Campbell rubbed his left hand in dust from the floor and pressed his palm against the plaster wall, and shouted repeatedly, "This handprint will remain here for all time as proof of my innocence." Even after Campbell's death, the handprint remained. In 1931, Carbon County Sheriff Robert L. Bowman undertook a renovation of the cell, removing the section of plaster wall containing the handprint, replacing it with a new section of fresh plaster. However, the handprint still came back, and still exists today.

In 1120, an English vessel known as the White Ship sank in the English Channel on its way from Normandy to England, killing hundreds of passengers.  Among those who drowned was William, the only legitimate son of King Henry I.  Henry's second marriage was childless, and the latter years of his reign were marked by his attempts to secure the succession for his daughter Matilda.  William's death in 1135 led to a disputed succession and civil war between Matilda and whom?  More...

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• 1973 - Military coup in Greece
  President George Papadopoulos was ousted by the army, just a week after student-led protests at the Athens Polytechnic were violently put down by the government.
  
  
• 1960 - Assassination of the Mirabal Sisters
  The 3 Dominican sisters, Patria, Minerva, Antonia Mirabal, were activists that were opposed to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. On this day, they were brutally killed and their deaths staged to look like accidents. In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly declared November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
  
  
• 1952 - Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap opens at London’s West End
  The longest running show in history, the play began as a radio play called Three Blind Mice. It is based on the death of Dennis O'Neill, who died while in foster care.
  
  
• 1950 - “Storm of the century” hits eastern US
  Also known as the Appalachian Storm, the storm reached blizzard conditions and dumped nearly 60 inches of snow in the Appalachian area. It brought unseasonal temperatures to the region and caused widespread damage to property. About 150 people were thought to have been killed as a result of it.
  
  
• 1936 - Nazi Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact
  The treaty was directed towards the Soviet Union and stipulated that in case of Soviet aggression towards either country, the other would consider it as an act of aggression towards it as well. The pact was later signed by other countries including Italy, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
  

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   Historic Trivia

• The first novel ever written is believed to be The Tale of Genji, written in the first decade of the 11^th century by Murasaki Shibuku, a Japanese noblewoman. It contains 54 chapters.
  
• William Shakespeare's average annual income as a playwright was under £20, which works out to about £8 per play. However, he made about twice as much from writing plays as Ben Jonson, the only contemporary playwright who was better known at the time than Shakespeare.
  
• Agatha Christie is the top-selling English-lang­uage author of all time. She wrote 78 mystery novels that have sold an estimated 2,000,000,000 copies.
  

Located in Notre Dame, Indiana, the University of Notre Dame was established and opened in 1842 and chartered in 1844.  Famous for its football team, it has a noted law school and computing center as well as laboratories for research in botany, radiation, geology, metallurgy, and engineering.  It also operates important research institutes in the humanities.  The school was founded by French priests and was originally given the name l'Université de Notre Dame du Lac, which means what?  More...

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• 2003 Concorde retired from service
  Concorde retired from service after 27 years of flight
  
  
• 1983 - Brink’s Mat gold heist
  The £ 26 million robbery took place in a Brink Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport in London. The stolen gold, diamonds and cash has never been recovered.
  
  
• 1966 - World’s first tidal power station opens in France
  The Rance Tidal Power Station on the Rance River in Brittany, France was inaugurated by French president Charles de Gaulle. Today, it is one of the largest tidal power stations in the world.
  
  
• 1965 - France launches Astérix
  The launch of the satellite from Hammaguir, Algeria made France the 6th country in the world after the US, the USSR, the UK, Canada, and Italy to have an artificial satellite in orbit. The satellite is named after the Asterix the popular comic character created by French writer René Goscinny.
  
  
• 1942 - Casablanca premiers
  The classic movie starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart won 3 Oscars – Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay. The film, which is set during the Second World War, follows the life of Rick Blaine, a former freedom fighter and a club owner in Casablanca, Morocco, who has to choose between his love for a woman, Ilsa Lund, and saving her husband from the Nazis.
  

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  Historic Trivia

One of the most unusual houses in the United States is the Winchester Mansion, in San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester was the wife of Oliver Winchester, owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. At Oliver's death in 1881, Sarah inherited over $20,000,000 and an income of $1,000 per day, an incredible sum for the time. However, Sarah was deeply troubled and spoke to a medium about her troubles. It's unclear as to exactly what was said, but popular belief holds that the medium told Sarah that her family was cursed by the spirits of those who had been killed by Winchester rifles, and that she had to move west and build a house and never stop building, either as a home for the spirits or to confuse the spirits, which she did. Every day, she would give the foreman a new set of instructions, and work would continue around-the-clock. This ad hoc, spirit-focused style of construction led to many oddities, including staircases that dead-end at ceilings, windows in floors, and doors that open onto two-storey drops. By the time of her death in 1922, the house had around 160 rooms (an exact count is difficult to obtain due to the confusing floor plan). The house is now a tourist attraction.

Kitkat wrote:
  Historic Trivia

One of the most unusual houses in the United States is the Winchester Mansion, in San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester was the wife of Oliver Winchester, owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. At Oliver's death in 1881, Sarah inherited over $20,000,000 and an income of $1,000 per day, an incredible sum for the time. However, Sarah was deeply troubled and spoke to a medium about her troubles. It's unclear as to exactly what was said, but popular belief holds that the medium told Sarah that her family was cursed by the spirits of those who had been killed by Winchester rifles, and that she had to move west and build a house and never stop building, either as a home for the spirits or to confuse the spirits, which she did. Every day, she would give the foreman a new set of instructions, and work would continue around-the-clock. This ad hoc, spirit-focused style of construction led to many oddities, including staircases that dead-end at ceilings, windows in floors, and doors that open onto two-storey drops. By the time of her death in 1922, the house had around 160 rooms (an exact count is difficult to obtain due to the confusing floor plan). The house is now a tourist attraction.

There was a movie made in 2018 about the Winchester Mansion.
https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/winchester-movie/

You can watch it on Netflix

Whiskers wrote:

There was a movie made in 2018 about the Winchester Mansion.  
https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/winchester-movie/

You can watch it on Netflix

Oh, that's interesting, Whiskers. Thank you! That's a film I would like to see.  
Unfortunately, though, I don't have Netflix, so I guess will have to wait until it comes out on TV.

 EDIT:
  I had a root around and found both the 2018 film 'Winchester' (with Helen Mirren), and a documentary made in 1963 about the story of Winchester House, on YouTube.  

You can watch them both HERE

What Happened On This Day – 27 November

• 2005 World’s first successful partial face transplant

  Drs Bernard Devauchelle, Benoit Lengelé, and Jean-Michel Dubernard used donor tissue to reconstruct the face of Isabelle Dinoire in Amiens, France. Isabelle Dinoire’s face had been mauled by a dog.
  
  

• 2001 Hubble detects the first planetary atmosphere outside the Solar System

  The space telescope detected sodium on HD 209458 b, an exoplanet also known as Osiris. Belonging to a class of planets called hot Jupiter, because they are similar in size to Jupiter. Unlike Jupiter, however, these planets orbit very close to their stars and consequently have very high temperatures on their surfaces.
  
  

• 1989 World’s first living liver transplant

  21-month old Alyssa Smith became the first person to receive a liver transplant from a living donor, her mother Teresa Smith at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The transplant occurred under the supervision of surgeons Christoph Broelsch, Richard Thistlethwaite, Thomas Heffron, and Jean Emond.
  
  

• 1978 Harvey Milk and George Moscone are assassinated

  Milk was the first openly-gay person to be elected in local government in California. He and George Moscone, San Francisco's mayor at the time, were killed by a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
  
  

• 1895 Alfred Nobel signs his last will

  Alfred Nobel signed his last will which called for his estate and fortune that he made as the inventor of dynamite to be used for creating awards for those who contributed to the benefit of mankind. The will created 5 awards - in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace, and was signed in the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris.
  

