November 19th


461 - St. Hilarius becomes Pope. (I just KNOW there’s a good joke hiding somewhere in this one!)

1794 - The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

1816 – In Poland the Warsaw University is established.

1863 - US President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1916 - Samuel Goldfish (later renamed Samuel Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn establish the Goldwyn Company. The company would go on to become one of Hollywood’s most successful independent filmmakers.

1924 - In Los Angeles, California, famous silent film director Thomas Ince ("The Father of the Western") dies of a heart attack in his bed. Rumors soon surfaced that he was shot dead by publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

1941 - The Royal Australian Navy cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 771 German seamen.

1942 - The Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the Russians favor.

1944 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling $14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.

1946 - Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.

1959 - Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of its dismal failure, the Edsel.

1969 - Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

1976 – Robby Cavanaugh (1956-1982), driving a ‘71 Chevy Nova coupe named, “The Bronze Missile” runs a quarter mile time of 7.012 seconds at 193.2 mph at Portland International Speedway to win the AHRA Grand National Championship in Division B-altered. (Did you really think I’d forget, Claire.)

1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he meets with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement. Much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit. (How dare he talk about peace!)

1977 – A Transportes Aereos Portugueses Boeing 727 crashes in Madeira islands killing 130.

1984 - A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City ignites a major fire and kills over 500 people.

1985 - In Geneva, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

1985 - Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion verdict from Texaco in the largest civil verdict in US history. Texaco entered into a signed contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.

1990 - The pop group duo Milli Vanilli was stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the “Girl You Know It’s True” album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.

1994 - In Britain the first National Lottery draw was held. A direct duplicate of the original 1976 Canadian “Olympic Lottery”, a £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

1997 - In Carlisle, Iowa Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive.

1998 – The Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against US President Bill Clinton.

1998 - Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of the Artist Without Beard" sells at auction for $71.5 million US.

1999 - In Istanbul, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ends a two-day summit by calling for a political settlement in Chechnya and adopting a Charter for European Security.

November 20th


1272 - Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.

1407 - A solemn truce between John, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed upon under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans was assassinated three days later by Burgundy.

1468 - Joanot Martorell's book Tirant lo Blanc is first published.

1700 – During “The Great Northern War”, The Battle of Narva. King Charles XII of Sweden defeats the army of Tsar Peter the Great at Narva.

1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1820 – 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America a harpooned 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts. Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story.

1910 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero denounces President Porfirio Díaz, declares himself president, and calls for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico.

1917 - Battle of Cambrai begins. -British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.

1917 – The Ukraine declares itself a republic.

1940 - Hungary, Romania and Slovakia join the Axis Powers already at war.

1943 - Battle of Tarawa begins - United States Marines land on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands and take heavy fire from the Japanese shore guns.

1945 – The Nuremberg Trials begin. Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals of World War II start at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.

1947 - Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.

1962 - In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, US President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

1966 - "Cabaret" opens at the Imperial Theatre in New York.

1969 - The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

1974 - The United States Department of Justice files its final Anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.

1983 - An estimated 100 million people watch the controversial made-for-television movie The Day After, depicting the start of a nuclear war.

1989 – The Velvet Revolution: The number of peaceful anti-government protestors assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.

1992 - In England, a fire breaks out in the Private Chapel room of Windsor Castle, rages for 15 hours, and seriously damages the northwest side of the building. An investigation found that the fire was ignited after a spotlight came into contact with a curtain over an extended period.

1993 - The Savings and Loan scandal: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.

1994 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. In 1995 localized fighting resumed.

1995 - Javier Solana ends negotiations with the successful conclusion of The Treaty of Association between the European Union and the Nation of Israel. It is signed in Brussels on November 20, 1995 by Javier Solana on behalf of the European Union and Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel. This comes in the near wake of Itzhak Rabin's assassination on November 4, 1995.

1998 - A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regards to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

1999 - The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.

2001 - In Washington, DC, US President George W. Bush dedicates the United States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.

2003 - Several bombs are detonated in Istanbul, Turkey destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Holdings and the British consulate.

2003 - Michael Jackson is arrested by police on charges of child molestation, a charge that can carry an 8 year jail term.

2003 – Massive protests take place in Miami, Florida against the “Free Trade Area of the Americas” agreement.

November 21st

235 - Anterus is elected Pope.

1783 - In Paris, Jean-Fran�ois Pil�tre de Rozier and Fran�ois Laurent, the Marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight. Flight time: 25 minutes. Maximum height: 100m. Distance: 9 km.

1789 - North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.

1861 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.

1877 - Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound. This is considered to be Edison's first great invention.

1922 - Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first woman United States Senator.

1927 - Columbine Mine Massacre: 500 striking coal miners, some with their families, were attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes

1941 - The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time. It would go on to become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history, and the most famous live blues radio program.

1942 - The official opening of the Alaska Highway is celebrated. However, usage of the highway by (non-military) general vehicles was not permitted until the spring of 1943.

1953 - Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the "Piltdown Man", long held to be one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, was a hoax.

1962 - The Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War. (In which India got its butt severely kicked)

1964 - The Verrazano Narrows Bridge opens to traffic. At the time it was the world's longest suspension bridge.

1964 - Second Vatican Council: The third period of the Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.

1967 - Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."

1969 - US President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, DC on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under terms of the agreement, the US is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.

1970 - Operation Ivory Coast - A joint US Air Force and Army team raids the North Vietnamese �Son Tay� prison camp in an attempt to free American POWs thought to be held there. There were no American casualties, but the prisoners had already moved to another camp. All US POWs were moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid.

1974 - The Birmingham Pub Bombings by the IRA killed 21 people. The Birmingham Six were sentenced to life in prison for this and subsequently acquitted.

1974 - George W. Bush is discharged from the US Air Force Reserve.

1979 - The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set afire, killing four.

