December 29th

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)

~1170 – Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II. He subsequently became a saint and martyr in both the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

~1675 - The English Parliament ordered all coffee houses to be closed, believing they originated malicious rumours about the government. (Which they probably did.)

~1778 - 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.

~1800 - Born this day: Charles Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber for tires.

~1812 – After a battle lasting more than 3 hours, the USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge captured the British warship HMS Java off the coast of Brazil.

~1837 - A steam powered threshing machine was patented, in Winthrop, Maine.

~1845 – Texas was admitted as the 28th state of the Union.

~1848 - US President James Polk turned on the first gas light at the White House.

~1852 - Emma Snodgrass was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts for wearing pants.

~1860 – HMS Warrior, the first British seagoing iron clad warship was launched.

~1862 - Union General William T. Sherman's troops tried to gain the north side of Vicksburg with a full frontal charge at the Battle of Chicksaw Bayou. They failed miserably in the face of heavy rebel fire.

~1872 - The first successful firing of the Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon took place. It fired over 1,000 rounds without a misfire.

~1876 – The Ashtabula River Railroad Bridge Disaster occurred. A rail bridge collapsed leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.

~1885 - Gottlieb Daimler patented the first bike (Germany).

~1890 – US soldiers of the 7th Cavalry killed 146 mostly Lakota men, women, and children at the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota.

~1890 - Died this day: Big Foot, Sioux Indian chief, at Wounded Knee.

~1908 - A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, in Clintonville Wisconsin.

~1911 – Sun Yat-sen became the provisional President of the Republic of China.

~1911 – Mongolia declared its independence from the Qing dynasty.

~1924 - J.M. Barrie's fanciful tale about a boy who didn't want to grow up was released on film for the first time in the silent movie Peter Pan.

~1934 – Japan renounced the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 which limited naval armaments. (And nobody was overly concerned about this?)

~1937 - The Irish Free State was replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution.

~1939 - The Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber took to the air on its maiden flight.

~1940 - In The Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe dropped over 10,000 (mostly incendiary) bombs on London in one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Eight Wren churches and the Guildhall were destroyed and over 200 civilians died.

~1952 - The first transistorized hearing aid was offered for sale by Sonotone Corporation. It went on sale in Elmsford, New York.

~1972 - Eastern Airlines Flt. 401, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, crashed near the Florida Everglades killing 101.

~1973 - Time in a Bottle, recorded by the late Jim Croce, jumped into the No.1 spot on Billboard's record charts on this date, and stayed there for 2 weeks. Croce had died in a plane crash three months earlier and was never to realise the success of his now classic recording.

~1975 - 11 people were killed and 74 more injured when a terrorist bomb exploded at LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

~1989 – Riots broke out after Hong Kong decided to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.

~1989 – Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He became the first non-Communist to attain the post in more than 4 decades.

~1992 – Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, resigned his term in office just before the Brazilian Senate was to vote for his impeachment. The Senate did so anyway and suspended his political rights for eight years.

~1996 – Guatemala and leaders of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union signed a peace accord that ended a 36 year civil war.

~1997 – Hong Kong began to kill all the nation's 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain (Bird Flu).

~2003 - The last known speaker of Akkala Sami, Marja Sergina, died rendering the language extinct.

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

December 30th

By LaJuliette


~1066 – The Granada Massacre: A Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city.

~1460 – The Battle of Wakefield took place in West Yorkshire during the Wars of the Roses. The Lancastrians won a decisive victory and Richard, Duke of York (the rival claimant to the throne of England) was himself killed in the battle.

~1816 – A treaty was proclaimed between the United States and representatives of the Council of Three Fires (united tribes of Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi) residing on the Illinois and Milwaukee rivers. The tribes, their chiefs and warriors relinquished all right, claim, and title to land previously ceded to the United States by the Sac and Fox tribes on November 3, 1804. The the united tribes also ceded a 20 mile strip of land to the United States, which connected Chicago and Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. In 1848, the Illinois and Michigan Canal was built on the ceded land and, in 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

~1861 - Banks in the United States suspended the practice of redeeming paper money for metal currency, a practice that would continue until 1879. (Yeah...and lotsa luck trying to trade in paper currency for gold or silver at face value in any US bank today!)

~1862 – 16 crew were lost when the ironclad Union ship USS Monitor sank off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, during a storm while in tow by the side-wheel steamer USS Rhode Island.

~1862 - The final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was finished and circulated among President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet for comment.

~1865 - Born this day: Rudyard Kipling, one of the greatest novelists of all time, a short story author, poet and Nobel Prize winner for Literature [1907]. He was born in India where some of his best novels and short stories were set. (d. 1936)

~1873 - The American Metrological Society, the first organization to improve the system of weights and measures, was formed.

~1896 – Philippine Nationalist José Rizal was executed by a firing squad in Manila after Spanish authorities convicted him of rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy.

~1897 – In South Africa Natal annexed Zululand.

~1903 – The Iroquois Theatre Fire occurred in Chicago, Illinois. It is the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in United States history. A total of 602 people died as a result of the blaze and the ensuing public outrage led to new theatre safety codes being implemented across America. These new codes were soon copied by Britain, Canada and many other countries worldwide.

~1905 – Former Governor Frank Steunenberg was assassinated. He was killed outside his house in Caldwell, Idaho by a bomb rigged to his front gate.

~1906 – The All India Muslim League was founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan.

~1916 – The last coronation in Hungary was performed for King Charles IV and Queen Zita.

~1919 – In London, Lincoln's Inn admitted its first female bar student.

~1922 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established through the confederation of Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation.

~1927 – The Ginza Line, the first subway line in Asia, opened in Tokyo, Japan.

~1936 – The United Auto Workers' sit-down strike, which had began the day before, got into full swing in Flint, Michigan. The strike would last until February, 1937.

~1940 – California opened its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.

~1942 - Frank Sinatra opened at New York’s Paramount Theatre for what was scheduled to be a 4-week engagement (his shows turned out to be so popular, he was booked for an additional 4 weeks). An estimated 400 policemen were called out to help curb the excitement. It is said that some of the teenage girls were hired to scream, but many more screamed for free. Sinatra was dubbed 'The Sultan of Swoon', 'The Voice that Thrills Millions', and just 'The Voice'. Whatever he was, it was at this Paramount Theatre engagement that modern pop hysteria was born.

~1943 – Subhas Chandra Bose raises the flag of Indian independence at Port Blair. (Verification on this one is a bit sketchy with only 2 sources mentioning it in passing.)

~1947 – King Michael of Romania was forced to abdicate by the Soviet backed Communist government of Romania.

~1948 – The Cole Porter Broadway musical, Kiss Me, Kate, opened at the New Century Theatre and ran for 1,077 performances. It went on to become the first show to win the Best Musical Tony Award.

~1953 – RCA introduced the first ever (NTSC) color television sets. They went on sale for about $1,175 US each. (A huge sum of money in '53 when the average wage was only $3,139 per year.)

~1963 - The game show Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall, premiered.

~1965 – Ferdinand Marcos became President of the Philippines. (By all accounts one of the 20th century's greatest DINKS!)

~1972 - After 2 weeks of heavy bombing raids, President Nixon ordered a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and announced that peace talks with the Hanoi government would resume in Paris in January.

~1977 – For the second time, Ted Bundy escaped from his cell in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

~1980 - NBC announced that The Wonderful World of Disney, the longest-running series in prime-time television history, was going to be axed after more than 25 years on television.

~1980 - The Selective Service System sent a warning to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland in Anaheim, California: Register for the draft or else! The Selective Service said that Mickey was in violation of registration compliance. Of course, Mickey, age 52 at the time, sent in his registration card proving that he was a World War II veteran.

~1981 – In the 39th game of his 3rd NHL season Wayne Gretzky scored 5 goals giving him 50 on the year. This set a new NHL record that was previously held by Maurice Richard and Mike Bossy who had each scored 50 goals in 50 games years earlier.

~1986 - Exxon Corporation became the first major international oil company to withdraw from South Africa because of that nation's racial policies. (One of the few times I've been impressed with Exxon/ExxonMobil.)

~1988 - US President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George Bush were subpoenaed to testify at the trial of former White House aide Oliver North on criminal charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair.

~1992 - Ling-Ling, the giant female panda who delighted visitors to Washington's National Zoo for more than two decades, died of heart failure.

~1995 - North Korea released a US Army pilot whose helicopter had been shot down 13 days earlier over North Korean territory.

~1995 - Tens of thousands of cheering Palestinians greeted PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah in the West Bank after Israeli troops withdrew from the city.

~1995 - Hundreds of people, many weeping with joy, lined the streets of Gorazde in eastern Bosnia to welcome the first passenger bus into the Muslim enclave for over three years.

~1996 – In the Indian state of Assam, a passenger train was bombed by Bodo separatists, killing 26.

~1996 – Proposed budget cuts by Benjamin Netanyahu sparked protests from 250,000 workers who shut down services across Israel.

~1997 – In the worst incident in Algeria's insurgency, the Wilaya of Relizane Massacres took place. 400 people were killed from 4 villages.