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   Historic Trivia


Christmas

• No record exists of Christmas being celebrated on December 25^th before the year 336.

• In all likelihood, December 25^th is not the birthdate of Jesus. Most scholars believe that the date of December 25^th was chosen for Christmas because it coincided with both the winter solstice on the Julian calendar of the time and the birthdates of Mithras, the Persian sun-god, and Sol Invictis, another sun-god, and was near the pagan feasts of Saturnalia and the New Year.

• Many traditions for the holidays of Christmas, Easter, and Halloween/All Saints' Day were created between roughly the 4^th and 7^th centuries to compete with pagan traditions. For example, All Saints' Day was created by fourth-century missionaries as a rival to the Celtic holiday Samhain, with its new traditions designed to portray the rival pagan gods as devils, spirits, and witches.

• Christmas was once illegal in England. In 1643 the Puritans outlawed all Christmas celebrations, banned the keeping of Christmas trees, and criminalized the singing of Christmas carols. These laws were maintained until the English monarchy was restored.

• In the United Kingdom, it is still illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day, according to a seventeenth-century law.

• In much of the British Commonwealth, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. It was originally called that because, traditionally, on that day, Christmas boxes placed in churches for casual contributions were opened and the contents distributed to the needy.

• The practice of exchanging gifts at Christmas originated in the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. During this holiday, people gave each other good-luck presents of fruit, sweets, pastry, or gold.

• On Christmas Day, 1066, William the Conquerer was crowned at Westminster Abbey. After the Archbishop of York placed the crown on William's head, he asked the assembled Saxon nobles if they would recognize the King as their true liege lord. The shout of acclamation that went up so alarmed the Norman soldiers on guard outside, and they took it as a cry of rejection and dashed into the congregation with drawn swords and attacked them. Soon the fighting spread to the crowd outside and by the end of the day the streets of London were strewn with the bodies of the dead and dying, illuminated by the glare of burning buildings.

• At Christmas, Judge Tom DuBois of Columbia City, Tennessee strikes a deal with minor offenders. He lets them off provided they show up in court and sing a Christmas carol.

The Ottoman Turks conquered Albania around 1400 and ruled the country for more than 400 years.  It was not until the end of the Balkan War that Turkish rule was abolished and a proclamation of independence was issued in 1912.  Although Serbia showed intentions of annexing a large part of Albania in order to gain an outlet on the Adriatic, the move was opposed by Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Albanians.  Albanians celebrate their independence on November 28.  What do they celebrate on November 29?  More...

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• 1991 - South Ossetia declares independence
  The disputed region of the country of Georgia calls itself the Republic of South Ossetia. The declaration of independence was not recognized by Georgia and was followed by the South Ossetia War. Only a few countries, including Russia and Venezuela, recognize it as a sovereign country.
  
  
• 1975 - East Timor independence
  East Timor declared its independence from Portugal
  
  
• 1967 - First pulsar observed
  Graduate student Jocelyn Bell and her advisor Antony Hewish at Cambridge University were the first people to observe and discover pulsars. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron magnetized stars that emit radiation.
  
  
• 1964 - NASA launches Mariner 4
  The first spacecraft to make a flyby of Mars, the spacecraft was the first one to send images of a planet back to Earth.
  
  
• 1943 - Tehran Conference begins
  The Tehran Conference between the US, the UK and the Soviet Union began at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran. The conference dealt with the Axis powers in Europe and Asia and made plans to open up a second front against the Germans in France during WW II.
  

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   The Sack of Baltimore

In southern Ireland there is a small village called Baltimore. It had little to contribute to history until the summer of 1631, when it was attacked – but by whom?

Was it the French planning an invasion of England via the Emerald Isle? Or perhaps it was some kind of pro-Catholic uprising leading to a vicious English assault, or the Spanish up to their old tricks?

You might be surprised to learn that the perpetrators were about as exotic as it gets for the 17th century – Barbary pirates from North Africa led by a Dutch captain (and Muslim convert)-turned pirate, Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, also known as Murad Reis the Younger.

The attack was quick and unexpected. The villagers (mainly English settlers, but some native Irish too) were put onto the ships and forced into slavery. There were, however, different types of slaves: some prisoners were destined to live out their days as galley slaves (a brutal and short life), while many of the younger women would spend long years in the seclusion of the Sultan’s harem or within the walls of the Sultan’s palace as labourers. Sadly, it is thought that only three of the settlers ever saw Ireland again.

What Happened On This Day – 29 November

• 1972 - Atari Releases Pong
  One of the very first arcade games to hit the market, Pong was a 1 or 2 player video game similar to tennis, where the goal is to use a paddle to hit a ball. Around 35000 Pong consoles were sold around the world.
  
  
• 1951 - Silent Coup in Thailand
  The Thai military took over the country's governance and reinstated the 1932 Constitution.
  
  
• 1929 - First flight over the South Pole
  American explorer Richard Byrd became the first person to fly over the South Pole. The flight took just over 18 hours. 3 years ago, Byrd flew over the North Pole, though there is some debate whether he actually accomplished the feat.
  
  
• 1899 - FC Barcelona founded
  The popular football (soccer) club was founded by footballer Hans Gamper. Informally known as Barça, the club is thought to be one of the top 5 richest football clubs in the world. The club has won 4 European Cups (1978-79, 1981-82, 1988-89, 1996-97) and is a 5 time Champions League winner (1991-92, 2005-06, 2008-09, 2010-11, 2014-15).
  
  
• 1777 - City of San Jose Founded
  The first city to be settled in California, San Jose was founded as San José de Guadalupe. Before the Spanish settled in the city, the area was inhabitated by the Ohlone people. San Jose was the first capital of the state of California, which was established in 1850.
  

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 43 Scandalous Facts About Edward VIII, The King Who Lost His Crown

• At 326 days, Edward’s reign is the shortest for any monarch of the United Kingdom. There are shorter reigns if you’re thinking about just the English throne, but even then, Edward’s is still one of the briefest tenure’s in the crown’s history.
  
• Queen Victoria, AKA “The Widow of Windsor Castle,” was still alive for Edward’s birth. Born on June 23, 1894, his great-grandmother was still reigning, which put him third in line for the throne.
  
• Edward was christened with the name “Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David.” And each name comes with its own story: “Edward” for his late uncle, “Albert” for his great-grandfather (at his great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s behest), “Christian” for his other great-grandfather Christian IX of Denmark, and the last four names—George, Andrew, Patrick, and David—for the respective Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
  
• One of Edward’s early nannies was fired for physically abusing him and his siblings. Every time he would be presented to his parents, the nanny would pinch him to tears. This would make the visits brief, as the wailing would send his royal parents away. This behavior was discovered, and the governess promptly dismissed.
  
• What did the 42-year-old Edward VIII have in common with 12-year-old Edward V and 16-year-old Jane Grey? They are the only English monarchs to never be crowned.
  
• From this youth, the young Edward was set on a naval career. However, the quick ascension of his father George V meant the prince was immediately promoted to the Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, followed by appointments to Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester for his 16th birthday. Pulled out of his naval studies, he was registered as a student at Oxford. It was time for king school.
  
• It’s generally agreed that “Duke” Edward an intellectually underwhelming Prince of Wales. His polo team performance at Oxford would be his most notable school accomplishment. Edward left university after eight terms with no degree. Why bother when you have a guaranteed job as the head of the United Kingdom after graduation?
  
• Luckily for Edward, he had reached the minimum age for enlistment just as World War I began in 1914. While he was eager to serve on the front lines, that was not a place for the Prince of Wales. What would befall morale, after all, if the enemy captured Britain’s heir as a POW? Princes are denied little in life, but this specific request for front line duty was rejected by the Secretary of State.
  
• Although he was forbidden from serving in the front lines of World War I, Edward frequently visited. For his witness of front-line trench warfare, he was awarded the Military Cross in 1916.
  