1985 - United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested for spying. He was caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations and was eventually sentenced to life in prison.

1986 - Iran-Contra Affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary shred documents implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contras rebels in Nicaragua.

1995 - Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

1995 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 5,000 (5,023.55) for the first time.

2002 - NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

November 22nd

1718 - Off the coast of Virginia, English pirate Edward Teach, best known as "Blackbeard", is killed in battle when a British boarding party cornered and then shot and stabbed him more than 25 times.

1864 – The American Civil War: Confederate General John Bell Hood invades Tennessee in an unsuccessful attempt to draw Union General William T. Sherman from Georgia on his “March to the Sea”.

1880 - Vaudeville actress Lillian Russell makes her debut at Tony Pastor's Theatre in New York City.

1916 – Jack London died.

1917 - In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association is dissolved. On November 26 it would be replaced with the National Hockey League.

1935 – Pan Am’s “China Clipper” takes off from Alameda, California in an attempt to deliver the first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean. The airplane later reached its destination in Manila, and delivered over 110,000 pieces of mail.


1942 - The Battle of Stalingrad - The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus and General Friedrich von Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th army is surrounded.

1943 – The Cairo Conference. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan.

1943 - Lebanon gains independence from France. (Which, at the time, was only capable of receiving its ass kicking from Germany.)

1955 - Shemp Howard, actor, comedian, and member of The Three Stooges; died of a heart attack following an evening out with friends watching boxing matches.

1958 - Jamie Lee Curtis is born.

1963 – Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Enough said.

1963 - US Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn-in as the 36th President of the United States.

1967 - UN Security Council Resolution 242 is adopted by the UN Security Council, establishing a set of the principles aimed at guiding negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. (Don’t hold your breath on this one, guys!)

1968 - The Beatles release The White Album.

1972 - The United States loses its first B-52 Stratofortress of the Vietnam War.

1974 - The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status. (You know, the UN just loves child killers!)

1975 - Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

1977 - British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.

1986 – A 20 year old Mike Tyson knocks-out Trevor Berbick in the 2nd round becoming the youngest ever world heavyweight boxing champion.

1988 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.

1989 - In west Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of Lebanese President Rene Moawad, killing him.

1990 - Margaret Thatcher resigns as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

2002 - In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed in an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest.

2003 - In Tbilisi, Georgia, opponents of President Eduard Shevardnadze seize the parliament building and demand the president's resignation.

November 23rd

1499 - Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. In 1497 he entered England claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England.

1644 - Areopagitica by John Milton is published.

1863 – The Battle of Chattanooga begins. Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate forces.

1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper Cutty Sark is launched. It was one of the last clippers to be built, and the only one still surviving.

1876 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed, better known as Boss Tweed, is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.

1890 - King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to become Queen.

1903 - Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike. (Now he knew how to get the labor vote behind him at election time!)

1936 - The first edition of Life magazine is published.

1955 - The Cocos Islands are transferred from British to Australian control.

1958 - Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on radio.

1960 - The long-running serial, Ma Perkins, airs its last episode on CBS radio.

1963 - The first episode of the sci-fi TV series Doctor Who debuts on the BBC.

1971 - The People's Republic of China is given the Republic of China's(Taiwan’s) seat on the United Nations Security Council.

1979 - In Dublin, Ireland, Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.
1980 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.

1981 – The Iran-Contra scandal: US President Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

1984 - Boston College Quarterback Doug Flutie throws a game winning 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan to defeat The University of Miami Hurricanes 45-41. It is one of the most famous plays in college football.

1985 - Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 while en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the hijacked jetliner but 60 people die in the raid.

1993 - Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year. (The K Foundation had it right.)

1996 - Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked then, after running out of fuel, crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros killing 127.

2003 - Beleaguered Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.

November 24th

380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.

642 - Theodore succeeds John IV as Pope.

1639 - Jeremiah Horrocks observes the transit of Venus (November 24 in the Julian calendar, or December 4 in the Gregorian calendar).

1642 - Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land. It is later renamed Tasmania.

1859 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, a book which argues that organisms gradually evolve through natural selection.

1863 - The Battle of Lookout Mountain - Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.

1904 - The first successful caterpillar track is made. This would go on to revolutionize construction vehicles and land warfare.

1922 - Popular author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers is executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver.

1932 -The FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, better known as the FBI Crime Lab, officially opens in Washington DC.

1941 - World War II: The United States grants Lend-Lease to the Free French.

1947 - After refusing to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee concerning allegations of Communist influence in the movie industry, the United States House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10.

1951 - The Broadway play Gigi opens starring little known actress Audrey Hepburn playing the lead character. The play ran for six months and led to Hepburn's film debut in Roman Holiday.

1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: Alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is mortally shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas on live national television.

1963 - Vietnam War: Newly sworn in US President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.

1969 - The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.

1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a man calling himself Dan Cooper, commonly remembered as D. B. Cooper, parachutes from the Northwest Orient Airlines plane he hijacked with $200,000 in ransom money.

1976 - The Band gives its last public performance; Martin Scorsese is on hand to film it.

1992 - A China Southern Airlines domestic flight crashes in the People's Republic of China killing all 141 people on-board.

1993 – In Britain 11-year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables are convicted of the child murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool. They were sentenced to "indefinite detention".

1996 - Rusty Wallace wins the Suzuka NASCAR Thunder 100 racing event at Suzuka Circuitland in Suzuka City. This was the first NASCAR competition held in Japan.

1997 - Following a 554.26 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), officials at the New York Stock Exchange invoke the "circuit breaker" rule for the first time to stop trading. This was a very controversial move and prompted a quick change in the rule. Now trading stops will only occur when the DJIA drops at least 10 percent and then again 20 percent during a single trading session.

1998 - America Online announces it will acquire Netscape Communications in a stock-for-stock transaction worth $4.2 billion.