~2000 – Rizal Day Bombings: A series of bombs exploded in various locations throughout Metro Manila, Philippines within a period of a few hours. 22 people were killed and over 100 injured.

~2002 - Diana Ross was arrested for driving under the influence in Tucson, Arizona.

~2003 – U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and his office from the Plame Affair.

~2004 – A fire in the República Cromagnon nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina killed 194.

~2005 – Tropical Storm Zeta formed over the open Atlantic, tying the record for the latest tropical cyclone ever to form in the North Atlantic basin.

~2006 – Madrid Barajas International Airport was bombed.

~2006 – The deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein, convicted of the murders of 148 Iraqi Shiites, was executed by hanging.

...

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

December 31st

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)


~406 – A combined force of Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed the Rhine river, beginning the invasion of Gaul.

~535 – Byzantine forces under the command of General Belisarius completed the conquest of Sicily by defeating the Ostrogothic garrison of Syracuse. (Some sources show this as occuring in late November 535.)

~1229 – The army of James I of Aragon the Conqueror entered Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) concluding the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.

~1600 – The British East India Company received its charter.

~1687 – The first organized group of Huguenots set sail from Holland to the Dutch East India Company post at the Cape of Good Hope.

~1695 – A Window Tax was imposed in England. This caused many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid paying the tax.

~1759 – Arthur Guinness signed a (up to) 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin. Guiness is still brewed there to this day.

~1775 – The 6th Battle of Quebec: British forces repulsed an attack by Continental Army troops under General Richard Montgomery.

~1853 – A New Year's dinner party was held inside an unfinished life size model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen at the Crystal Palace in south London.

~1857 – Queen Victoria was asked to choose a common capital for the Province of Canada (modern day Ontario and Quebec) and chose Ottawa.

~1862 – Abraham Lincoln signed an enabling act that would admit West Virginia to the Union, thereby dividing Virginia in two.

~1862 - The ironclad warship USS Monitor sank in heavy seas off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina while under tow by the side-wheeler steamer USS Rhode Island. 16 seamen were lost in the mishap.

~1862 – Union forces commanded by Gen. William S. Rosecrans won a decisive victory over a Confederate army under Gen. braxton Braggat the Battle of Stones River, fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

~1879 – Thomas A. Edison delighted an audience in Menlo Park, New Jersey when he gave his first public demonstration of incandescent lighting.

~1904 – The first New Year's Eve celebration to be held at Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York City took place.

~1909 – The Manhattan Bridge opened.

~1923 – The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.

~1946 – President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II. (A little slow in figuring that one out, were you, Harry?)

~1951 – The Marshall Plan expired but not until after distributing more than $13.3 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe following the Second World War.

~1955 – General Motors became the first US corporation to earn more than one billion dollars in a single year. The company’s annual report to stockholders listed a net income of $1,189,477,082 in revenues.

~1960 – Originally minted as early as 1216, the farthing coin ceased to be legal tender in the United Kingdom after a run of at least 744 years.

~1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapsed and split into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.

~1967 - Playing in a wind chill of -40 degrees, Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers won the National Football League championship game by defeating Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys, 21-17. The game, played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin is often referred to as the Ice Bowl. During the game the whistles of the referees actually froze to their lips. It turned out to be the coldest championship game ever.

~1972 - Dick Clark's first Rockin' New Years Eve aired on ABC, starring Three Dog Night, Al Green and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

~1972 - Baseball great Roberto Clemente was killed in a plane crash near San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was accompanying supplies being flown to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. He was 38 years old.

~1975 - Elvis Presley performed before 60,000 fans at the Silverdome, in Pontiac, Michigan. He earned $800,000 for the concert; a then world record for a single concert by a single artist.

~1981 – A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaced it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.

~1984 - Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen crashed his Corvette Stingray on the A57 outside Sheffield, England. He lost his left arm in the accident.

~1983 – The AT&T Bell System was broken up by the United States Government.

~1985 - Died this day: Ricky Nelson, rock and roll singer and former child star of his parents' 1950's TV family show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, near DeKalb, Texas at the age of 45. Nelson was killed along with his fiancee and 5 others when his chartered DC-3 caught fire and crashed. A faulty cabin heater was eventually determined to be the cause of the blaze.

~1986 – A fire was deliberately set by 3 disgruntled employees of the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico that were in the middle of a labor dispute with the owners of the hotel. In the end, the fire claimed 97 lives and caused 140 injuries.

~1992 – Czechoslovakia was formally dissolved, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

~1997 - Died this day: Michael Kennedy, the 39 year old son of late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.

~1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and established the value of the euro currency.

~1999 – Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

~1999 – Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, left the plane with 2 Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.

~1999 – The United States Government handed control of the Panama Canal and all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

~2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101 took place. The tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, it stands at 509 metres (1,670 ft) high.

~2007 – After 16 years the massive Big Dig construction project in Boston, Massachusetts was finally completed.

...

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

January 1st

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)



0001 - Origin of the Christian Era.

0404 - The last gladiator competition took place in Rome.

1500 - The Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral searched the coast of Brazil and claimed the region for Portugal.

1622 - The Papal Chancery adopted January 1 as the beginning of the year (was Mar 25).

1673 - A regular mail delivery began between New York and Boston.

1735 - Born this day, Paul Revere, Boston silversmith, American nationalist. Died in 1818.

1764 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played for the Royal Family at Versailles in France. He was even given the honour of standing behind the Queen at dinner. Mozart was only eight years old.

1776 - George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag, the first national flag in America after King George III of England called on American forces to surrender.

1797 - Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing New York City.

1818 - The official reopening of the White House was held.

1847 - Michigan became the first state to abolish capital punishment.

1853 - The first practical fire engine (horse-drawn) in the US entered service.

1861 - President Lincoln declared slavery in Confederate states unlawful.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation formally freeing all slaves in the Confederate States.

1876 - The first British trademark was registered for Bass Pale Ale.

1880 - The building of the Panama Canal began.

1886 - The first Tournament of Roses was held in Pasadena, California.

1892 - Ellis Island opened to begin the processing of what would amount to more than 20 million immigrants to the United States. The immigration center was also used as a deportation station, a Coast Guard Station, and a national park and is now a museum. (Or 1891 from another source).

1898 - The consolidation of Greater New York City occurred with the merger of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Before the merger Brooklyn had absorbed Williamsburg, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, and New Lots among other towns. The merger created a city of 3.4 million people. Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island were consolidated into New York City.

1902 - The first Rose Bowl game was held in Pasadena, California. University of Michigan-49, Stanford-0.

1904 - The Netherlands Indies colony began opium production.

1907 - President Theodore Roosevelt shook a record 8,513 hands in just one day.

1908 - Today was the first time a ball, signifying the new year, was dropped at Times Square.

1912 - Sun Yat-sen formed the Chinese Republic.

1918 - The first gasoline pipeline began operation. Along the 40 miles and three inches of pipe from Salt Creek to Casper, Wyoming.

1922 - Vancouver in British Columbia started driving on the right side of road.

1928 - The first US air-conditioned office building opened, in San Antonio.

1934 - Alcatraz officially became a US federal prison.

1937 - At a party at the Hormel Mansion in Minnesota, a guest won $100 for naming a new canned meat, love it or hate it - Spam.

1951 - A massive combined Chinese/North Korean assault took place against United Nations (UN) lines.

1953 - Died this day, country singer Hank Williams, of a heart attack at the age of 29. He made his first record in 1946 and scored 36 top 10 US country hits. His best known being Your Cheatin' Heart. Williams was on his way to a concert engagement in Canton, Ohio, when he quietly died of a heart attack while riding in the back seat of a Cadillac.

    His driver found him dead when he stopped at a gas station in West Virginia. Earlier that day, near Rutledge, Tennessee, the driver was stopped for speeding by a policeman. The officer commented that the person in the back seat looked dead. The driver thought that Williams was sleeping. Williams was only 29 years old when he died. His premature death was brought on by an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Over 20,000 mourners attended his funeral.

1954 - The Rose and Cotton Bowl became the first sport colour broadcast.

1959 - Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after dictator General Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic.

1961 - Largest check issued in the US, was issued by the National Bank of Chicago to Sears ($960.242 billion).

1966 - From this day, all US cigarette packs had to carry "Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health".

1969 - Died this day, Ian Fleming, writer (James Bond), aged 80.

1971 - This was the last day of advertising on radio or TV in America for tobacco and cigarettes. The adverts represented $20 million dollars and were banned from broadcast.

1975 - John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman and John Mitchell were found guilty of obstruction in the Watergate investigation.

1976 - The Liberty Bell moved to a new home behind Independence Hall.

1978 - An Air India B747 jumbo jet exploded in mid-air near Bombay, killing 213.

1980 - A mob stormed the Russian embassy in Teheran.

1985 - VH-1 made its broadcasting debut.

1992 - Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as United Nations (UN) secretary-general.

1993 - Czechoslovakia ceased to exist, when it separated into the Czech Republic (Bohemia) and Slovakia.