• At the end of the war, Edward flew his first military plane in 1918. Later, he earned his pilot’s license, which ideally should have happened before he undertook a military flight, but it was war.
  
• Edward spent most of World War Two as the Governor of the Bahamas. He disliked the job, calling his post “a third-class British colony.” While Edward did put forth initiatives to raise wages and relieve poverty in the Bahamas, he blamed these social problems on “men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of draft.”
  
• Despite his lack of interest in school, Edward became the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1926. He had taken an interest in science into his adulthood, so Oxford University gifted him title at their society’s annual meeting.
  
• A jet-set life can’t buy tolerance. Despite his vast travels, Edward was openly prejudiced against most of his own Empire’s non-white subjects. In 1920, he referred to Indigenous Australians as “the lowest known form of human beings” and “the nearest things to monkeys.”
  
• American Wallis Simpson wasn’t the first married woman to get involved with Edward. In 1918, Edward began an affair with the married textile heiress Freda Dudley Ward. To be with Ward, he had broken off his relationship with the French courtesan, Marguerite Alibert.
  
• Edward’s sex life was ill-received by his father and the country’s ministers. Repulsed by his son’s taste for married women and his failure to settle down, George V predicted that “After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months.”
  
• Edward teased his sister-in-law by calling her “Queen Elizabeth.” This name referenced how his father, King George, favored Edward’s younger brother, Albert (“Bertie” to his loved ones; George VI to us). Unlike Edward, Albert had done his royal duty by making a fine marriage to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and producing two daughters. Elizabeth, Albert’s wife, wondered how much of Edward’s nickname was just joking, and how much was him already thinking about giving up the crown to his brother…long before he met Wallis Simpson.
  
• Edward and Wallis Simpson were introduced by Edward’s then-mistress, Lady Thelma Furness. Wallis had not fully divorced her second husband. For the record, Furness herself was also still married to someone else. Edward had a type!
  
• When Edward and Wallis began their sexual relationship in 1934, Edward insisted to his father that the affair didn’t exist. This was despite the fact that his father’s staff had caught the couple in bed together and saw “evidence of a physical sexual act.”
  
• Edward became utterly enthralled with Wallis within the first year of being together. Even though the palace didn’t want their relationship published to the world, he and the beautiful American were frequently seen together on vacation, and he bestowed tons in grants and gifts upon her. This escalated to the point where Edward missed out on those oh-so-important official duties.
  
• Edward caused family outrage by introducing his mother to Wallis at an evening get-together in Buckingham Palace in London. Divorced people were usually excluded from court functions, so this utterly enraged the current king.
  
• It was more than a matter of manners—Edward’s affair with two-time (soon) divorcée Wallis Simpson was a matter of (English) God. The ruler of England is also the head of the English Church, which poo-pooed marriage to a divorced person while their exes were still alive. Edward taking Wallis as his lover and wife would not sit well with the people, or their God.  But Edward didn’t exactly subscribe to those stuffy rules…
  
• On January 20, 1936, George V died, and Edward ascended to the throne as Edward VIII. Setting the tone for his reign, Edward broke a long tradition by watching the proclaimation of his own ascension from a window. Wallis Simpson was at his side.
  
• Edward VIII is the first sitting British monarch to fly an aircraft. He did this on the way to his Accession Council, commanding a plane from Sandringham to London.
  
• Edward’s vanity about his hair (yes, hair, not heir) destroyed a centuries long tradition about royal coinage. When new coins are struck in the monarch’s honor, the tradition is that they face the opposite direction of their predecessor. George V was facing left, but Edward insisted that his face also face left—it better showcased the fetching part of his hair. Since his reign was short, only a few coins were made. When Edward’s brother, George VI, ascended, he faced the very important task of not throwing off the facial rhythm of the royal mint. The face of George VI looks left—like his father—so as not to break the continuity; any future coins featuring Edward VIII would be made facing right.
  
• In July 1938, Edward perhaps had a brush with a would-be assassin. Or was he a protector? A swindler named Jerome Brannigan drew a gun as the king rode past on his horse at Buckingham Palace. Brannigan was promptly apprehended. The man testified that “a foreign power” was onto him and that he was really working with MI5 to catch the real bad buys. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to a year in jail for his “intent to alarm.” It’s like he was begging for conspiracy theorists to consider this case “open” even years later.
  
• Within 9 months of his reign, it was very obvious that Edward had every intention of marrying Wallis Simpson. After all, Simpson was finally divorcing her second husband. The American gossip rags went wild, but the British press stayed silent, so the British public was left in the dark for the rest of the year.
  
• While it’s more romantic to think otherwise, Edward didn’t throw his crown away immediately when faced with the choice between his throne or Wallis Simpson. At first, he tried to negotiate with his ministers. In November 1936, he sat down with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and put forth his desire to marry Wallis. When informed that the people would be wholly opposed to the match and never accept her as queen, Edward tried to compromise. Perhaps they would settle for a “morganatic marriage,” wherein he would stay king, Wallis would get a lesser title instead of being queen, and any kids could not be heirs to the throne? Alas, even this was not good enough.
  
• International leaders from Canada to New Zealand and South Africa had to agree—or not—with the king’s marriage in order for it to proceed. Thanks to the Statute of Westminster 1931, any change to the royal succession required assent from the Parliaments of all the British Dominions. Hence, Prime Ministers such as Joseph Lyons (Australia), Mackenzie King (Canada), and J.B.M. Hertzog (South Africa) all got together to turn down Edward’s proposal of a morganatic marriage to Wallis.
  
• In response to the formal political opposition to his marriage in the United Kingdom, Edward was a bit blasé. In his words, their opinion didn’t matter because there were “not that many people in Australia.” It’s not like it was his job to know the demographics of his so-called Empire, right?
  
• Prime Minister Stephen Baldwin presented Edward with three choices: give up any notion of marrying Wallis Simpson, marry against the wishes of everyone, or abdicate his throne. But for Edward, giving up Wallis was not an option. Nor was marrying without Parliamentary permission—going against their wishes would force the government to resign and trigger a constitutional crisis. In the end, what else could he do but ditch the crown?
  
• On 11 December 1936, King Edward VIII announced on worldwide radio that he had surrendered his title and reverted back to being a mere prince, as per the terms of parliament. He said, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love,” and then left for Austria the next day.
  
• After that fateful day on December 1936, Edward’s brother “Albert” succeeded him to the throne as “George VI.” For his first act as king, George wanted to grant his older brother the title of “the Duke of Windsor.” This became the title by which Edward would be known for the rest of his life.
  
• On June 3, 1937, the newly-minted Duke of Windsor and Wallis finally married each other in a private ceremony in France. The Church of England refused to sanction the marriage, so a County Durham clergyman performed the vows for the Duke and his love.
  
• At least by their posh standards, the Duke of Windsor and Wallis didn’t live happily ever after. As per the deal in Edward’s new title, Wallis could not style herself as “Her Highness the Duchess of Windsor” even though her third husband was now the Duke. Edward would harass his brother with daily phone calls, asking for more money but also for George to reconsider Wallis’s style of address. George VI eventually ordered his people not to forward the ex-king’s calls through.
  
• For years, George VI paid Edward and Wallis’s post-abdication allowance out of his own pocket. The government refused to include either the Duke or his wife on the Civil List. Exile in Europe with nothing but your loyal wife, royal title, and royal allowance? How did the Duke manage?
  
• Edward had plans to return home after a year or two in self-imposed exile. Backed by their mother and his own wife, George VI threatened to cut the couple off financially if they ever returned to the United Kingdom without an invite. Harsh terms, but fair.
  
• Arguably more controversial than the Duke’s abdication: Edward and the Duchess of Windsor’s apparent friendly relationship with Nazi Germany. Going against government wishes, the couple made a visit to Adolf Hitler in October 1937, where they were very graciously received and participated in full Nazi salutes.
  