November 25th

1034 - Malcolm II of Scotland died. Duncan, the son of his second daughter, instead of Macbeth, the son of his eldest daughter, inherited the throne.

1120 - Wreck of the White Ship in the English Channel. William Adelin, son of Henry I of England drowned.

1177 – The armies of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Chatillon defeat the forces of Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.

1491 - The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins.

1542 - An English army invades Scotland and defeats the Scottish army at The Battle of Solway Moss.

1758 - French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control.

1783 - The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris which ended The American Revolutionary War.

1863 – The Battle of Missionary Ridge. At Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg.

1874 - The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party made primarily of farmers financially hurt by the Panic of 1873.

1876 - In retaliation for the dramatic American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.

1936 - In Berlin, Nazi-Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, thus agreeing to consult on what measures to take "to safeguard their common interests" in case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union against either nation.

1940 - Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film "Knock Knock".

1944 - A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth's store in Deptford, killing 160 shoppers.

1947 - Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.

1947 - New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by Great Britain.

1952 - Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. Today it is the longest continuously running play in history.

1958 - French Sudan gains autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community.

1960 - The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic were assassinated.

1963 - The body of US President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

1970 - In Japan, world-famous author Yukio Mishima commits ritualistic suicide after failing to sway public opinion toward his extreme political beliefs.

1973 - Greek President George Papadopoulos is ousted in military coup led by Lieutenant General Phaidon Gizikis.

1975 - Suriname gains its independence.

1980 - No Más Fight: Sugar Ray Leonard recovers the WBC world welterweight boxing title in a fight against Roberto Duran.

1984 - 36 of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio as Band Aid to record the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

1986 - US Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Also, Fawn Hall was purported to have smuggled confidential papers out of the office of her employer, Oliver North.

1992 - The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia starting on January 1, 1993.

1994 - Sony founder Akio Morita announces he will be stepping down as CEO of the floundering company.

1999 - The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. (Another symbolic hot air resolution with no teeth to back it.)

2002 - US President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

November 26th

1778 - Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.

1805 - Official opening of Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

1825 - At Union College in Schenectady, New York a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society as the first college social fraternity.

1862 - Charles Dodgson. better known as Lewis Carroll, sends the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

1863 – The Battle of Mine Run. Union forces under General George Meade position against troops led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

1872 - The San Francisco Evening Bulletin exposes “The Great Diamond Hoax”, one of the most notorious mining scandals in US history.

1917 - The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.

1922 - Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamun in over 3000 years.

1922 - Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor. The Gulf Between was the first film to actually do so but it was not widely distributed.

1941 - US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

1941 - A fleet of six aircraft carriers commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo leaves Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbor under strict radio silence.

1941 - The Hull note ultimatum is delivered to Japan by the United States.

1942 - The Hollywood film classic Casablanca premieres at the Hollywood Theater in New York City.

1949 - The Indian Constituent Assembly adopts India's constitution.

1950 - Troops from the People's Republic of China move into North Korea and initiate The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a massive counterattack against South Korean and American forces. This dispells any thought of a quick end to the Korean conflict.

1965 - At the Hammaguira launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with the satellite Asterix-1 on board. France becomes the third country to enter space.

1968 - United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.

1973 – President Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of an 18 minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

1975 - A Federal jury finds Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme guilty of the attempted assassination of US President Gerald Ford.

1983 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26,000,000 are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.

1985 - US President Ronald Reagan signs over rights to his autobiography to Random House for a record $3 million.

1986 - Iran-Contra scandal: US President Ronald Reagan announces the members what will become known as the Tower Commission.

1998 - Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.

2003 – The last flight ever by Concorde.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

November 27th

399 - St. Anastius I becomes Pope.

1095 - Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1703 - The first Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed in a storm.

1839 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.

1863 - American Civil War: Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and several of his men escape the Ohio state prison and return safely to the South.

1868 - The Battle (slaughter) of the Washita River - United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living on reservation land.

1895 - At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies.

1912 - Spain declares a protectorate over the north shore of Morocco.

1924 - In the New York City the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

1926 - In Williamsburg, Virginia, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg begins.

1934 - Bank robber/ murderer Baby Face Nelson dies in a gun battle with two FBI agents.

1940 - In Romania, General Ion Antonescu's Iron Guard arrests and executes over 60 of exiled king Carol II of Romania's aides, including former minister and acclaimed historian Nicolae Iorga.

1965 - The Pentagon tells US President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned operations are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.

1973 - The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. On December 6, congress confirmed him 387 to 35.

1978 - In San Francisco, mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.

1983 - A Colombian Boeing 747 crashes near Barajas Airport, in Madrid killing 183.

1990 - The British Conservative Party chooses John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of Britain.

1991 - The United Nations Security Council adopts UN Security Council Resolution 721, leading the way to the establishment of peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia.

2001 - A hydrogen atmosphere was discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

November 28th

1582 - Poet and playwright William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.

1757 - Born this day, William Blake, English poet and artist. (Songs of Innocence and Experience). Died in 1827.

1821 - Panama declared itself independent from Spain and joined the Republic of Colombia.

1863 - Thanksgiving was first observed as a regular American holiday. Proclaimed by President Lincoln the previous month, it was declared that the event would be observed annually, on the fourth Thursday in November.

1868 - Mt. Etna in Sicily erupted violently.

1895 - The first automobile race in America began, as six cars travelled from Jackson Park in Chicago to Waukegan, Illinois. J. Frank Dureyea was the winner, travelling at a speed of 7 and 1/2 miles per hour. It took him 7 hours 53 minutes to make the trip. He won $2,000 for the effort.

1908 - 154 men died in coal mine explosion at Marianna, Pennsylvania.

1922 - Captain Cyril Turner (RAF) gave the first skywriting exhibition in New York City. Turner spelled out 'Hello USA. Call Vanderbilt 7200'. 47,000 people called.