1996 - After 27 years, Betty Rubble debuted as a Flintstone vitamin.

January 2nd


366 - Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire.

533 - Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.

1492 - Reconquista: Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrenders.

1757 - British forces capture Calcutta, India.

1788 - Georgia becomes the 4th state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1793 - Russia and Prussia partition Poland.

1815 - Lord Byron marries Anna Isabella Milbanke at Seaham in County Durham. (One of the coolest little towns in the British Isles.)

1818 - The British Institution of Civil Engineers is formed.

1859 - Erastus Beadle publishes “The Dime Book of Practical Etiquette.”

1870 - Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.

1871 - Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.

1872 - Brigham Young is arrested for bigamy, having no less than 25 wives.

1882 - John D. Rockefeller unites his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust.

1890 - Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer for the White House.

1893 - Introduction by Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America: Railroad chronometers.

1900 - John Hay announces the “Open Door Policy” to promote trade with China.

1900 – The Chicago Canal opens.

1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Russian fleet surrenders to the Japanese at Port Arthur, China.

1917 - The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank.

1921 - The first religious radio broadcast on KDKA AM in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1921 - DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco opens.

1923 - U.S. Interior Secretary Albert Fall resigns due to the Teapot Dome scandal.

1929 - Canada and the United States agree on a plan to preserve Niagara Falls.

1935 - Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh.

1941 - WWII: German bombing severely damaged the Llandaff Cathedral, built in 1290 on the bank of the River Taff in Cardiff, Wales.

1942 - World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces.

1942 - The United States Navy opens a blimp base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1946 - Unable to resume his rule over Albania after World War II, King Zog abdicated but retained his claim to the throne.

1949 - Luis Muñoz Marín became the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.

1955 - Panamanian president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated.

1957 – The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge.

1959 - CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Backstage Wife Our Gal Sunday, Road of Life, and This is Nora Drake from its programming.

1967 - Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs the second successful heart transplant.

1971 - 66 die in a stairway crush at a Rangers vs. Celtic football (soccer) match in Glasgow, Scotland.

1974 - Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during the OPEC oil embargo.

1979 - Sid Vicious goes on trial for the murder of Nancy Spungen.

1981 - Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, is arrested.

1983 - The musical Annie is performed for the last time after 2,377 shows at the Uris Theatre on Broadway.

1991 - Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC becoming the first black woman to lead a city of that size and importance.

1992 - Paraguay becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. (Yet another slow news day.)

1993 - Leaders of the three warring factions in Bosnia meet to discuss peace plans.

1998 - Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.

1999 - A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern USA, dumping 14 inches (359mm) of snow at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487mm) at Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C), and 68 deaths are reported.

2002 - Levy Mwanawasa took office as the third President of Zambia.

2004 – The spacecraft “Stardust” successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it will return to Earth in 2006.

January 3rd

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)



1777 - In the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey, George Washington defeated British forces led by British General Lord Charles Cornwallis in the War of Independence.

1793 - Born this day, Lucretia Coffin Mott, US women’s rights activist, one of the founders of the movement, abolitionist, feminist, teacher, minister, antislavery leader.

1847 - Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco. (Another source suggests 30 January).

1870 - The first sods of earth were turned for the Brooklyn Bridge.

1871 - A Binghamton, New York man named Henry W. Bradley patented oleomargarine. It was originally white and was sold in plastic bags with a colour tab inside the bag. You broke the tab and mixed the yellow colour through the oleomargarine.

1888 - Marvin C. Stone of Washington, DC, patented the drinking straw.

1921 - Italy halted the issuing of passports to those emigrating to the United States.

1938 - The March of Dimes was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to fight poliomyelitis (Roosevelt himself was afflicted with polio). The organization was originally called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as the disease was commonly known). The March of Dimes accomplished its mission within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds (those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of volunteers, resulted in the announcement in April 1955 that the Salk polio vaccine was “safe, potent and effective.” The foundation also supported the research that led to the Sabin oral vaccine; another safe, effective polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin.

1956 - Born this day, (Columcille) Mel Gibson, Academy Award-winning director: Braveheart [1995]; actor: Braveheart, Maverick, The Man Without a Face, Lethal Weapon series, Forever Young, Hamlet, Bird on a Wire, Tequila Sunrise, Mad Max series, Mrs. Soffel, The Road Warrior, The Year of Living Dangerously, Summer City, Conspiracy Theory.

1958 - Sir Edmund Hillary, with a New Zealand party, reached the South Pole, the first man to do so overland since Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

1959 - Fidel Castro took command of the Cuban army.

1959 - On this date in 1959, President Eisenhower signed a special proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest state.

1961 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower severed diplomatic ties with Cuba after Fidel Castro announced he was a communist.

1964 - Russia first bought wheat from the US.

1972 - Don McLean received a gold record for his 8-minute-plus hit, American Pie.

1977 - Apple Computer was founded and incorporated.

1978 - North Vietnamese troops reportedly occupied 400 square miles in Cambodia. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for attacks against allied forces.

1980 - Alfred Hitchcock received his knighthood.

1983 - Until the January 1983 issue of Time magazine, Time's 'Man of the Year' had always been a human being. But the 1983 'Man of the Year' issue, released on this day in 1983, gave the honour to the personal computer.

1987 - The first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was Detroit, Michigan's own ‘Lady Soul’: Aretha Franklin. Bill Haley was among the 14 others inducted as well.

1990 - In Panama, deposed leader Manuel Antonio Noriega surrendered to US authorities after spending 10 days under siege in the Vatican embassy following the US invasion. He was whisked to Florida to face narcotics trafficking charges.

1991 - Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was removed from the list of diseases that would automatically bar an infected person from entering the United States.

1993 - US president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Moscow, eliminating about two-thirds of both nations' nuclear stockpiles.

2000 - Peace talks between Israeli and Syrian leaders opened in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

2001 - The 107th US Congress convened for the first time with the Senate equally divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans had a 10-member advantage in the House.

January 4th

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)

1643 - Born this day, Sir Isaac Newton, scientist and discoverer of the laws of gravity.

1790 - US President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.

1809 - Born this day, Louis Braille, French educator who developed a system of printing and writing widely used by the blind and known by his name. He became blind at the age four, from an accident playing with an awl. In 1821, while Braille was at a school for the blind, a soldier named Charles Barbier visited him and 'showed' him a code system he had invented. The system, called 'night writing' had been designed for soldiers in war trenches to allow them silently pass instructions using combinations of twelve raised dots.

The young Braille realised how useful this system of raised dots could be and he developed a simpler scheme using only six dots. In 1827 the first book in braille was published. Now the blind could also write it for themselves using a simple stylus to make the dots. Died 6 January 1852.

1861 - The Confederate States of America were formed, consisting of South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana.

1863 - The four-wheeled roller skate was patented by James Plimpton of New York.

1885 - Dr. William Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed the first successful appendectomy. The operation was performed on Mary Gartside.

1896 - Utah became the 45th US state. Capital - Salt Lake City; bird - seagull; flower - sego lily; nickname - Beehive State.

1940 - John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, came to the screen on this date, in the film version starring Henry Fonda.

1943 - Joseph Stalin was named Time magazine's 'Man Of The Year'.

1950 - RCA Victor announced that it would manufacture long-playing (LP) records. This news came two years after Columbia Records debuted the ‘album’.

1951 - In the Korean War, the North Koreans and Chinese communists captured the Southern capital of Seoul.

1958 - Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite launched in October 1957 by the Soviet Union, fell to Earth being destroyed in the process.

1962 - New York City introduced a train that operated without conductors and drivers.

1965 - Died this day, [Thomas Stearns] T. S. Eliot, poet.

1970 - Television history was made when super dog Lassie was hit by a car while pushing a child away from danger. Lassie was seen on TV, for the next month, suffering from amnesia.

1980 - President Jimmy Carter announced curtailment of US grain sales to the Soviet Union because of the invasion of Afghanistan.

1987 - An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, DC collides with 2 Conrail engines killing 16.

1999 - Gunmen open fire on Shiite Muslims worshipping in an Islamabad mosque killing 16 people injuring 25.

2004 - Dr. Mikhail Saakashvili was elected the President of the Georgia.

2004 - Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

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

January 5th


1463 - Poet François Villon is banned from Paris. (OOH! Banned from a part of France...and here he thought they were going to punish him.)

1477 - Battle of Nancy, Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France.

1500 - Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.

1527 – The martyrdom of Felix Manz, a Swiss Anabaptist.

1554 – The Great Fire of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

1675 – At “The Battle of Colmar” the French army defeat Brandenburg forces.

1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.

1781 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.

1846 - The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with Britain.

1854 – The steamer “San Francisco” sinks leaving 300 dead.

1895 - Dreyfus Affair: Wrongfully convicted French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. (Justice; something else the French can’t get right.)

1896 - An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation. This is later known as X-rays.

1900 - Irish leader John Edward Redmond calls for a revolt against British rule.

1909 - Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.

1914 - Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.

1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States.

1933 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.

1940 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.

1944 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.

1945 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.

1948 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel, the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl.

1956 - Elvis Presley records "Heartbreak Hotel."