• Hitler liked Edward VIII. He especially liked the ex-king’s sympathy towards Anglo-German relations and thought that had the infamous abdication not happened, things could have been much different between their two countries. To quote Hitler directly: “I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different. His abdication was a severe loss for us.”  In the 1960s, Edward privately confided to a friend, “I never thought Hitler was such a bad chap.” Make of that what you will.
  
• In 1940, there was Nazi plot—called Operation Willi—to persuade the Duke of Windsor to come to Spain, using kidnapping if necessary, and make him work for Adolf Hitler. Obviously, it didn’t work—but the fact that persuasion was the first option in the plan reflects on how Edward’s sympathies were perceived in World War II. Lord Caldecote once warned Winston Churchill that Edward “is well-known to be pro-Nazi and he may become the center of intrigue.” Many scholars agree that Hitler was prepared to reinstate Edward as a fascist ally king.
  
• In the wake of Operation Willi, Winston Churchill ordered Edward and Wallis back to Britain under the threat of court-martial. The swirl of German plots around Edward and Wallis had raised enough distrust from Allied forces that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself put the couple under covert surveillance.
  
• Edward’s reaction to the death of his youngest brother, Prince John, put a rank taste in people’s mouths. John, who was 11 years younger than the Duke, passed away in January 1919 from a severe seizure when he was only 13 years old. Edward referred to John’s death as “little more than a regrettable nuisance.” He wrote how John’s epilepsy had limited his mobility such that people rarely saw him, calling his late brother “more of an animal than anything else.” Apparently, the Duke’s insensitivity reached his mother, Queen Mary. Edward ended up having to write an apology letter to his grieving mom for being “a cold-hearted and unsympathetic swine”—Edward’s words.
  
• After World War Two, the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson returned to France and lived out the rest of their lives as peaceful socialites before Edward was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1971. He passed away in his Paris home one month before his 78th birthday. Wallis died 14 years later and was buried next to him.
  
• Why didn’t Edward have children? It’s believed that a spell of mumps while he was at Royal Naval College rendered the Duke of Windsor royally infertile.
  
  

What Happened On This Day – 30 November

• 1982 - Michael Jackson’s Thriller is released worldwide
  Thought to be the best selling album of all time, the album, which had 9 tracks, won 8 Grammy Awards, including the award for Album of the Year in 1984.
  
  
• 1947 - Civil War in Palestine
  Also known as the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, the conflict began the day after the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution that provided a partition plan for Palestine. The war was wracked by violence which began on November 30 after two buses full of Israeli passengers were attacked by Arab gunmen and snipers shot pedestrians in Tel Aviv. On May 14, Israel declared itself an independent state and on May 15, the Civil War turned into a regional war after a coalition of Arab states that included Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, joined the conflict.
  
  
• 1940 - Stars of I Love Lucy marry
  Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz of the popular American comedy sitcoms, I Love Lucy and The Lucy and Desi Comedy Show married in real life. They were married for 20 years.
  
  
• 1939 - The Winter War begins
  The 4-month long war between Finland and the Soviet Union began after the USSR invaded Finland and bombed Helsinki. The conflict ended on March 30, 1940, with the two countries signing the Moscow Peace Treaty. In retaliation for its actions, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations.
  
  
• 1872 - First international football (soccer) match
  The match between England and Scotland was held at West of Scotland Cricket Club in Partick, Scotland. The game ended with a 0-0 draw.
  

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  Historic Trivia

The Halley's Comet panic of 1910

Named after astronomer Edmond Halley, Halley's Comet only passes by Earth every 76 years or so. When it buzzed our planet in 1910, it sparked a lot of interest — according to Wired.com, telescope sales skyrocketed as the comet neared. Hotels even offered special deals, so people could gather on top of their roofs to watch the meteor pass.

Of course, not everyone was pleased with the comet's appearance, as many believed the shooting star would end civilization. This crazy idea came courtesy of Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer who believed the comet's 24-million-mile long tail contained a poisonous cyanogen gas that "would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet."

Unfortunately, The New York Times did a piece on Flammarion's apocalyptic theory that encouraged some less-trustworthy newspapers to run wild with the story. So in addition to telescopes, people started ransacking stores for gas masks. Con men made a killing by selling anti-comet pills, and some people worried the comet would "cause the Pacific to change basins with the Atlantic" and turn the world into "one heterogeneous mass of chaotic confusion." Worried parishioners flocked to their churches, and according to science writer Matt Simon, people actually sealed up their keyholes to keep poison out of their homes.

When the comet finally passed, however, the gas masks proved totally worthless, as there was no poison. Sure, a few people blamed the meteor for King Edward VII's death, but there's not a lot of science backing that claim. Interestingly, Mark Twain also passed away as the comet flew overhead. That's extra weird considering he was born as the comet last flew by, in 1835.

Following the death of Henry, the cardinal-king of Portugal in 1580, Philip II of Spain assumed control of Portugal by force of arms.  The "Spanish captivity" lasted for 60 years.  Finally, in 1640, the Portuguese took advantage of Philip IV's preoccupation with a rebellion in Catalonia and revolted.  The Portuguese dethroned him and reclaimed independence for Portugal.  Undeterred, Philip fought for decades to regain control of Portugal.  When did Spain finally recognise Portugal's independence?  More...

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• 2009 - Treaty of Lisbon comes into force
  The Treaty of Lisbon, which amended the two treaties - the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome - that form the constitutional basis of the European Union came into force after being signed by 13 countries in 2007.
  
  
• 1958 - French colony of Ubangi-Shari gains autonomy
  The French colony of Ubangi-Shari, now known as the Central African Republic, gained autonomy from France. 2 years later, the country became independent and adopted its current name.
  
  
• 1943 - Tehran Conference ends
  The Tehran Conference between the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union ended with the three countries deciding to open up a second front against Germany in France, and the Soviet Union agreeing to declare war against Japan.
  
  
• 1919 - Nancy Astor becomes to the first woman to join the British House of Commons
  Nancy Witcher Langhorne also known as Nancy Astor became the first woman to join the British House of Commons.
  
  
• 1918 - Kingdom of Iceland established
  The Kingdom of Iceland was established with the signing of the Act of Union with Denmark. The act recognized Iceland as a sovereign state under a common monarch with Denmark, and the Kingdom lasted until 1944 when a national referendum created the Republic of Iceland.
  

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   Historic Trivia

• In 582, it rained "blood" on Paris. The terrified population believed this to be a sign of divine displeasure, and replied by indulging in an agony of repentance. The true cause of this weird event was the sirocco, the wind that sometimes blows from the Sahara across the Mediterranean into Europe. It is laden with a fine red dust from the desert interior, and this had dyed the rain that fell on Paris.
  

• Blood rain or red rain is a phenomenon in which blood is perceived to fall from the sky in the form of rain. Cases have been recorded since Homer's Iliad, composed approximately 8th century BC, and are widespread. Before the 17th century it was generally believed that the rain was actually blood. Blood Rain (Wiki)
  

Brown was a radical US abolitionist who advocated armed action to end slavery.  He and his supporters murdered five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas in 1856 and three years later he tried to start an armed liberation movement among slaves by seizing the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, intending to arm local slaves with its weapons.  His small force was soon overpowered, and Brown was captured, tried for treason, convicted, and hanged.  What went wrong during the raid?  More...

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• 2001 - Enron Files for Bankruptcy
  The Houston, Texas-based energy company filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy after reports of widespread accounting fraud became public. At that time, the company became the largest company in the history of the United States to declare bankruptcy.
  
  
• 1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister
  Benazir Bhutto takes office as Pakistan's Prime Minister, becoming the first woman PM of Pakistan.
  
  
• 1982 - First artificial heart transplant
  Barney Clark became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. The surgery occurred at the University of Utah Medical Center. Clark lived for 112 days after the transplant.
  
  
• 1939 - LaGuardia Airport in New York City opens its doors
  The airport was named after New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. American Airlines was the first carrier to regularly provide passenger service.
  