1925 - On this date in 1925, the Grand Ole Opry, one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for western music, began broadcasting live from Nashville, Tennessee. The showcase was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio program called the National Barn Dance that had begun broadcasting the previous year.

1929 - Born this day, Berry Gordy Jr., in Detroit, Michigan, Motown Records founder, former boxer, composer, Jackie Wilson's Reet Petit, singer, (Money, That's Want I Want).

1934 - The US bank robber George 'Baby Face' Nelson was killed near Barrington, Illinois, by FBI agents.

1942 - Nearly 500 people died in a fire that destroyed Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts.

1942 - Coffee rationing began in the United States, lasting through to the end of World War II. YIKES!

1948 - Edwin Land's first Polaroid cameras went on sale in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

1948 - Hopalong Cassidy premiered on US TV.

1963 - US President Lyndon Johnson changed the name of Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Cape Kennedy, in honour of his assassinated predecessor. Residents changed the name back to Cape Canaveral in 1973.

1964 - Mariner 4 was launched. It became the first spacecraft to fly by Mars. It passed within 5,400 miles of Mars in July 1965.

1988 - Picasso's Acrobat & Harlequin sold for $38.46 million.

1994 - On this day in 1994, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, serving 15 consecutive life sentences for the brutal murders of 15 men, was beaten to death by a fellow inmate while performing cleaning duty in a bathroom (toilet) at the Columbia Correctional Institute gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin.

November 29th

1777 - San Jose, California, is founded as el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

1781 - The Slave ship “Zong” dumps its living cargo into the sea in order to claim insurance.

1864 - Sand Creek Massacre - Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 400 unarmed Cheyenne and Arapahoe noncombatants at Sand Creek, Colorado.

1872 - Indian Wars: Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.

1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.

1890 - The Meiji Constitution goes into effect in Japan and the first Diet convenes.

1890 - In West Point, New York, the United States Naval Academy defeats the United States Military Academy 24 to 0 in the first Army-Navy football game.

1929 - US Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.

1943 - Second session of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, is held in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, determining the post-war ordering of the country.

1944 - Albania is liberated from German occupation.

1944 - The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Drs. Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

1945 - The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia is declared. This day was celebrated as Republic Day until 2003.

1947 - The United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine between Arabs and Jews. (OH! That won’t cause any problems, will it?)

1948 - The children's television program Kukla, Fran and Ollie debuts.

1950 - North Korean and Chinese troops force a desperate retreat by United Nations (read: US) forces from North Korea.

1952 - US president-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.

1961 - Mercury-Atlas 5 is launched with Enos the chimp aboard. The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico. The monkey wasn’t impressed.

1963 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

1963 - Trans-Canada Airlines (now Air Canada) Flight 831, a DC-8, crashes into a hillside soon after take-off from Montreal’s Dorval airport. All 118 aboard are killed. To this date the “831” flight designation has never been used again by Air Canada. (We still remember, Jackie.)

1965 - Canadian Satellite Alouette 2 is launched.

1967 - US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.

1975 - The name "Micro-soft", for microcomputer software, is used by Bill Gates in a letter to Paul Allen for the first time.

1981 - Off Santa Catalina Island, 43-year old actress Natalie Wood drowns in a boating accident.

1982 - Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: The United Nations General Assembly passes United Nations Resolution 37/37, stating that the Soviet Union forces should withdraw from Afghanistan.

1987 - A Korean Air Boeing 707 explodes over the Thai-Burmese border killing all 155 aboard.

1990 - Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council passed UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

1992 - Dennis Byrd of the New York Jets is paralyzed by a neck injury during a football game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

November 30th

1782 - American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles later formalized in the Treaty of Paris (1783).


1803 - At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo, officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat 20 days later France transferred the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1804 - The Jeffersonian Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against, Federalist partisan, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. Charged with political bias he was acquitted by the Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805.

1853 – In the naval “Battle of Sinope” in the Crimean War the Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.

1864 - The Battle of Franklin - The Army of Tennessee led by General John Bell Hood mounts a dramatically unsuccessful frontal assault on Union positions around Franklin, Tennessee. Hood lost six generals and almost a third of his troops.

1872 – The first ever international football (soccer) match takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland.

1886 - Folies Bergère stages its first revue.

1902 - Kid Curry Logan, second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, is sentenced to 20 years hard labor.

1916 - The Hellenic Holocaust enters its last phase, when Turkish Minister of the Interior Rafet Bey is reported saying, "We must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians."

1936 - In London the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire. It had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

1939 – The Winter War begins. Soviet forces invade Finland and reach the Mannerheim Line, starting the war.

1940 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are married in Greenwich, Connecticut.

1943 - At the Teheran Conference US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin establish an agreement concerning a planned June 1944 invasion of Europe codenamed Operation Overlord.

1954 - In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio, giving her a bad bruise. This is the only unequivocally known case of a human being hit by a space rock.

1960 - Production of the Chrysler De Soto ceases.

1962 - The United Nations General Assembly elects U Thant of Burma as the new UN Secretary-General.

1966 - Barbados becomes independent of Great Britain.

1967 - The People's Republic of South Yemen becomes independent of Great Britain.

1972 - White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning American troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000.

1979 - Pink Floyd release the mega-selling rock opera The Wall.

1981 - In Geneva, representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union begin to negotiate intermediate-range nuclear weapon reductions in Europe. The meetings ended inconclusively on December 17.

1982 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher receives a parcel bomb at 10 Downing Street.

1988 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for US$25.07 billion.

1989 - Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.

1989 - Richard Mallory of Palm Harbor, Florida takes a ride with Aileen Wuornos before becoming the female serial killer's first victim.

1993 - US President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law.

1998 - Deutsche Bank announces a $10 billion deal to buy Bankers Trust, creating the largest financial institution in the world.