1957 - Major league baseballer Jackie Robinson retires.

1961 – A talking horse takes to the airwaves as “Mr. Ed” debuts.

1964 - Pope Paul VI meets the Greek patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem. This is the first meeting of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity leaders since 1439.

1968 - Alexander Dubček comes to power and "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.

1970 –The soap opera “All My Children” premieres.

1972 – US President Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.

1973 - Netherlands recognizes East Germany. (Up to that point hey weren’t sure where they’d seen East Germany before.)

1975 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.

1976 - Cambodia is renamed Democratic Campuchea.

1980 - Hewlett-Packard announces the release of its first personal computer. (It had been kept captive in a cage before this.)

1984 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.

1987 – US President Ronald Reagan undergoes prostate surgery causing worries about his health.

1993 - The oil tanker “MV Braer” runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands spilling 84,700 tonnes of oil.

1993 - Washington state executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging; the first legal hanging in America since 1965.

1996 - Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone.

1997 – The withdrawal of the final Russian forces from Chechnya is completed.

2000 - The first day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit.

2002 – 15 year old student pilot Charles Bishop crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.

January 6th


1066 - Harold Godwinson crowned King of England.

1205 - Philip of Swabia becomes King of the Romans.

1540 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves.

1661 - The Fifth Monarchy men unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London.

1690 - Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I becomes King of the Romans.

1720 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Seas Bubble publishes its findings.

1838 - Samuel Morse first successfully tested the electrical telegraph. (Ummm…I dunno, what hath God wrought?)

1870 - The inauguration of the Musikverein in Vienna.

1900 – Reports first surface that millions are starving in India due to drought.

1900 – The Boers attack Ladysmith, over 1000 people are killed.

1907 - Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.

1912 - New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.

1929 - King Alexander of Yugoslavia suspends his country's constitution in the so-called “January 6th Dictatorship” (Šestojanuarska diktatura.)

1930 - The first diesel-engine automobile trip in the US is completed from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City.

1931 - Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.

1936 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional in the case United States vs. Butler et al..

1936 – Disney premieres Porky Pig.

1940 – A mass execution of Poles is committed by German forces in the city of Poznan, Warthegau.

1941 – US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.

1942 - Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to have a flight go around the world.

1946 – Lord Haw-Haw, William Joyce, is hanged by Britain for treason.

1950 – Great Britain recognizes the People's Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response.

1967 - United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.

1973 - Schoolhouse Rock premieres.

1975 - The American soap opera Another World becomes the first daytime drama to air hour-long regularly scheduled episodes.

1982 - William Bonin is convicted of being the "freeway killer".

1992 - The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously condemning Israel's treatment of Palestinians. (But will they do anything about it? Of course not!)

1994 - Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the right leg by an assailant under orders from figure skating rival Tonya Harding.

1995 - A chemical fire in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines leads to the discovery of plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack.

1998 - The spacecraft “Lunar Prospector” is launched into orbit around the moon. Later it found evidence of frozen water on the moon's surface.

1999 - Bob Newhart receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 -The Electoral College votes are counted and certified, naming George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

January 7th


1325 - Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal.

1558 - France takes Calais, the last continental possession of England.

1566 - Pius V becomes Pope.

1598 - Boris Godunov seizes the throne of Russia.

1601 - Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, leads a revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.

1610 - Galileo Galilei observes the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time. He named them and in turn the four are called the Galilean moons.

1782 - The Bank of North America, the first American commercial bank opens.

1785 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.

1835 - HMS Beagle anchors off the Chonos Archipelago.

1894 - W.K. Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.

1896 - Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook.

1901 - Alfred Packer is released from prison after serving 18 years for cannibalism.

1904 - The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS."

1911 - Mary Pickford marries Owen Moore.

1922 - Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64-57 votes.

1924 - George Gershwin completes Rhapsody in Blue.

1926 - George Burns marries Gracie Allen.

1927 – The first international telephone call is made from New York City to London. (AT&T immediately applied to the feds for a rate increase.)

1927 - The Harlem Globetrotters play their first game.

1935 - Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval sign the Italo-French agreements.

1942 - World War II: In the Phillipines the siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins by Japanese forces.

1945 - British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge. (And a more pompous over-rated bastard you’ll never meet!)

1953 - President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.

1954 - The first public demonstration of a machine translation system was held in New York at the head office of IBM.

1959 - The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

1975 - OPEC agrees to raise crude oil prices by 10%.

1979 – In Cambodia Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are overthrown by Vietnamese troops.

1980 - President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.

1984 - Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

1989 - Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan.

1990 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public due to safety concerns.

1996 - One of the worst blizzards in American history hits the eastern states killing more than 100.

1997 - A team of programmers at the University of Regensburg, Germany releases Tibia, one of the earliest graphical MMORPGs.

1999 - The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins.

January 8th

(Originally posted by LaJuliette)


~871 – The Battle of Ashdown – In Berkshire, Alfred the Great led a force of West Saxons to victory over a Viking force of approximately the same size. Following their victory at the Battle of Reading 4 days earlier the overconfident Norsemen marched west to the waiting Saxons. Heavy losses were incurred on both sides and Danish King Bagsecg was killed along with his Five Earls.

~1297 - Monaco gained its independence when Franceschino Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, was able to sneak into the Genoese controlled fortress. From there he let in his own soldiers, seized the fortress and established the Grimaldi dynasty.

~1499 – Louis XII of France married Anne of Brittany. (What a bloody soap opera THAT whole affair was!)

~1735 – The premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante took place at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

~1746 – Forces under Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling and laid seige to Stirling Castle.

~1790 – George Washington delivered the first State of the Union Address in New York City.

~1806 – The British, hoping to keep Napoleon out of the Cape and to control the Far East trade routes, took control of Cape Colony.

~1811 – The 1811 German Coast Uprising: An unsuccessful slave revolt in the Territory of Orleans, led by Charles Deslandes, took place.

~1815 – American forces led by Major General Andrew Jackson defeated the British Army at the Battle of New Orleans, 2 weeks after the United States and United Kingdom had signed the Treaty of Ghent to end the War of 1812. Due to the slow communications of the time neither side new about the treaty. 398 were killed in the battle (385 of them British) and nearly 1250 more wounded.

~1835 – US President Andrew Jackson managed to reduce the federal debt to only $33,733.05, the lowest it had been since the first fiscal year of 1791. Jackson was the only president in United States history to have paid off the national debt.

~1856 - Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch in Tuscan Springs, California. It became a multiuse product that was popularised during the era of TV’s Death Valley Days.

~1863 – In Missouri, Union troops under Brigadier General Egbert Brown successfully defended the town of Springfield, in heavy house to house fighting, against a Confederate force led by Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke at the Second Battle of Springfield.

~1867 – Blacks (men only) were granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

~1877 – Chiefs Crazy Horse and Two Moons along with their warriors fought their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain in the Montana Territory.

~1901 - The first tournament sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress was held in Chicago, Illinois.

~1906 – In New York, a landslide in Haverstraw, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River for brickworks, destroyed a residential area and resulted in the deaths of 21 people.

~1909 - Born this day, Evelyn Wood, reading teacher.

~1912 – The South African Native National Congress (SANNC), now known as the African National Congress, was founded in Bloemfontein to increase the rights of the black South African population. John Dube, its first president, and poet/author Sol Plaatje are among its founding members. The organization became the ANC in 1923 and formed a military wing, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) in 1961.

~1914 - Born this day: The one and only Gypsy Rose Lee.

~1918 – President Woodrow Wilson delivered his "Fourteen Points" speech to Congress for the aftermath of World War I. The speech was delivered over 10 months before the armistice with the German Empire ended the Great War but the Fourteen Points became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The Treaty of Versailles, however, had little to do with the Fourteen Points and so was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.

~1935 - Born this day: The King, Elvis Presley.

~1940 – Britain implemented food rationing due to wartime shortages brought on by the Wolf Packs during the Battle of the Atlantic. (Initially only bacon, butter and sugar were rationed.)

~1947 - Born this day: Rock legend David Bowie.

~1956 – Operation Auca: An attempt by 5 Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States to make contact with the Huaorani people of the rainforest of Ecuador resulted in them being attacked and speared by a group of Huaorani warriors. The news of their deaths was broadcast around the world, and Life magazine covered the event with a photo essay.

~1958 - Bobby Fisher won the United States Chess Championship for the first time. He was only 14 years of age.

~1961 – In France a referendum supported Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria. (Sometimes it's hard to bite my tongue about these things...)

~1962 – The Harmelen Train Disaster: In The Netherlands, a rail collision destroyed a total of 9 coaches resulting in the deaths of 93 people. The accident spurred the installation on Dutch railways of the system of automatic train protection known as Automatische Treinbeïnvloeding (ATB) which automatically overrides the driver if a "signal passed at danger" situation occurs.

~1963 – The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's early 16th century masterpiece, was exhibited in the United States for the first time at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

~1964 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a War on Poverty in the United States. (And we all know how well THAT fiasco has turned out!)