  
• 1804 - Napoleon is crowned Emperor of France
  Napoleon Bonaparte had risen through the ranks of the French army during the French revolution and became one of the most influential political figures of his era. His self-coronation as Napoleon I took place in Notre Dame in Paris, France.
  

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   Historic Trivia

There was a cat who started in the Nazi navy in WWII, then became a ship's cat in the British Royal Navy, and survived three sinking ships during his naval service.

"Unsinkable Sam" was the nickname given to this cat, who was actually named Oscar. He started as a ship's cat aboard the Nazi ship Bismarck, which was sunk by the British ship HMS Cossack in 1941. The British crew found the cat floating on a board hours after the ship sank, took him aboard, and named him Oscar.

Later in the war, the Cossack sank after being hit by a torpedo, killing 159 crew members. Oscar survived again and was rescued along with the remaining crew, and given the nickname "Unsinkable Sam." His last service was aboard the HMS Ark Royal, an aircraft carrier that was ALSO torpedoed, this time by a Nazi U-boat. Oscar survived that attack as well, and afterward retired to Belfast, where he lived in a seaman's home. Oscar died in 1955, a full 14 years after the sinking of the Bismarck.

Loving these obscure history trivia nuggets.
Should have a complete thread of their own.

Jamboree wrote:Loving these obscure history trivia nuggets.
Should have a complete thread of their own.

You have a point there, Jamboree.   When I have a bit more time, I will set something up.


PS:  I think you will love this next one - for 3rd December.

At the end of the French and Indian Wars, France ceded the entire Illinois region to Britain.  This region was an integral part of the Old Northwest that was brought within US boundaries 20 years later by the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution.  In 1787, the area was officially designated the Northwest Territory.  Made part of Indiana Territory in 1800, Illinois was granted statehood in 1818.  In recent years, Illinois has earned recognition for being what sort of state? 
More...

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• 1984 - Bhopal Gas Disaster
  A gas leak from a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal, India killed over 2000 people and affected thousands of others. It is said to be the world's worst industrial disaster.
  
  
• 1970 - Ayatollah Khomeini takes office
  The Iranian religious leader was a leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
  
  
• 1927 - First Laurel & Hardy movie released
  Putting Pants on Philip, a short silent film starring the comedy duo marked the beginning of a long partnership.
  
  
• 1910 - First public demonstration of neon lights
  Seen in most urban settings and cities today, the neon light was invented by French inventor and engineer, Georges Claude. They were first displayed at the Paris Motor Show.
  
  
• 1818 - Illinois joins the Union
  The midwestern state became the 21st state to be part of the United State. 3 U.S. presidents call it their home state.

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  Historic Trivia
Robert Liston, a surgeon in the 1800s, performed an operation with a 300% mortality rate: Instead of saving the patient, he killed three people.
Liston was renowned for being one of the fastest surgeons alive, which at the time was a very good thing. Anesthesia as we know it didn't exist, so patients were awake for the entire procedure, meaning the shorter it was, the better.
Liston was performing a leg amputation, but worked so fast that he accidentally cut off two fingers on his assistant's hand. Both the patient and the assistant died later of gangrene, most likely due to the saw being unclean.
What about the third death? Well, doctors and other spectators would often watch these surgeries from the gallery, which was much more up close and personal than medical galleries today. During the procedure, Liston accidentally swiped near an elderly doctor with a blade, slicing the fabric of the doctor's suit coat. Thinking he had been cut open, the doctor went into shock and died of a subsequent heart attack. Thus, three people died during an operation that was meant to save one life.

• 1110 Syrian harbor city Saida (Sidon) surrenders to Crusaders
  
• 1154 Adrian IV elected Pope. The only Englishman to become pontiff, Nicholas Breakspear was a member of the family which until recent years brewed beer in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
  

• 1197 Crusaders wound Rabbi Elezar ben Judah
  
• 1259 Treaty of Paris: English King Henry III and French King Louis IX end 100 years of conflict between the Capetian and Plantagenet dynasties
  
• 1489 Battle of Baza - Spanish army captures Baza from Moors
  

Event of Interest

1534 Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent occupies Baghdad

• 1563 Council of Trent holds its last session, after 18 years. Last ecumenical council for more than 300 years.
  
• 1619 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish, England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God. Considered by many the first Thanksgiving in the Americas.
  
• 1644 First European peace congress opens in Munster
  
• 1655 Middelburg, Netherlands forbids building of synagogue
  
• 1665 Jean Racine's "Alexandre le Grand" premieres in Paris
  
• 1674 Father Marquette builds first dwelling in what is now Chicago
  
• 1676 Battle of Lund: A Danish army under the command of King Christian V of Denmark engages the Swedish army commanded by Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt
  
• 1680 Hen in Rome lays an egg imprinted with comet not seen until Dec 16th
  
• 1682 First General Assembly in Pennsylvania (Chester)
  
• 1688 General John Churchill (later 1st Duke of Marlborough) changes allegiance from James II to William of Orange
  
• 1691 Emperor Leopold I takes control of Transsylvania
  
• 1691 Spanish king Carlos II names Maximilian II viceroy of Southern Netherlands
  
• 1745 Bonnie Prince Charles reaches Derby
  
• 1783 General Washington bids officers farewell at Fraunce's Tavern, NYC
  
• 1791 Britain's Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in the world, first published
  
• 1798 Rebellious Flemish farmers occupy Hasselt
  
• 1812 Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, patents a horse-drawn mower
  
• 1829 Britain outlaws "suttee" in India (widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre)
  

Election of Interest

1816 James Monroe is elected to become the 5th President of the United States, defeating Rufus King of the Federalist Party
5th US President
James Monroe

• 1829 Britain outlaws "suttee" in India (widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre)
  
• 1832 French army begins bombing citadel of Antwerp
  
• 1833 American Anti-Slavery Society formed by Arthur Tappan in Philadelphia
  
• 1836 Whig party holds its first national convention, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
  
• 1843 Manila paper (made from sails, canvas and rope) patented in Massachusetts
  
• 1843 Robert Schumann's "Das Paradies und die Peri" premieres in Leipzig
  

Election of Interest

1844 James Knox Polk elected 11th US President
11th US President
James Knox Polk

• 1851 President Louis Napoleon Boaparte's forces crush an attempted coup d'etat in France
  
• 1863 Storm flood ravages The Netherlands coastal provinces
  
• 1864 Battle of Waynesborough (Brier Creek), Georgia
  
• 1864 Romanian Jews are forbidden to practise law
  
• 1867 Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (better known today as the Grange)
  

Event of Interest

1875 William Magear Tweed "Boss Tweed" (Tammany Hall, NYC) escapes from jail
Politician and Businessman
Boss Tweed

• 1881 The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published
  
• 1889 Explorer Henery Morton Stanley's expedition reaches Bagamoyo in Indian Ocean
  
• 1899 56th Congress (1899-1901) convenes
  
• 1899 Webb Hayes, son of US President Rutherford Hayes, receives medal of honor
  
• 1901 Anne Russell's play "'Girl and the judge" premieres in New York
  

Event of Interest

1905 British government of Arthur Balfour resigns
British Prime Minister
Arthur Balfour

• 1906 Alpha Phi Alpha, first Black Greek Letter Fraternity, forms
  
• 1908 Haiti's president General Alexis Nord flees from military coup
  
• 1908 The world's ten leading maritime nations attend a Naval Conference in London; they agree on rules for blockade, convoys, and seizure of contraband
  
• 1909 1st CFL Grey Cup, Rosedale Field, Toronto: University of Toronto Blues beat Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, 26-6; Blues undefeated
  
• 1909 Oldest still-operating NHL franchise is officially established as J. Ambrose O’Brien and Jack Laviolette create the “Club de Hockey Canadien,” known today as the Montreal Canadiens
  