1999 - In Seattle, Washington, the first major mobilization, in the United States, of the anti-globalization movement catches police unprepared and forces the cancellation of opening ceremonies of a World Trade Organization meeting. Protests, along with rioting and looting) ended on December 3.

1999 - British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merged to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

December 1st


1640 - Portugal regains its independence from Spain and João IV of Portugal becomes king.

1822 - Peter I is crowned as Emperor of Brazil.

1824 - Since no presidential candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task to decide the winner as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1835 - Hans Christian Andersen publishes first book of fairy tales

1884 - American Old West - Near Frisco, New Mexico (now Reserve, New Mexico), deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy. The cowboys were terrorizing the area's Hispanos and Baca was working against them.

1885 - Although the exact date is unknown, the US Patent Office acknowledges December 1st, 1885 as the first day Dr Pepper was served.

1913 - Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line, reducing chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours and 40 minutes. Although Ford was not the first to use an assembly line, his successful adoption of the efficient method sparked an era of mass production.

1918 - Iceland becomes a self-governing kingdom, yet remains united with Denmark.

1918 - Transylvania unites with Romania, following the March 27 incorporation of Bessarabia and Bucovina.

1918 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is proclaimed.

1919 - Lady Astor becomes first female member of the British Parliament to take her seat. She had been elected to that position on November 28.

1925 - The Locarno Treaties - The final Locarno Pact is signed in London, establishing post-World War I territorial settlements in return for normalizing relations with defeated Germany.

1934 - In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolayev. His murder was ordered by Joseph Stalin.

1941 - Former mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia, and the director of the Office of Civilian Defense, sign an order creating the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) as the civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. In April 1943 the CAP was placed under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Force.

1944 - Edward Stettinius Jr. becomes the last United States Secretary of State of the Roosevelt administration, by filling the seat left by the Cordell Hull.

1952 - The New York Daily News carries a front page story announcing that Christine Jorgensen, a transsexual woman in Denmark became the recipient of the first successful sexual reassignment operation.

1955 - In Montgomery, Alabama, black seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws. Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr. later led the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott as a result.

1958 - The Central African Republic becomes independent from France.

1959 - Antarctic Treaty signed - 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent. This was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War.

1963 - Nagaland becomes the 16th state of India

1964 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam. After some debate, they agreed to enact a two-phase bombing plan.

1965 - The Border Security Force is formed in India as a special force to guard the borders.

1969 - The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II. On January 4, 1970, the New York Times would run the story, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random".

1971 - Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify their assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray, 10 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh.

1973 – With the Aussie’s blessings Papua New Guinea is granted its independence from Australia.

1974 - A Boeing 727 carrying TWA Flight 514 crashes 25 miles northwest of Dulles International Airport during bad weather, killing all 92 people on-board.

1975 - The long-running soap opera The Edge of Night switches networks, and starts airing new installments on the ABC network after 19 years on CBS.

1981 - A Yugoslavian DC-9 crashes into a mountain while approaching Ajaccio Airport in Corsica killing 178. (Now just how in hell you could ever cram 178 people into a DC-9 is beyond me but…!)

1987 - NASA announces the names of four companies who were awarded contracts to help build the International Space Station: Boeing Aerospace, General Electric's Astro-Space Division, McDonnell Douglas, and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell.

1989 - East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state. Egon Krenz, the Politburo and the Central Committee resigned two days later.

1990 - Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 meters beneath the seabed of the English Channel, establishing the first ground connection between the island of Great Britain and the mainland of Europe since the last ice age.

1991 - Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.

1998 - Exxon announces a $73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil, this created Exxon-Mobil, the largest company on the planet.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

December 2nd


1409 - The University of Leipzig opened.

1755 - The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire.

1804 - At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned as the first Emperor of France in a thousand years.

1805 – The Battle of Austerlitz - French troops under Napoleon destroy a joint Russo-Austrian army.

1823 - US President James Monroe delivers a speech to the United States Congress, announcing a new policy of forbidding European interference in the Americas and establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. This would later be called the Monroe Doctrine.

1845 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

1848 - Franz Josef I becomes Emperor of Austria.

1851 – Newly elected French President Charles Louis Bonaparte violently overthrows the Second Republic.

1852 - Napoleon III becomes Emperor of France.

1859 - Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper's Ferry.

1867 - In a New York City theater, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.

1899 - Philippine-American War: The Battle of Tirad Pass, termed "The Filipino Thermopylae", is fought.

1915 - Albert Einstein publishes the general theory of relativity.

1927 - Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.

1930 – The Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a $150,000,000 public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

1939 - La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City.

1942 - Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction A coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" was then sent to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1954 - The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censor Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

1961 - In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism. (What a surprise that was!)

1962 - After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to not make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

1970 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

1971 - The United Arab Emirates is formed.

1972 - Gough Whitlam becomes the first Australian Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years. He is famously sworn in on the election night and his first action using executive power is to withdraw all Australian personnel from the Vietnam War.

1975 - The communist Pathet Lao seizes power from the constitutional monarchy in the Kingdom of Laos, and establishes the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

1982 - At the University of Utah, 61-year-old retired dentist Barney Clark, becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (he lived for 112 days with the device).

1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state.

1990 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932.

1993 - Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

1993 - Space Shuttle program: STS-61 - NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.

1999 – Great Britain devolves political power in Northern Ireland to a the Northern Ireland Executive.

2000 - The Smashing Pumpkins play their final gig at The Metro in Chicago, Illinois before permanently disbanding.

2001 - Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after Dynegy canceled an $8.4 billion buyout bid. This is still the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States.

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

December 3rd



1818 - Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state

1828 - Challenger Andrew Jackson beats incumbent John Quincy Adams and is elected 7th President of the United States.

1854 – The Eureka Stockade: 23 goldminers at Ballarat, Australia were killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licenses. This is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy.