~1973 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 21 was launched. Luna 21 carried the second successful Soviet lunar rover, Lunokhod 2, and was launched less than a month after the final Apollo lunar landing.

~1973 – The Watergate Scandal: The trial of 7 men accused of the illegal entry into the Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate began.

~1979 - Canadian rock band Rush were named the country's official 'Ambassadors Of Music' by the Canadian government.

~1979 – The Betelgeuse Incident: The oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in West Cork, Ireland, at the offshore jetty of the Whiddy Island Oil Terminal, due to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The explosion and resulting fire claimed the lives of 50 people, only 27 of the bodies were recovered. A further fatality occurred during the salvage operation with the loss of a Dutch diver.

~1982 – The break up of AT&T: An antitrust lawsuit against AT&T, United States v. AT&T, led to a settlement under which "Ma Bell" agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies, in return for a chance to go into the computer business as AT&T Computer Systems.

~1989 – The Kegworth Air Disaster. British Midland Flt. 92, a Boeing 737-400, crashed into the M1 motorway killing 47 of 127. A fire had begun in the port engine but the pilots mistakenly shut down the starboard engine instead.

~1992 - US President George Bush fell suddenly ill at a state dinner in Japan. He became pale, slumped in his chair and promptly vomited into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister. What must have made this even more enjoyable for the president is the fact that all of this was recorded on video tape for the world to see.

~1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, aboard Soyuz TM-18, left for Mir. He stayed on the space station until March 22nd, 1995 for a record 437 days in space.

~1996 – An Antonov 32 cargo plane crashed into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350 people. (Just another way to die in Africa's crime capital...)

~1998 - Mister (Fred) Rogers received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

~1999 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.

~2002 – US President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. (Quite possibly the worst solution to the problem it was supposed to alleviate.)

~2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

~2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco (SSN-711) collided with an undersea mountain about 560 kilometers (350 statute miles) south of Guam while operating at flank (maximum) speed and more than 500 feet of depth. The collision was so serious that the vessel was almost lost; accounts detail a desperate struggle for positive buoyancy to surface after the forward ballast tanks were ruptured. 23 crewmen were injured, and 1 was killed. San Francisco’s forward ballast tanks and sonar dome were severely damaged, but her inner hull was not breached and there was no damage to her nuclear reactor.


~2006 – A magnitude 6.9 earthquake, with its epicenter just off the island of Kythira, struck much of Greece. Damage was caused to many buildings, particularly old ones. The village of Mitata was hit the worst, but there were no casualties. Due to its strength the shaker was felt as far away as Italy, Egypt, and Jordan.

~2009 – The 2009 Costa Rica Earthquake: The epicenter of the magnitude 6.1 quake was in northern Costa Rica, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north-northwest of San José. The earthquake, which was felt all over Costa Rica as well as in southern central Nicaragua, took at least 34 lives, left 64 people missing and injured at least 91 others. Hundreds of people were trapped and two villages were cut off. Most of the victims died when a landslide occurred near the La Paz waterfall by the Poás Volcano.

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

My many thanks to Pam for holding down the fort while I was out of town!

You're the best, beautiful!!!

January 9th


~475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno was forced to flee his capital at Constantinople. His mother in law Verina and her brother Basiliscus had conspired together with a general named Illus to overthrow Zeno in favour of Basiliscus. (WHOA!!! And I thought MY mother in law was a boot!)

~1150 – Emperor Xizong of Jin was murdered by Prince Hailing of Jin in a Coup d'état.

~1283 - Wen Tianxiang, Duke of Xinguo, was executed for his resistance to Kublai Khan's invasion of Song. For his refusal to yield to the Yuan Dynasty despite being captured and tortured, he is a popular symbol of patriotism and righteousness in China. He is considered one of three heroes of the Song's last years, alongside Liu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie.

~1349 – The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, was rounded up and incinerated.

~1431 – Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc bega in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.

~1760 – The Battle of Barari Ghat: One of a series of Afghan victories over the Marathas in their war to gain control of the decaying Mughal Empire took place at the Barari Ghat (ferry station) of the Jumna River, some 10 miles north of Delhi. The Maratha chief Dattaji Sindhia, retreating from the Punjab before the Afghan army of Ahmad Shah Durrānī, was surprised by Afghan troops who, concealed by high reeds, had crossed the river. Dattaji was killed and his army scattered. His defeat opened the way to the Afghan occupation of Delhi.

~1768 – This is generally agreed as the date when Philip Astley staged the first modern circus in what is now the Waterloo area of London, behind St John's Church.

~1788 – Connecticut was admitted as the 5th state of the Union.

~1793 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard conducted the first balloon flight in North America, ascending from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and landing in Deptford, New Jersey. One of the flight's witnesses that day was President George Washington, along with the future presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

~1799 – An income tax was implemented in Britain by William Pitt the Younger (in his budget of December 1798) to pay for weapons and equipment in preparation for the Napoleonic wars. Pitt's new graduated income tax began at a levy of 2 pence in the pound (0.8333%) on incomes over £60 and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt had hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million but actual receipts for 1799 totalled just over £6 million.

~1806 – Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson received a state funeral. A funeral procession consisting of 32 admirals, over 100 captains, and an escort of 10,000 troops took the coffin from the Admiralty to St. Paul's Cathedral. After a 4 hour service he was laid to rest within a sarcophagus originally carved for Thomas Cardinal Wolsey.

~1816 – Sir Humphry Davy tested a Davy lamp equiped with a wire sieve for miners at Hebburn Colliery.

~1822 – The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decided to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese king João VI, starting the Brazilian independence process.

~1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype photography process.

~1857 - The Fort Tejon Earthquake: With an estimated magnitude of 7.9, the quake ruptured the San Andreas Fault for a length of 362 kilometers (225 miles) between Parkfield and San Bernardino, California. Displacement along the fault was 9 meters (30 feet). The epicenter of this earthquake is thought to have been located between Parkfield and Cholame. Most of the buildings at Fort Tejon were badly damaged and several people were injured but only 2 people died as a result of the shaker.

~1858 – Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, committed suicide. Jones hoped that the new Texas state legislature would send him to the United States Senate. He was not chosen, and as time went on he became increasingly bitter about this slight. Although Jones prospered as a planter and eventually amassed an enormous estate, he was never able to get past the fact that Sam Houston was chosen over him to represent Texas in Washington, D.C.

~1861 – The Star of the West Incident occurred at Charleston, South Carolina. It is generally considered to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War". The Star of the West was fired upon by cadets from The Citadel, who were stationed at the Morris Island battery as the steamship entered Charleston Harbor. This prevented the ship from resupplying Major Robert Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter. The Star of the West was given a warning shot across the bow and turned about to leave the harbor mouth. She was then fired on from Fort Moultrie and hit twice. The mission was abandoned and the Star headed for her home port of New York Harbor.

~1861 – Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union before the actual outbreak of the American Civil War.

~1863 – The 3 day long Battle of Fort Hindman got underway in Arkansas. Union army politican opportunist General John A. McClernand had his numerically and tactically superior forces attack the Confederate Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post instead of Vicksburg as ordered by US President Abraham Lincoln and Major General Ulysses S. Grant. In spite of the subsequent Union victory, Mcclernand's glory seeking cost him his command by an enraged General Grant.

~1878 – Umberto I ascended the throne of of Italy.

~1880 – The Great Gale of 1880: An extremely deep area of low pressure (possibly deeper than 955 mb or 28.20") devastated parts of Oregon and Washington with high winds and heavy snow.

~1903 – Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the famous poet Alfred Tennyson, became the 2nd Governor-General of Australia.

~1912 – US Marines invaded Honduras (for the 4th time).

~1916 – The Battle of Gallipoli concluded with an Ottoman Empire victory when the last Allied forces were evacuated from the peninsula.

~1917 - The Battle of Rafa took place at the outpost of Rafa (known today as Rafah) on the border between the Egyptian Sinai and Turkish occupied Palestine. It was the third and final major battle mounted by the British to drive the Turkish forces from the Sinai. They succeeded with relatively light casualties.

~1918 – the Skirmish at Bear Valley was fought in southern Arizona by no more than 60 combatants. The last battle of the American Indian Wars it resulted in a victory by the US 10th Cavalry over a force of Yaquis Indians. 1 person was killed in the engagement.

~1923 – Juan de la Cierva mades the first autogyro flight at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid.

~1929 – In Nashville, Tennessee the Seeing Eye was established with the mission to train dogs to assist the blind.

~1937 - The first issue of Look magazine (400,000 copies) went on sale in the United States.

~1941 – The first flight of the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.

~1941 – The Greek submarine Triton (S.112) sank the Italian submarine Neghelli in Otranto harbor.

~1945 – World War II: US military forces invaded Luzon in the Philippines.

~1947 – Murder victim Elizabeth "Betty" Short (the Black Dahlia) was last seen alive, in Los Angeles.

~1956 - The Dear Abbey (Abby) column first appeared, in the San Francisco Chronicle.

~1960 - Construction of the Aswan Dam (High Dam) began in Egypt. It was completed in July, 1970. (By most accounts it is now rapidly turning into a major environmental disaster.)