Event of Interest

1914 Walter Johnson accepts money from Federal League Chicago Whales Clark Griffith threatens to take Johnson to court
MLB Pitcher
Walter Johnson

• 1915 Frank Friday Fletcher is first US admiral to receive Congressional Medal of Honor
  
• 1915 Ku Klux Klan receives charter from Fulton County, Georgia
  
• 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition closes in San Francisco
  

Event of Interest

1915 Henry Ford's peace ship, Oscar II, sails for Europe 'to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas'
Ford Motor Company Founder
Henry Ford

Conference of Interest

1918 US President Woodrow Wilson sails for Versailles Peace Conference in France
28th US President
Woodrow Wilson

• 1920 1st Pro football playoff game Buffalo-7, Canton-3 at Polo Grounds
  
• 1920 CFL Grey Cup, Varsity Stadium, Toronto: U of Toronto Blues win 4th title; beat Toronto Argonauts, 16-3
  
• 1921 The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends in a hung jury
  
• 1921 American Professional Football Association Championship, Cubs Park, Chicago: Chicago Staleys beat Buffalo All-Americans, 10-7 in de facto championship game after teams tied in standings
  
• 1922 Lucille Atcherson, becomes first woman legation sect-US foreign service
  
• 1923 WEAF radio begins broadcasting Eveready Hour (variety show)
  
• 1926 CFL Grey Cup: Ottawa Senators retain Championship with 10-7 win over U of Toronto Blues
  

Music Premiere

1927 Dmitri Shostakovich's 2nd Symphony premieres in Moscow
Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich

Event of Interest

1927 Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club in Harlem
Jazz Musician and Composer
Duke Ellington

• 1927 Pirates Paul Waner wins NL MVP
  
• 1928 Walter Donaldson & Gus Kahn's musical "Whoopee" premieres in NYC
  
• 1930 Vatican approves rhythm method for birth control
  
• 1932 Kurt von Schleicher succeeds Franz von Papen as Reich Chancellor of Germany
  

Event of Interest

1933 FDR creates Federal Alcohol Control Administration
32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt

• 1933 Jack Kirkland's play "Tobacco Road" premieres in NYC, became the longest-running play of its time
  
• 1935 1,200 at St Joseph's College (Philadelphia) enroll in anticommunism class
  
• 1941 Nazi ordinance places Jews of Poland outside protection of courts
  
• 1942 First US citizenship granted to an alien on foreign soil (James Hoey)
  
• 1942 FDR orders dismantling of Works Progress Administration
  
• 1942 US bombers strike Italian mainland for first time in WW II
  
• 1942 Holocaust: In Warsaw, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Filipowicz set up the Żegota organization
  
• 1943 -Dec 6] 2nd conference of Cairo: FDR, Winston Churchill and Turkish President İsmet İnönü
  
• 1943 Commissioner Landis announces any baseball club may sign Negroes
  
• 1943 Yugoslavian resistance forms provisionary government under Dr Ribar
  
• 1944 Germans destroy Rhine dikes, Betuwe flooded
  
• 1945 11th Heisman Trophy Award: Doc Blanchard, Army (FB)
  
• 1945 Senate approves US participation in United Nations
  
• 1947 USSR joins International Amateur Athletic Union
  
• 1947 In the first cricket Test match between the 2 nations, India is dismissed for 98 by Australia in Brisbane to lose by an innings & 226 runs; fast bowler Ernie Toshack takes 6 for 29 for match figures of 11 for 31
  
• 1948 "Magdalena" closes at Ziegfeld Theater, NYC, after 48 performances
  
• 1948 SS Kiangya hits mine in Whangpoo River, China, sinks killing 2,750
  
• 1949 Bob Gage ties NFL record of a 97 yard touchdown run
  
• 1949 Duncan Stewart, 2nd British Governor of Sarawak is fatally stabbed in the streets of Sibu by Malay student Rosli Dhoby with help from Morshidi Sidek with the goal of helping neighbouring Indonesia to take over British Sarawak
  

Event of Interest

1951 Aaron Copland's and Jerome Robbins' ballet "The Pied Piper" premieres in New York City
Composer
Aaron Copland

• 1951 Superheated gasses roll down Mount Catarman, Philippines, killing 500 people
  
• 1951 Mir Waiz Maulvi Muhammad Yusouf is appointed President of Azad Kashmir Government
  
• 1952 Killer fogs begin in London, England; the term "Smog" is coined
  
• 1952 Walter P. Reuther chosen chairman of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the US
  
• 1954 "Hit the Trail" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 4 performances
  
• 1954 "On Your Toes" closes at 46th St Theater NYC after 64 performances
  
• 1954 The first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida, USA
  
• 1955 Bernardus Johannes Alfrink installed as Archbishop of Utrecht
  
• 1956 22nd Heisman Trophy Award: Paul Hornung, Notre Dame (QB)
  
• 1956 Australian swimmer Murray Rose sets world record 4:27.3 to claim the 400m gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics; Rose later also wins 1,500m gold
  
• 1956 American diver Pat McCormick wins the 3m springboard gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics with 142.46 points; later wraps up the women's double when she takes the 10m platform gold
  
• 1957 First edition of "Chase's Annual Events" published
  
• 1957 2 commuter trains collide in heavy fog killing 92 (St John's, England)
  
• 1958 Dahomey (Benin), Ivory Coast become autonomous within French Community
  
• 1958 Finnish government of Fagerholm resigns
  

Boxing Title Fight

1961 Floyd Patterson KOs Tom McNeeley in 4 for heavyweight boxing title
Boxer and Undisputed Heavyweight Champion
Floyd Patterson

Event of Interest

1961 Museum of Modern Art hangs Matisse's Le Bateau upside down for 47 days
Impressionist Painter
Henri Matisse

• 1961 Smallest NY Knick, 49th St Madison Square Garden crowd-1,300 (snowstorm)
  
• 1961 Tanganyika becomes 104th member of UN
  
• 1961 WXGA TV channel 8 in Waycross, GA (PBS) begins broadcasting
  

Event of Interest

1961 The female contraceptive 'pill' becomes available on the National Health Service in Britain
Chemist
Carl Djerassi

• 1961 1962 NFL Draft: Ernie Davis from University of Syracuse first pick by Washington Redskins
  
• 1962 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
  

Event of Interest

1963 Aldo Moro forms Italian government (1963-1968)
Italian Prime Minister
Aldo Moro

Event of Interest

1963 Pope Paul VI closes 2nd session of 2nd Vatican Council
Pope
Paul VI

• 1963 Boston Bruins' right wing Andy Hebenton sets a new NHL record by playing in his 581st consecutive game in 2-2 tie with Chicago Black Hawks; reaches 630 straight games
  
• 1964 Baseball approves a free-agent draft
  
• 1964 The Beatles release their "Beatles For Sale" album
  
• 1964 Commissioner's office given full powers in baseball disputes
  
• 1964 Test Cricket debut of Ian Chappell, v Pakistan MCG, 11, 0-49, 0-31
  
• 1965 "Roar of the Greasepaint" closes at Shubert NYC after 232 performances
  
• 1965 2 passenger planes collide above Danbury, Connecticut, 4 die
  
• 1965 2nd NY Knicks game postponed (due to death of opponent 76ers' owner)
  

Event of Interest

1965 Gemini 7 launched with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell
Astronaut
Frank Borman

• 1965 San Francisco Giant Masanori Murakami, 4-1 this year, does not renew his contract signing instead with the Nankai Hawks of Osaka for $40,000
  
• 1966 KETS TV channel 2 in Little Rock, AR (PBS) begins broadcasting
  
• 1966 Military Working Dog "Nemo" saves the life of his handler Airman Robert A. Throneburg during the Vietnam War, surviving a gunshot wound to the nose
  
• 1968 Following a civil rights march in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, there is a violent clash between Loyalists and those who are taking part in the march
  