1901 - US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

1904 - The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory.

1912 - First Balkan War ends - Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the two-month long war.

1917 - After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic. The bridge partially collapsed on September 11, 1916.

1928 - In Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane sank near Cap Arcona with a group of people paying homage to Alberto Santos-Dumont on board.

1929 - US President Herbert Hoover announces to Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash are behind the nation and the American people have regained faith in the economy.

1937 - The Dandy, the world's longest running comic, was first published.

1944 - Civil war breaks out in a newly liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.

1947 - Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway.

1953 - The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and Republic of China is signed in Washington, DC.

1964 - Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and massive sit-in at the administration building protesting the UC Regents' decision to forbid Vietnam War protests on UC property.

1967 - At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa 53-year-old Louis Washkansky becomes the first human to receive a heart transplant, but dies 18 days later from double pneumonia. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.

1967 - The luxury train 20th Century Limited completes its last run from New York City to Chicago, Illinois The train was inaugurated on June 15, 1902.

1970 – The October Crisis: In Montreal, Quebec kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released by the Front de Libération du Québec terrorist group after being held hostage for 60 days. Police negotiate his release and in return the Government of Canada grants five terrorists from the FLQ's Chenier Cell their request for safe passage to Cuba.

1973 - Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

1976 - Patrick Hillery becomes the sixth President of Ireland.

1979 - In Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert kills eleven fans. Band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show.

1982 - A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri that would be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.

1984 - Bhopal Disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures up to 600,000 others. 6,000 more would later die from their injuries in the worst industrial disaster in history.

1989 - Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, US President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end. Some commentators from both nations exaggerated the wording and independently declared the Cold War over.

1990 - At Detroit Metropolitan Airport Northwest Airlines flight 1482 (DC-9) collides with Northwest Airlines Flight 299 (Boeing 727) on the runway. Miraculously only 8 passengers and 4 crewmembers aboard flight 1482 were killed. (Crashing into a 727 with a DC-9 is akin to crashing into a 3-ton truck with a Geo Metro.)

1992 - UN Security Council Resolution 794 is unanimously passed. It approves a coalition of United Nations peacekeepers, led by the United States, to form UNITAF. UNITAF is tasked with ensuring humanitarian aid gets distributed and peace is established in Somalia. The mission fails miserably.

1992 - The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while on approach to La Coruña, Spain. The resulting huge oil spill devastates the surrounding beaches and waters.

1997 - In Ottawa, Canada representatives from 121 countries sign a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty. (No comment fit for print.)

1999 - After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 miles, Tori Murden becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reaches Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

1999 - NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

December 4th


771 - Austrasian King Carloman dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frank kingdom.

1110 - First Crusade: The Crusaders conquer Sidon.

1563 - The final session of the Council of Trent is held (it opened on December 13, 1545).

1619 - Thirty-eight colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God (this is considered to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

1674 - Father Jacques Marquette founds a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illinois Indians (the mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois).

1783 - At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, US General George Washington formally bids his officers farewell.

1791 - The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.

1829 - In the face of fierce opposition, British Lord William Bentinck carries a regulation declaring that all who abetted suttee in India were guilty of culpable homicide.

1864 - Sherman's March to the Sea - At Waynesboro, Georgia forces under Union General Judson Kilpatrick prevent Confederate troops from interfering with General Sherman’s campaign of carving a wide destructive swath through the South on his march to the Gulf of Mexico.

1867 - Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known today as the Grange Movement.

1872 - The crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for 9 days yet was only slightly damaged.

1875 - Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Cuba, then Spain.

1918 - US President Woodrow Wilson sails to Versailles for the World War I peace talks, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921 - The Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against actor and film director Roscoe Arbuckle ends in a hung jury.

1942 - Holocaust: In Warsaw, two Christian women, Zofia Kossak and Wanda Filipowicz risk their lives by setting up the Council for the Assistance of the Jews.

1943 - World War II: In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in-exile.

1943 -With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II related employment, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the Works Progress Administration.

1945 - By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations. The UN was established on October 24, 1945.

1952 - Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descends on London. Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" becomes a word.

1958 - Dahomey (present-day Benin) becomes a self-governing country within the French Community.

1967 - US and South Vietnamese forces engage Viet Cong troops in the Mekong Delta. 235 of the 300-strong Viet Cong battalion were killed.

1969 - Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot to death in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.

1977 - Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire.

1977 - A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737 is hijacked and then blown up in mid-air over the Straits of Johore, killing 100.

1978 - Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein becomes San Francisco, California's first woman mayor. She served until January 8, 1988.

1981 - South Africa grants "homeland" Ciskei independence. It is not recognized outside South Africa.

1982 - The People's Republic of China adopts its current constitution.

1991 - Journalist Terry Anderson is released after a seven years' captivity as a hostage in Beirut. He was the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.

1991 - US airline Pan Am ends operations.

1992 - President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 US troops to Somalia.

1993 - A truce is concluded between the government of Angola and UNITA rebels

December 5th


1484 - Pope Innocent VIII writes a Papal Bull that sets the inquisition into full swing and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people accused of being witches.

1492 - Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

1560 – France’s King Francis II dies and is succeeded by Charles IX. (Show of hands; anyone who gives a fiddler’s…!)

1766 - In London, James Christie holds his first auction. He later founded Christie's, the world's oldest auction house.

1776 - At the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Phi Beta Kappa is founded as the first scholastic fraternity in the United States.

1791 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies, impoverished, in Vienna, Austria at age 35.

1831 - Former US President John Quincy Adams takes a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

1839 - George Armstrong Custer was born.

1848 - The California gold rush: In a message before the United States Congress, US President James Knox Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.

1873 - In Boston, Massachusetts, Warren Avenue Baptist Church sexton Thomas Piper strangles and beats to death his first victim, Bridget Landregan. The press soon dubbed the then unknown serial killer "The Boston Belfry Murderer".