~1964 – Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths atempted to raise the Panamanian flag on the U.S. controlled Panama Canal Zone, leading to fighting between U.S. military and Panamanian civilians.

~1972 - RMS Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by a massive fire in Hong Kong harbor, during her conversion into a floating university. There is well founded suspicion that the fires were deliberately set as several blazes broke out simultaneously throughout the ship.

~1977 - Super Bowl XI: The Oakland Raiders defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 32-14.

~1984 – Clara Peller was featured in the classic "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's Restaurants for the first time.

~1986 - After losing a patent battle with Polaroid Corporation, Kodak walked away from the instant camera business.

~1989 - The Sega Genesis got its North American debut when it was released in New York City and Los Angeles.

~1997 - Comair (Delta Connection) Flt. 3272, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, crashed while on approach into Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. All 29 aboard were killed.

~2002 - The United States Department of Justice announced that it was going to pursue a criminal investigation of Enron.

~2005 – Elections were held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh. (No big scremin' hell of an improvement there...but it's a step in the right direction.)

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

January 10th


49 - The armies of Julius Caesar crosses the river Rubicon, beginning a civilian war against Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.

1072 - Robert Guiscard’s forces conquer Palermo.

1776 - Thomas Paine publishes “Common Sense”.

1806 - The Dutch in Cape Town surrender to the British.

1810 – The marriage of Napoleon and Josephine is annulled.

1861 - Florida secedes from the United States.

1863 - The first section of the London Underground Railway opens from Paddington to Farringdon Street.

1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.

1901 - The first great Texas gusher, oil is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.

1920 – The League of Nations holds its first meeting and ratifies the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I.

1922 - Arthur Griffith is elected President of the Irish Free State.

1923 - Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.

1927 - The film Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, premiers.

1929 - Tintin, a comic book character created by Hergé, makes his debut. He went on to be published in over 200 million comic books in 40 languages.

1941 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the U.S. Congress.

1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations takes place.

1957 - Harold Macmillan becomes the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

1969 - After 147 years, the last issue of the Saturday Evening Post is published.

1971 - Masterpiece Theatre debuts on PBS.

1984 - The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations.

1989 - Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.

1990 - Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.

1994 - In Manassas, Virginia Lorena Bobbitt goes on trial for severing the penis of her husband John.

2000 - America Online announces an agreement to buy Time Warner for $162 billion, the largest corporate merger in history.

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

January 11th


~1055 – Theodora was crowned Empress of the Byzantine Empire.

~1158 – Vladislav II became the King of Bohemia.

~1693 – At approximately 9 pm local time a powerful earthquake struck parts of southern Italy, notably Sicily and Malta, as Mount Etna erupted. The quake destroyed at least 45 towns and cities, affecting an area of 5600 square kilometres and causing the death of over 60,000. Two thirds of the entire population of Catania were killed.

~1779 – Ching-Thang Khomba was crowned King of Manipur for the second time.

~1787 – William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, 2 of Uranus' numerous moons.

~1794 – U.S. Marshal Robert Forsythe was killed in Augusta, Georgia while trying to serve court papers. He was the first US marshal to die while carrying out his duties.

~1805 – Michigan Territory was established by an act of the United States Congress, becoming effective June 30th that year.

~1861 – Alabama adopted the ordinances of secession from the Union (by a vote of 61-39).

~1878 – Milk was first delivered in bottles. (Although nobody seems to know just where on God's green Earth this supposed delivery took place or who made it...)

~1879 – In South Africa the Anglo-Zulu War began.

~1908 – In Northern Arizona the Grand Canyon National Monument was created at the urging of US President Theodore Roosevelt.

~1912 – The Lawrence textile strike began in Lawrence, Massachusetts when immigrant Polish women weavers at Everett Cotton Mills realized that their employer had reduced their pay by thirty two cents. They stopped their looms and left the mill, shouting "short pay, short pay!".

~1917 – In New Jersey, the Kingsland munitions factory explosion occurred as a result of German sabotage. In 4 hours 500,000 pieces of 76 mm (3") high explosive shells were discharged and the entire plant was destroyed.

~1919 – Transylvania was annexed by Romania.

~1922 – In Ontario at Toronto General Hospital, insulin was used for the first time in a human to treat diabetes. The patient was a 14 year old boy.

~1923 – Troops from France and Belgium occuppied the Ruhr area to force Germany to make its World War I reparation payments.

~1935 – Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

~1940 - The legendary Soviet medium tank, the T-34 was first produced.

~1942 – Japanese forces invaded the Netherlands East Indies.

~1942 – Kuala Lumpur fell to invading Japanese forces.

~1943 – both the United States and United Kingdom gave up their territorial rights in China.

~1943 – Newspaper editor and anarchist Carlo Tresca was murdered in New York.

~1957 – The African Convention was founded in Dakar.

~1957 – The bomber who brought down United Airlines Flt. 629 over Longmont, Colorado on Novenber 1st, 1955 was executed in a Colorado gas chamber.

~1962 – A sudden avalanche on Huascaran in Peru caused over 4,000 deaths. (Several sources list this as occurring on January 10th.)

~1964 – United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther L. Terry, published a report saying that smoking was hazardous to health. It was the first such statement ever made by the U.S. government.

~1972 – East Pakistan renamed itself Bangladesh and became a parliamentary democracy under a constitution.

~1986 – In Brisbane the Gateway Bridge was officially opened.

~1990 – 300,000 took part in a march for Lithuanian independence.

~1998 – Sidi-Hamed massacre tookk place in the town of Sidi-Hamed, 30 km south of Algiers. 103 people were killed and 70 more injured in the GIA attack.

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

January 12th



~690 - Died this day: Saint Benedict Biscop (b. 1628)

~475 – 3 days after his acclamation Basiliscus officially became Byzantine Emperor, with a coronation ceremony at the Hebdomon palace in Constantinople.

~1528 – The coronation of Gustav I of Sweden took place. (5 out of 11 sources say this occurred on January 21st, Wiki says it happened on both dates...SO YOU DECIDE!!!)

~1539 – The Treaty of Toledo was signed by King Francis I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V which ended the hostilities between the two. (If not the bitter feelings...)

~1592 - It is believed that this is the day when Titus Andronicus was first staged, at the Rose Theatre. (There is no documented record of the plays actual first performance.)

~1709 - A 2 month freeze began in France - The coast of the Atlantic and the Seine River froze with the cold bringing industry to a standstill.

~1773 – The first public Colonial American museum opened in Charleston, South Carolina.

~1777 – Mission Santa Clara de Asís was founded in what is now Santa Clara, California.

~1808 – The Wernerian Natural History Society was founded in Edinburgh. The Society hosted many a notable scientist in its day.

~1838 - In order to avoid anti-Mormon persecution, Joseph Smith Jr. and his followers left Ohio for Missouri. (Actually, old Smitty was ducking an arrest warrant for a financial scandal...)

~1848 – The Palermo Rising began in Sicily against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

~1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society was formed in London.

~1872 – Yohannes IV was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city since that of Fasilides in 1632.

~1875 – Kwang-su became emperor of China at the age of 3.

~1895 – The National Trust was founded in Britain.

~1898 – Itō Hirobumi began his third (and last) term as Prime Minister of Japan.

~1899 – All 13 crew members and 5 apprentices from the ship Forrest Hall were rescued off the coast of southwest England by the Lynmouth Lifeboat.

~1906 – Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet, including H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, and Winston Churchill amongst others embarked on sweeping social reforms after a Liberal landslide in the British general election.

~1911 – The University of the Philippines College of Law was formally established; three future Philippine presidents were amongst the first enrollees.

~1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was formed by an act of U.S. Congress. The bill was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on January 26, 1915.

~1915 – The United States House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote. (I just DARE them to try that today!)

~1918 - Finland’s "Mosaic Confessors" law went into effect, making Finnish Jews full citizens. Under the Act, Jews could for the first time become Finnish nationals and Jews not possessing Finnish nationality were to be treated as foreigners in general.

~1926 - Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiered their radio program Sam 'n' Henry on Chicago radio station WGN. The show ran for 586 episodes, the last one airing on December 18, 1927. Afterwards Gosden and Correll reworked the premise on a more ambitious scale to create their long running radio show Amos 'n' Andy.

~1940 - Following her highly successful maiden flight, service testing of the Buffalo Brewster fighter began. The Brewster was the first monoplane fighter aircraft used by the US Navy, going into service in April, 1939. Her career was short lived, however, as she turned out to be no match at all against the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M-Zero and Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar". She was derided by USMC wartime pilots as a "flying coffin".

~1940 - The Soviet air force launched a massive bombing raid against 7 cities in Finland.

~1942 – President Franklin Roosevelt re-established the National War Labor Board, under the chairmanship of William Hammatt Davis.

~1945 - The Vistula-Oder Offensive: The Red army began its final offensive against Nazi Germany. In 3 weeks the offensive took Soviet forces from their start lines on the Vistula river in Poland to the banks of the Oder river deep inside Germany, only about seventy km (45 mi) from the capital of Berlin.