• 1970 Unemployment in US increases to 5.8%
  
• 1971 The UN Security Council calls an emergency session to consider the deteriorating situation between India and Pakistan
  
• 1971 The Indian Navy attacks the Pakistan Navy and Karachi
  
• 1971 McGurk's Bar bombing: the UVF explode a bomb at a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, killing fifteen Catholic civilians and wounding seventeen others; this was the highest death toll from a single incident in Belfast during 'the Troubles'
  
• 1974 Dutch DC-8 charter crashes in Sri Lanka killing 191 Muslim pilgrims
  

Event of Interest

1974 Jean-Paul Sartre visits Red Army Faction leader Andreas Baader in prison
Writer
Jean-Paul Sartre

• 1975 6 South Molukkans occupy Indonesian consulate in The Hague, 1 dead
  

Dictator Bokassa I

1977 Jean-Bédel Bokassa crowns himself Emperor of the Central African Empire in a lavish ceremony costing US$20 million - one third of the nation's budget
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Jean-Bédel Bokassa is crowned as 'Emperor of Central Africa' atop a golden throne in 1976

• 1977 NFL's 5,000th game, Cincinnati beats KC 27-7
  

Event of Interest

1977 Neil Simon's "Chapter Two" premieres in NYC
Playwright and screenwriter
Neil Simon

• 1977 66th Davis Cup: Australia beats Italy in Sydney (3-1)
  
• 1977 West Indies win 1st World Series Cricket 'Test' against Australia at VFL Park in Melbourne by 3 wickets; chasing 235 for victory, Viv Richards with 56 and Clive Lloyd 44 guide WI to 237/7 with 2 days to spare
  
• 1977 Davis Cup Tennis, Sydney: John Alexander beats Adriano Panatta of Italy 6-4, 4-6, 2-6, 8-6, 11-9 in a 3 hour, 54 minute classic to give Australia a 3-1 victory
  
• 1978 Dianne Feinstein is named as San Francisco's 1st female and Jewish mayor
  
• 1978 Dutch war criminal Pieter Menten freed
  
• 1978 Pioneer Venus 1 goes into orbit around Venus
  
• 1979 Cleveland Cavaliers retire jersey # 7, Bingo Smith
  

Event of Interest

1980 Two months after death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin announces they will disband
Drummer
John Bonham

• 1980 Islanders end 15 game undefeated streak (13-0-2) (Col Rockies)
  
• 1981 "Falcon Crest" premieres on CBS-TV
  

Event of Interest

1981 Reagan Executive Order on Intelligence (No 12333) that allows CIA to engage in domestic counter-intelligence
US President & Actor
Ronald Reagan

• 1981 According to South Africa, Ciskei gains independence. Not recognized as an independent country outside South Africa.
  
• 1982 48th Heisman Trophy Award: Herschel Walker, Georgia (RB)
  
• 1982 China adopts its constitution
  
• 1982 Police and racist demonstrators clash in Antwerp
  
• 1983 "Amen Corner" closes at Nederlander Theater NYC after 83 performances
  
• 1983 "Baby" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 241 performances
  
• 1983 David Shire & R Maltby Jr's musical "Baby" premieres in NYC
  
• 1983 NJ Devils 1st shut-out, beating Minnesota Detroit Red Wings 6-0
  
• 1983 US jet fighters strike Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon
  
• 1984 Hezbollah militants hijack a Kuwait Airlines plane, killing four passengers.
  

Event of Interest

1984 6th ACE Cable Awards: David Bowie: Serious Moonlight by Anthony Eaton and HBO
Singer-Songwriter
David Bowie

• 1985 "Les Miserables" opens at Palace Theatre, London
  

Event of Interest

1985 French President Mitterrand receives Polish leader Jaruzelski
21st President of France
Francois Mitterrand

• 1985 President Reagan appoints Vice Admiral John Poindexter as security adviser
  

Event of Interest

1985 Slobodan Živojinović of Yugoslavia upsets No. 2 seed John McEnroe 2-6, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the Australian Open quarter finals; leaves McEnroe without a major singles title for the first time since 1978
Tennis Player
John McEnroe

• 1986 US launches its Fleet Satellite Communications System (Fltsatcom-7)
  
• 1986 Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" premieres in NYC
  
• 1987 Karlstad skates world record 10 km (13:48.51)
  

Event of Interest

1987 Defending champion Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia wins 3rd straight season-ending ATP Masters Grand Prix tennis title by defeating Mats Wilander of Sweden 6–2, 6–2, 6–3 in the final at Madison Square Garden, NYC
Tennis Player and Eight-Time Major Champion
Ivan Lendl Tennis Player and Seven-Time Major Champion
Mats Wilander

• 1988 Actor Gary Busey critically injured in motorcycle crash
  

Event of Interest

1988 Orioles trade veteran 1B Eddie Murray to the Dodgers
MLB 1st Baseman
Eddie Murray

• 1988 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
  
• 1988 Edmonton center Jimmy Carson becomes just the third player to score 6 NHL hat tricks before the age of 21 in the Oilers 10-6 win over the New York Rangers
  
• 1989 NBC's premiere of "Howard Beach: Making A Case for Murder", based on December 1986 murders of black youths by white youths in New York City
  
• 1990 Due to Persian Gulf crisis gas hits $1.60 per gallon price in NYC
  
• 1990 Iraq announces it will release all 3,300 Soviet hostages
  
• 1990 An Iraqi official reports that Iraq will withdraw if it can retain control of the Rumailah field and keep Bubiyan and Werbah islands; also says that demands that the Palestinian issue be treated separately would not be surmountable
  
• 1991 Judds final concert (Nashville)
  
• 1991 Muslim Shi'ites release last US hostage Terry Anderson (held 6½ years)
  
• 1991 Pan American World Airways ceased operations
  
• 1991 Patricia Bowman testifies that William Kennedy Smith raped her
  

Event of Interest

1992 Somali Civil War: President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 US troops to Somalia
41st US President
George H. W. Bush

• 1993 Dan Jansen skates world record 500m (35.92 sec)
  
• 1993 Johann Koss skates world record 5K (6:35.53)
  
• 1993 A truce is concluded between the government of Angola and UNITA rebels.
  
• 1994 "Angels in America-Perestroika" closes at W Kerr NYC after 216 performances
  
• 1994 "Angels in America-Millennium Approach" closes at Kerr after 367 performances
  
• 1994 83rd Davis Cup: Sweden beats Russia in Moscow (4-1)
  
• 1995 Atherton (185*) bats for 643 minutes to save Johannesburg Test
  

Music Awards

1996 7th Billboard Music Awards: Alanis Morissette win
Singer-Songwriter
Alanis Morissette

• 1996 NASA's 1st Mars rover launched from Cape Canaveral
  
• 1996 Orlando Magic tie NBA record of fewest ponts scored since inception of 24 second clock losing to Cleveland Cavalier, 84-57
  
• 1997 "Diary of Anne Frank" opens at Music Box Theater NYC
  
• 1997 NBA suspends former Golden State Warriors guard Latrell Sprewell for 1 year for attacking coach P.J. Carlesimo
  
• 1997 Nizar Hamdoon warns that Iraq will not allow oil to flow during a third six-month phase of the UN's oil-for-food sale until the UN approves an aid distribution plan
  
• 1998 The Unity Module, the second module of the International Space Station, is launched
  

Murder of Interest

2001 Marike de Klerk, ex-wife of former President F.W. de Klerk is murdered at her home in Cape Town
South African President
F. W. de Klerk

• 2005 Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong protest for democracy and call on the Government to allow universal and equal suffrage
  
• 2005 94th Davis Cup: Croatia beats Slovak Republic in Bratislava (3-2)
  

Event of Interest

2005 U.S. debut of the first part of two-part TV biopic miniseries "Pope John Paul II" on CBS
264th Pope
John Paul II

• 2006 An adult giant squid is caught on video by Kubodera near the Ogasawara Islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo
  