1926 - Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin," debuts.

1932 - German physicist Albert Einstein is granted a visa to enter the United States.

1933 - Prohibition ends. Utah becomes the 36th state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thereby establishing the required 3/4th of states needed to enact the amendment. This overturned the 18th Amendment which had outlawed alcohol in the US.

1934 - Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Ethiopia. It took four days for the Italians to capture the city in spite of the fact that it was undefended and virtually unarmed.

1936 - The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution. (Oh! That’ll make things better under Uncle Joe!)

1941 - John Steinbeck's nonfiction book Sea of Cortez is published. Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character “Doc” in Cannery Row.

1945 - Flight 19, a United States Navy training flight was lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

1952 - The Abbott and Costello Show starring comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, debuts.

1955 - The trade unions American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL-CIO.

1964 - For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon of Saugerties, New York is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War.

1974 - The final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on the BBC.

1978 - The Soviet Union signs a 'friendship treaty' with the communist government of Afghanistan.

1979 - Sonia Johnson is formally excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for her outspoken criticism of the church concerning the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

1992 - Kent Conrad of North Dakota resigns his seat in the United States Senate and is sworn into the other seat from North Dakota, becoming the only US Senator ever to have held two seats on the same day.

2003 - Johannes Heesters, the world's oldest living actor, turns 100.

December 6th



1534 – The Spanish found the city of Quito, in Ecuador.

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.

1790 - United States Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

1877 - First publication of the Washington Post.

1884 – The Washington Monument is completed.

1917 - Finland declares its independence from Russia.

1917 – The Halifax harbor explosion kills more than 1900 people and destroys a good part of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia when two freighters collide. One was carry a large cargo of war munitions.

1921 - The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London by British and Irish representatives.

1922 - One year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty the Irish Free State comes into existence.

1933 - Federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that the James Joyce novel Ulysses is not obscene.

1947 – US President Harry S Truman dedicates the Everglades National Park in Florida.

1957 - Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion thwarts the United States first attempt to launch a satellite.

1969 – The Rolling Stones “Altamont Disaster” rock festival takes place in Northern California. Marred by violence 4 people die, including a black youth beaten to death by the Hell’s Angels who were hired as site security by the Stones.

1972 - Launch of the last manned Saturn V, carrying the Apollo 17 astronauts on the final manned lunar landing mission.

1977 - South Africa grants independence to Bophuthatswana. It is not recognized by any other country.

1978 - Spain approves its current constitution in a referendum.

1988 – Music legend Roy Orbison dies of a heart attack.

1989 - The École Polytechnique Massacre: a man carrying a semi-automatic assault rifle kills 14 young women on a Montreal, Quebec campus.

1992 - In Ayodhya, India, right-wing Hindus belonging to the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and allied organizations demolish the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque which they claim was built upon the birth place of Lord Rama.

1997 - A Russian Antonov AN-124 transport cargo plane crashes into an apartment complex near Irkutsk, Siberia, killing 67 people.

1999 - Digitally Imported, one of the largest internet radio stations dedicated to electronic dance music, is created by Ari Shohat.

December 7th

1732 - The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, in London.

1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1808 - James Madison is elected US President.

1815 - Michel Ney, Marshal of France, is executed by firing squad, after been convicted of treason by the Bourbon Restoration government of Louis XVIII for his support of Napoleon Bonaparte during the Hundred Days.


1817 � Death of William Bligh, The British naval officer who lost HMS Bounty to mutineers on May 28th, 1788.

1836 � Martin Van Buren is elected the 8th President of the United States.

1842 � The New York Philharmonic performs its first concert.

1862 - The Battle of Hartsville, in Tennesse.

1868 � The James gang kills an innocent man while robing a bank in Gallatin Missouri.

1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the gramophone.

1889 - Gilbert & Sullivans "Gondoliers," premieres in London.

1895 - The Battle at Amba Alagi is fought. Abyssinian forces defeat the Italian armies.

1907 - Eugene Corri becomes the first referee in a professional boxing match.

1909 - Leo Bakeland of Yonkers, New York patents Bakelite. It is the first thermosetting plastic.

1912 � A bust of Queen Nefertete is discovered at El-Amarna, Egypt.

1915 � Eli Wallach is born. Best known for his portrayal of the character �Tuco� in the western film classic �The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly�.

1916 - David Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister of Britain.

1917 � The United States becomes 13th country to declare war on Austria during World War I.

1925 - Noel Coward's "Easy Virtue," premieres in New York.

1925 � The Biltmore Theater opens at 261 W. 47th St. in New York.

1926 � Gas refrigeration is patented.

1932 � The first gyro-stabilized vessel to cross the Atlantic arrives in New York harbor.

1934 - Wiley Post discovers the jet stream.

1937 - Dutch Minister Romme proclaims that for the stability of the nation married women are forbidden to work outside of the home.

1938 - Philip Barry's "Here Come the Clowns," premieres in New York.

1939 � At age 36, Lou Gehrig is elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame.

Sunday, December 7th 1941 - Pearl Harbor. No further comment necessary.

1943 - President Roosevelt returns to the US from the Cairo Conference.

1945 � The microwave oven is patented.

1946 � A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia leaves 119 dead.

1949 � The Chinese Revolution: Chiang Kai Shek and the governing Kuomintang regime are forced to flee from Nanking to the island of Formosa. (Taiwan)

1965 - Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
1972 - Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, leaves earth�s orbit and sets course for the moon.

1975 - Indonesian forces begin a bloody invasion of East Timor.

1982 � The first US execution by lethal injection is carried out.

1988 - In Armenia an earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale kills nearly 25.000, injures 15.000 and leaves over 400,000 persons homeless.