~1964 – Rebels in Zanzibar began a (successful) revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution. They would proclaim a republic that still exists.

~1966 – US Prsident Lyndon B. Johnson stated that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there was ended. (I'm not in the mood to go into a long drawn out rant this morning, so...)

~1966 - The epitome of campy; Batman the TV series debuted on ABC. (Holy Babe in black, Batman...Catwoman is HOT!!!)

~1967 – Dr. James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved (frozen) with intent of future resuscitation.

~1969 - Led Zeppelin released their eponymous first album. To an entire generation, the image of the burning Hindenburg is synonomous with the rock band and their first album. It was recorded at Olympic Studios in London and released on Atlantic Records.

~1969 – Super Bowl III: The New York Jets defeated the heavily favored Baltimore Colts 16–7. Joe Namath was the hero of the day.

~1970 – Emeka Ojukwu, president of Biafra, fled to the Ivory Coast leaving his chief of staff Philip Effiong to act as the "officer administering the government". Effiong called for a ceasefire and submitted to the FMG, ending the Nigerian civil war.

~1971 - A television milestone was set as All in the Family debuted on CBS. ("Oh Jeez Edith, you dingbat...wut da hell wuz zat?")

~1971 – The Harrisburg Seven: The Reverend Philip Berrigan and 6 others were indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.

~1976 – The UN Security Council voted 11-1 to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate, but without voting rights. (See? They'll let any riffraff into their party if there's some publicity to be made by it.)

~1986 – US Congressman Bill Nelson lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard the shuttle Columbia on mission STS-61C, as a Mission Specialist.

~1992 - Hal, The computer HAL 9000, was initially activated on this date...according to the science fiction film classic "2001: A Space Odyssey".

~1995 – Malcolm X's daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, was arrested for conspiring to kill Louis Farrakhan.

~2004 – The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2 set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

~2005 – The NASA space probe Deep Impact was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 2 rocket.

~2006 – The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany declared that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a dead end and recommended that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council. (Because we all know how much THEY get accomplished...)

~2006 – A stampede during the Stoning the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. (I guess the Devil got even...)

~2006 – Turkey released Mehmet Ali Ağca on parole after he served 25 years for shooting Pope John Paul II. (But they locked him up again 8 days later.)

~2006 – The retired French warship (carrier) Clemenceau reached Egypt enroute to be scrapped but was barred access to the Suez Canal.

~2007 – Comet McNaught reached perihelion becoming the brightest comet in more than 40 years; so bright that it was visible worldwide in broad daylight.

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

January 13th



~532 – The Nika Riots took place in Constantinople.

~888 – Odo, the Count of Paris became King of the Franks. (You're welcome to them, Odo!)

~1435 – The papal bull Sicut Dudum was promulgated by Pope Eugene IV. Eugene condemned the enslavement of the peoples of the newly colonized Canary Islands and, under pain of excommunication, ordered all such slaves to be immediately set free.

~1547 – Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey was sentenced to death for (the unfounded charge of) treason.

~1610 – Galileo Galilei discovered Ganymede, the 7th moon from Jupiter.

~1785 – John Walter published the first issue of the Daily Universal Register (renamed The Times 3 years later), just 13 days after founding the paper.

~1830 – The (3rd) Great Fire of New Orleans began. It is believed to have been set by rebel slaves (Whatever the hell that term means...)

~1840 – The paddlewheel steamship Lexington caught fire and burned 4 miles off Eaton's Neck on the north shore of Long Island. She sank at 03:00 that night with the loss of 139 lives.

~1842 – Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, became famous for being the sole survivor of an army ands its contingents numbering 16,500 when he reached the safety of a British garrison at Jalalabad.

~1847 – The Capitulation of Cahuenga ended the fighting of the Mexican-American War in California. It was not a formal treaty between nations but an informal agreement between rival military forces in which the Californios (Hispanics) gave up to a combined force of 600 US dragoons, sailors and troops from the Army of the West.

~1893 – In Bradford, delegates gathered for a conference (to be headed by British MP Keir Hardie) that would prove to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party.

~1893 – U.S. Marines from the USS Boston landed in Honolulu to prevent Queen Lili'uokalani from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.

~1898 – Emile Zola's "J'accuse" exposed the Dreyfus Affair with an open letter published in the newspaper L'Aurore.

~1908 – The Rhoads Opera House Fire: In Boyertown, Pennsylvania fire broke out in the opera house during a church sponsored stage play. The blaze started when a kerosene lamp was knocked over lighting gasoline from a stereoscopic machine. The stage and auditorium were located on the 2nd floor and all auxiliary exits were either unmarked or locked. One fire escape was available but unable to be accessed through a locked window above a 3 foot sill. 171 people perished when the exit was crowded against to escape the fire and entire families were wiped out.

~1915 – The Avazzano Earthquake: In central Italy the town of Avezzano was completely destroyed by possibly the worst recorded earthquake in Italian history. Only Casa dei Palazzi and a wing of Castle Orsini were spared. More than 32,500 people died.

~1934 – The Candidate of Sciences degree was established by a decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. It corresponds to the Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) in the USA, the United Kingdom and other countries.

~1935 – A plebiscite in Saarland showed that 90.3% of those voting wished to rejoin Germany. (Even though it was by then under Nazi control.)

~1939 – The Black Friday Bush Fires were the single worst in Australian history as a measure of land affected. Almost 20,000 km² (4,942,000 acres, 2,000,000 ha) of land was burnt. Several towns were entirely destroyed and 71 people died in the inferno. The Royal Commission that resulted from it led to major changes in forest management.

~1942 – Henry Ford patented a plastic automobile that was 30% lighter than a regular car. (Yeah...old Hank got a little feeble minded towards the end there.)

~1942 – The first use of aircraft ejection seat was made. This by Helmut Schenk, a German test pilot in a stricken Heinkel He 280 jet fighter. (Ach! deese ist goingst to hell unt a haundbasket, yeah? Vell...I'm outta heeya leike SCHNELL!)

~1953 – Marshal Josip Broz Tito was chosen as President of Yugoslavia. He took office the next day.

~1957 - In Alhambra, California the Wham-O Company produced its very first Frisbee. (Ubu celebrates this date as a high water mark in the history of civilization.)

~1958 – The Moroccan Liberation Army ambushed two companies of the Spanish 13th Legionary battalion who were conducting a reconnaissance missiona at the Battle of Edchera. Ambushed, the Legionaries fought to maintain cohesion, driving off attacks with mortar and small arms fire. Notable fighting was seen by the 1st platoon, which stubbornly denied ground to the Moroccans until grievous casualties forced it to withdraw. Bloody attacks continued until nightfall, when the Moroccan forces, too scattered and depleted of men to continue their assault, fled into the darkness.

~1964 – Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, was appointed archbishop of Krakow, Poland.

~1968 – Johnny Cash performed live At Folsom Prison

~1972 – The democratically elected government of Prime Minister Dr. Kofi Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana were ousted in a bloodless military coup by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheamphong. (And a more blatant opportunistic political whore than him there never was.)

~1974 – Seraphim was elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

~1982 - Shortly after takeoff Flight 90, an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 crashed into Washington, DC's 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 including 4 motorists. The plane had not been properly de-iced. In some of the most dramatic scenes ever caught on camera much of North America and the rest of the world watched as 5 survivors were pulled from the freezing waters of the Potomac by rescue crews and passers-by.

~1982 - A Washington DC Metro Rail train derailed, killing 3 people.

~1985 – A derailment hurled an Imperial Railway Company of Ethiopia passenger train into a ravine at Awash, Ethiopia, killing at least 428 in the worst railroad disaster in African history.

~1986 – A month-long violent power struggle began in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad and Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.

~1991 – Lithuanian Independence: Soviet forces stormed the Parliament building in Vilnius along with the Vilnius TV Tower where unarmed civilian Lithuanians confronted the Soviet soldiers. 14 people were killed and seven hundred injured in what has became known as The January Events.

~1992 – The Comfort Women: Japan apologized for the first of many times regarding the forcing of Korean women into sexual slavery/ military prostitution during World War II. (Despite this, according to the Japanese government, individual comfort women don’t deserve compensation.)

~1993 – Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off when STS-54 launched from the Kennedy Space Center.

~2001 – The January 2001 El Salvador Earthquake: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated El Salvador. More than 220,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and over 150,000 buildings were damaged. Utilities and roads were wiped out by more than 16,000 landslides and 852 were left dead with another 4,723 injured.

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

January 14th


~1129 – The date most often agreed upon as when formal approval of the Order of the Templar was given at the Council of Troyes.

~1301 – Andrew III of Hungary died. With no male heir this ended the Arpad dynasty in Hungary.

~1639 – The "Fundamental Orders", the first written constitution that created a government, was adopted in Connecticut.

~1724 – King Philip V of Spain abdicated the throne to his eldest son, the 17 year old Louis, for reasons that are still the subject of debate more than 285 years later. It is generally believed that Philip, who exhibited many elements of mental instability during his reign, did not wish to reign due to his increasing mental decline and so conscientiously abdicated in favour of his son.