• 2007 Ballon d'Or: Milan's Brazilian midfielder Kaká is named best football player in the world; first year in which players from clubs outside the UEFA federation eligible for nomination
  
• 2011 100th Davis Cup: Spain beats Argentina in Seville (3-1)
  
• 2012 29 people are killed by a mortar attack in Bteeha, Syria
  
• 2012 Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines killing at least 81 people
  
• 2013 Xavier Bettel becomes Luxenberg's first openly gay Prime Minister
  
• 2014 The United Nations warns that the world is on course for the warmest year since records began
  
• 2014 Ukraine and Pro-Russian rebels agree to cease fire in the eastern war zone, beginning December 9
  
• 2014 US authorities promise a "fair" investigation into the death of African American Eric Garner, after a white New York City police officer held him in a choke-hold faces no charges
  
• 2015 Floods in Chennai and Tamil Nadu state, India start receding after a month of heavy rainfall, leaving more 260 dead and thousands stranded
  
• 2016 Austria elects liberal independent Alexander Van der Bellen as President, after original vote in May annulled
  

Event of Interest

2016 New Zealand Prime Minister John Key resigns after 8 years in office
New Zealand Prime Minister
John Key

• 2016 Tens of thousands march throughout Brazil against a vote to undermine anti-corruption investigations
  
• 2016 Venezuela issues new higher-value notes after currency falls 60% in 1 months against the US dollar
  

Event of Interest

2017 US Supreme Court allows President Trump's travel ban to come into effect for 6 mostly Muslim countries
45th US President, Businessman and TV Personality
Donald Trump

• 2017 US President Donald Trump scales back Utah National Parks - Bears Ears National Monument (85%), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (50%)
  
• 2017 New York's Metropolitan Opera suspends conductor James Levine after allegations of sexual misconduct
  
• 2017 New York Giants fire head coach Ben McAdoo and manager Jerry Reese after a 2–10 start
  
• 2017 Thomas fire begins and spreads to city of Ventura, California
  
• 2018 Ownership group Seattle Hockey Partners led by billionaire businessman Davis Bonderman is unanimously granted an NHL license by the Board of Governors; to start play 2020-21 season at KeyArena
  

Event of Interest

2018 Theresa May's UK government suffers three parliamentary defeats in one day, also found in contempt of parliament for failing to publish report in full on Brexit
British Prime Minister
Theresa May

Event of Interest

2018 French President Emmanuel Macron drops controversial rise in fuel tax after three weeks of mass protests
President of France
Emmanuel Macron

• 2018 Attempts to establish mob council in Sicily thwarted when 46 members of the mafia arrested including Settimio Mineo
  
• 2018 Scottish artist Charlotte Prodger wins the 2018 Turner Prize with film shot on her iPhone
  
• 2018 First successful birth resulting from uterus transplant from a deceased donor in São Paulo, Brazil
  
• 2018 French couture house Chanel ends its use of fur and exotic skins following bans by other companies
  
• 2018 Native Americans had just one migration from Siberia to the New World, at most 23,000 years ago, in research published in "Nature" and "Science"
  

Flight 19 was the designation of five US Navy bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle during a navigation training flight from a naval air station in Florida.  All 14 airmen involved in the exercise were lost.  The search-and-rescue flight that went after them also disappeared, along with its 13-man crew, and is assumed to have exploded in mid-air.  No wreckage from any of the six aircraft has ever been positively identified.  What did Navy investigators conclude happened to Flight 19?  More...

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• 2005 - UK's Civil Partnership Act of 2004 comes into force
  UK's Civil Partnership Act of 2004 came into force almost a year after it was passed.
  
  
• 1977 - Egypt breaks all relations with Arab countries
  President Anwar al-Sadat broke all relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, and South Yemen in response to these countries and the Palestinian Liberation Organization signing the Declaration of Tripoli. The declaration followed Sadat's visit to Israel.
  
  
• 1936 - Establishment of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic
  The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a republic of the Soviet Union.
  
  
• 1933 - End of prohibition in the U.S.
  A national ban on alcohol in the U.S. first instituted in 1920 by the 18th amendment, ended on this day after the ratification of the 21st amendment.
  
  
• 1766 - Christie's hold their first sale
  Art auction house Christie's founder James Christie made his first art sale.
  

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   Historic Trivia

More Christmas Trivia Facts:

• In much of the British Commonwealth, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. It was originally called that because, traditionally, on that day, Christmas boxes placed in churches for casual contributions were opened and the contents distributed to the needy.
  
• In 1975, when a sanitation strike just before Christmas resulted in the streets of New York City being awash in garbage, two women, Nancy Reardon and Mrs. Michael Moriarity, created a Christmas tree on the sidewalk made of 30 plastic garbage bags. The decorations were made from garbage as well.
  
• Originally, the first line to Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" was "I'm sitting by a pool in Beverly Hills dreaming of a White Christmas." A friend suggested dropping the reference to Beverly Hills, and the song went on to become the most commercially successful song ever.
  
• Many traditions for the holidays of Christmas, Easter, and Halloween/All Saints' Day were created between roughly the 4^th and 7^th centuries to compete with pagan traditions. For example, All Saints' Day was created by fourth-century missionaries as a rival to the Celtic holiday Samhain, with its new traditions designed to portray the rival pagan gods as devils, spirits, and witches.
  
• In the United Kingdom, it is still illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day, according to a seventeenth-century law.
  
• In the First World War, during Christmas 1914, along many areas of the Western Front, many German and British soldiers stopped fighting each other and mingled with each other, exchanging food and small gifts. Some even sung carols or played football together.
  
• On Christmas Day, 1066, William the Conquerer was crowned at Westminster Abbey. After the Archbishop of York placed the crown on William's head, he asked the assembled Saxon nobles if they would recognize the King as their true liege lord. The shout of acclamation that went up so alarmed the Norman soldiers on guard outside, and they took it as a cry of rejection and dashed into the congregation with drawn swords and attacked them. Soon the fighting spread to the crowd outside and by the end of the day the streets of London were strewn with the bodies of the dead and dying, illuminated by the glare of burning buildings.
  

In 1783, Congress passed a resolution approving an equestrian statue of George Washington.  Plans were made to erect it at the site of the present Washington Monument, but Washington objected to the idea.  After his death in 1799, plans for a memorial were discussed but none was adopted until 1832, when blocks of stone began to be collected from each state, some foreign countries, and private individuals.  The 555-ft (169-m) monument was finally completed in 1884.  Its tip is made of what?  More...

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• 1977 - South Africa grants independence to Bophuthatswana
  The Republic of Bophuthatswana was never internationally recognized. In 1994, after a series of coups, it reintegrated with South Africa.
  
  
• 1967 - World's first pediatric heart transplant
  3 days after the first heart transplant in the world occurred in South Africa, Adrian Kantrowitz and his team of surgeons performed United States' first heart transplant and the world's first pediatric heart transplant at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
  
  
• 1922 - Establishment of the Irish Free State
  The Anglo-Irish Treaty signed between the British and Irish representatives in 1921 paved the way for the establishment of the Dominion of the British Empire. The state lasted until December 1937.
  
  
• 1917 - Finnish Declaration of Independence
  The declaration ended 109 years of Finland being a Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire. The Northern European country came under the control of the Russian Empire in 1809. After the October Revolution in Russia, which created the Soviet Union, the Finnish Parliament declared independence on this day.
  
  
• 1865 - Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
  The amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.
  

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   Historic Trivia pick

• At 7:25 p.m. on March 1, 1950, five minutes after the scheduled start of a choir practice, a church in Beatrice, Nebraska, exploded. However, the church was empty, as all fifteen members of the choir were late for practice, for ten separate and entirely unconnected reasons.

• On February 13, 1746, a certain Jean Marie Dunbarry was hanged for murdering his father. On February 13, 1846, another Jean Marie Dunbarry, a great-grandson of the original criminal, was hanged for murdering his father.