1989 - In the third and final installment of their historic boxing trilogy, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran fight in Las Vegas; Leonard retains the WBC Super Middleweight championship of the world with a 12 round decision.

1993 - South Africa transitional executive council is established.

December 8th


1997 – The 8th Billboard Music Awards: LeAnn Rimes and the Spice Girls win big.

1994 – Baseball great Darryl Strawberry is indicted on tax evasion charges.

1994 – A fire at a cinema in Karamay China, kills 310.

1993 – The Dow-Jones industrial average reaches a record 3734.53.

1993 – A fierce early winter storm hits West Europe, in England 11 are killed.

1992 – At a distance of only 181 miles (303 km), NASA’s space probe “Galileo” makes its nearest approach to Jupiter.

1993 - NBC announces that this will be "Cheers" final season. (Off air in May, 1993)

1991 - Russia, Belorussia and the Ukraine form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1987 - Palestinians begin the "intefadeh" (uprising) against the occupying Israelis.

1987 – US President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev sign a treaty eliminating medium range nuclear missiles.

1986 - House Democrats select majority leader Jim Wright as 48th speaker.

1984 – Europe and 64 developing countries sign the Lome III treaty.

1982 - Suriname army leader Bouterse murders 15 of his opponents.

1982 - Demanding an end to nuclear weapons, Norman Mayer holds the Washington Monument hostage. After 10 hours police kill him, he had no explosives.

1980 - "Bravo" network premieres on cable TV.

1977 - Portugal's premier Soares resigns.

1976 - The United Nations General Assembly re-elects Kurt Waldheim as Secretary General.

1974 – The Greek monarchy is rejected by referendum.

1974 - The Irish Republican Socialist Party forms.

1974 - Soyuz 16 returns safely to Earth.

1969 - A Greek DC-6 crashes in a storm at Athens killing 93.

1969 – With attention still diverted by the Tate-LaBianca murders, police mount a surprise attack on the Black Panthers in Los Angeles.

1967 – The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" album is released in the UK.

1966 – The USSR and US sign a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons in space.

1965 - Pope Paul VI signs Vatican II.

1963 - "The Girl Who Came to Supper" opens at the Broadway Theater in New York.

1963 – Three fuel tanks explode when a jetliner is struck by lightning, crashing near Elkton, Maryland. 81 die in this, the only recorded case of a lightning caused crash.

1962 – A 114-day newspaper strike begins in New York.

1962 – The funeral for Queen Wilhelmina of Holland.

1960 – Baseball’s expansion team, the Los Angeles Angels sign a four year lease to use Dodger Stadium.

1959 - Dom Mintoff demands independence for Malta.

1956 - Guy Mitchell's "Singing the Blues," single goes to #1 on the charts for 10 weeks.

1952 - French troops open fire on peaceful demonstrators in Casablanca, 50 die.

1952 - Isaak BenZwi is elected President of Israel.

1949 - Jule Styne's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," opens at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York.

1948 - Jordan annexes Arabic Palestine.

1946 - The XS-1, the US Army Airforce’s rocket plane, makes its first powered flight.

1943 - John Van Druten's "Voice of the Turtle," premieres in New York.

1941 – In London, The Dutch government in exile declares war on Japan.

1941 - The Soviet Counterattack: The Russian 16th army recaptures Krijukovo from the Germans.

1941 – San Francisco has its first major blackout, at 6:15 PM.

1941 – The US and Britain declare war on Japan.

1938 – The highest temperature ever for December in the US, 100°F (37.7°C), is recorded in La Mesa, California.

1936 - Anastasio Somoza is elected President of Nicaragua.

1936 – The NAACP files suit to equalize salaries of black & white teachers.

1934 - Friedrich Wolf's "Professor Mamlock," premieres in Zurich.

1930 – The Broadway Theater opens at 1681 Broadway, New York.

1930 - Cole Porter's musical "NYCers," premieres in New York.

1923 - The German - US friendship treaty is signed.

1923 – During the German hyperinflation: A salary and price freeze is imposed in Germany, it fails.

1921 - Eamon de Valera publicly repudiates Anglo-Irish Treaty.

1914 – The Battle of the Falkland Islands, between Britain and Germany, ends in a British victory. In avenging the British mauling at “The Battle of Colonel” (Nov 1, 1914) the German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig are all sunk by gunfire from the British force.

1914 - Irving Berlin's musical "Watch your Step," premieres in New York.

1913 - Construction starts on Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

1909 – The Bird Banding Society is formed. (Ya’ do damned good work, too!)

1902 - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. becomes an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court.

1895 – The Battle at Amba Alagi: Ethiopian emperor Menelik II’s forces drive out the Italian army under Generalissimo Baratieri.

1886 – The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is formed by 26 craft unions. Samuel Gompers is elected the first president.

1881 - Vienna's Ring Theater is destroyed by fire during a performance, 850 die in the blaze.

1880 - 5,000 armed Boers gather in Paardekraal, South Africa to rally against British policies.

1874 – The James gang pulls a train heist at Muncie Kansas.

1869 - The 20th Roman Catholic ecumenical council, Vatican I, opens in Rome.

1864 - Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Clifton Suspension bridge over the River Avon at Bristol, was opened.

1863 – The Jesuit Church of La Compana, in Santiago Chile catches fire during services, over 2500 parishioners die in the ensuing panic.

1863 – President Lincoln offers amnesty for confederate deserters.

1857 – The first production of Dion Boucicaults "Poor of New York".

1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the Immaculate Conception, which makes Mary free of Original Sin.

1849 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Luisa Miller," premieres in Naples.

1813 - Ludwig von Beethoven premieres his 7th Symphony in A.

1794 –The first issue of The Herald of Rutland, (Vermont) is published.

1777 – Capt. Cook sails from the Society Islands.

1776 - George Washington's retreating army crosses the Delaware River from New Jersey.