~1761 – The Third Battle of Panipat was fought about 60 miles north of Delhi between the Afghan army under Ahmad Shah Durrani and the Marhatas forces led by Sadashivrao Bhau. The ensuing Afghan victory changed the course history in India. This was one of the largest battles fought in the 18th century with upwards of 175,000 combatants taking part.

~1784 – Ratification Day: The United States Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain. This act officially ended the American Revolution and established the US as a sovereign entity.

~1814 – The Treaty of Kiel: Frederick VI of Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in return for Pomerania. The treaty, however, never come into force. Sovereignty over Pomerania passed to Prussia and Norway declared its independence, adopted a constitution, and elected prince Christian Frederik as king.

~1858 – Napoleon III of France and his wife Eugénie narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Paris when 3 bombs were thrown at the imperial carriage.

~1900 - Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca, based on Victorien Sardou's drama La Tosca, premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. It is one of the world's most popular operas and has been a sensational hit with audiences ever since its first performance.

~1907 – An earthquake and the ensuing fire in Kingston, Jamaica devastated the city and killed more than 800 people.

~1938 – Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica. (Why? We're not sure, but if it makes the Vikings happy...)

~1943 – Operation Ke: The Japanese operation to evacuate their forces from Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign, began.

~1943 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prtime Minister Winston Churchill began the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the Second World War.

~1950 – One of the most significant fighters of the jet age, the fast and ultra maneuverable (not to mention lethal) MiG-17 made its maiden flight.

~1952 – NBC's long running morning news program The Today Show debuted, with host Dave Garroway.

~1954 - Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married at San Francisco City Hall.

~1954 – The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation to form the American Motors Corporation.

~1967 – The Human Be-In, took place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love. Between 20,000 to 30,000 people attended the happening.

~1969 – Near Hawaii, an explosion occurred aboard the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) when a MK-32 Zuni rocket loaded on a parked F-4 Phantom exploded due to ordinance 'cook off' after being overheated by an aircraft start unit mounted to a tow tractor. The explosion set off fires and additional explosions across the flight deck. The fires were brought under control relatively quickly but 27 lives were lost and an additional 314 personnel were injured. The fire destroyed 15 aircraft, and the resulting damage forced Enterprise to put in for repairs, primarily to repair the flight deck's armored plating.

~1972 – Queen Margrethe II ascended the throne of Denmark, the first Queen of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since 1513.

~1975 – 17 year old heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped and later murdered by "the Black Panther". (Thankfully the murderous wretch is still rotting in a prison cell where he belongs.)

~1978 - Johnny Rotten quit the Sex Pistols after the final show of their American tour, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. (These little meaningless bits of flotsam just sort of drift by while I rummage through the journals. Some I post, some I don't...)

~1994 - US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Kremlin Accords which stopped the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles to targets and also provided for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.

~1998 – Researchers in Dallas, Texas presented findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).

~1998 – An Afghan cargo plane crashes into a mountain in southwest Pakistan killing more than 50 people. (I can only locate 2 sources that list this event and no further details are available...but what in hell 50 people were doing flying on board a freighter is beyond me.)

~1999 – In Ontario, Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman became the first mayor of a major city in Canada to call in the Army to help with emergency medical evacuations and snow removal. This after more than one meter (39 inches) of snow paralyzed the city.

~2004 – The national flag of Georgia, the so called "five cross flag", was restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years.

~2005 – NASA's Huygens probe successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan. Even though it hadn't originally been designed as a lander, the probe continued to send data for about 90 minutes after reaching Titan's surface.

...

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

January 15th



69 – Otho seized power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor. He would only rule for 3 months before committing suicide, though. (Now I'm no shrink but methinks a bit of Prozac might have been in order here.)

1559 – Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey by Owen Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1759 – The British Museum opened at Montagu House in the Bloomsbury district of London.

1777 – New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declared its independence.

1782 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris drafted a proposal that he later presented to the Continental Congress recommending the establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.

1822 – During the Greek War of Independence, Demetrius Ypsilanti was elected president of the legislative assembly.

1844 – The University of Notre Dame received its official college charter from the Indiana State General Assembly

1865 – Fort Fisher in North Carolina fell to the Union, cutting off the last major seaport of the Confederacy.

1870 – The political cartoon "A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion", by Thomas Nast appeared in Harper's Weekly. For the first time the United States Democratic Party was symbolized with a donkey.

1892 – James Naismith published the rules of basketball.

1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps, primarily for their (reluctant) support of the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin.

1919 – The Boston Molasses Disaster: In the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts a large molasses storage tank burst sending a wave of molasses rushing through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h). 21 were killed and another 150 injured in the accident. The event has entered local folklore and residents claim that, on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses. (I've been there on a hot summer day and, to use the proper Boston vernacular, "IT DON'T!")

1936 – The first building to be completely covered in glass, built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, was completed in Toledo, Ohio.

1943 – The Liberation of Voronezh: In southwestern Russia the Soviet counter offensive to wrest control of Voronezh from German forces began. It would end in a Soviet victory 10 days later.

1943 – The Pentagon, the world's largest office building, was dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

1947 – The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short ("The Black Dahlia") was found at Leimert Park in Los Angeles.

1949 – The Chinese Civil War: Forces of the Chinese Communist Party took Tianjin from Nationalist Government troops following a pitched 29 hour long battle.

1951 – Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in West Germany. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" ("Die Hexe von Buchenwald") by the inmates because of her sadistic cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners.

1967 – Super Bowl I was played in Los Angeles, California. Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.

1969 – Soyuz 5 was launched launched by the Soviet Union. It docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit, becoming the first ever docking of two manned spacecraft, the first ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another and the only time a transfer was accomplished with a space walk. The craft, however, nearly burnt up on re-entry 3 days later.

1974 – The BTK Killer murdered his first victims by binding, torturing and killing Joseph, Joseph II, Josephine and Julie Otero in their Witchita, Kansas home.

1974 – "Happy Days" premiered on ABC. (Ron Howard still had hair back then!)

1976 – US President Gerald Ford's would be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, was sentenced to life in prison. (Hey, she coulda shared a cell with Squeaky...!)

1977 – The Kälvesta Air Disaster: A Vickers 838 Viscount crashed into a parkade 5 kilometers (3 miles) short of the runway at the Stockholm-Bromma Airport, killing all 22 people aboard. It is the worst air crash in Sweden's history.

1986 – The Living Seas opened at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.

1991 – The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait came and went. This opened the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

1993 – Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as "The Beast", was arrested in Sicily after 3 decades as a fugitive.

1999 – The Racak Massacre: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak were killed by Yugoslav security forces. (Now THERE is a tale of hypocrisy and double standards for you!)

2001 – Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, went online.

2005 – ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter detected the element calcium, in Mare Crisium on the moon.

2007 – Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half brother of Saddam Hussein, along with Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, were executed by hanging in Iraq.

2009 – US Airways Flt. 1549 made an emergency landing into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. All passengers and crew members survived.

...

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

January 16th



~27 BC – The title Augustus is bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate.

~550 – During the Gothic War (535–552), the Ostrogoths under King Totila took Rome after a siege. The Isaurian garrison, who had not received their pay, were bribed and opened the gates of Rome to the invaders.

~1120 – The Council of Nablus was held. It established the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

~1219 - The St. Marcellus' Flood (Sint-Marcellusvloed): Large parts of northern Netherlands and the Zuiderzee region were inundated, killing more than 36,000 people. This was the 4th large flood in 50 years and had enormous consequences on the development of the two large inner seas in the Netherlands, the Zuiderzee and the Waddenzee.

~1362 – Grote Mandrenke (Great Drowning of Men): In the North Sea hurricane force winds drove enormous waves atop a huge storm surge that carved out a huge inland sea into the Netherlands, killing at least 25,000 inhabitants. The sea swallowed up 60 parishes in the Danish diocese of Slesvig and the German city of Rungholt, on the island of Strand, ceased to exist. This storm also demolished much of the infrastructure in England.

~1492 – The first grammar of the Spanish language, Gramática de la lengua castellana (Grammar of the Castilian language) written by Antonio de Nebrija, was presented to Queen Isabella I.

~1547 – Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) was crowned tsar of Russia with Monomakh's Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. He was 17 at the time.

~1556 – Philip II became King of Spain. During his reign, Spain was the foremost Western European force and under his rule reached the height of its influence and power. It directed explorations all around the world and colonized territories in all the known continents.

~1572 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk went on trial for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I and restore Catholicism in England.

~1581 – The English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism. (Hey, we never saw that coming now, did we?)

~1605 – The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was distributed in Madrid.

~1780 – The Second Battle of Cape St. Vincent took place off the coast of Portugal. The result was a victory of the British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney over a Spanish squadron commanded byr Don Juan de Lángara. This naval engagement is also known as the Moonlight Battle, because it was unusual for naval battles in the age of sail to take place at night. Because of the victory, the British garrison at Gibraltar was re-supplied and able to continue holding out against Spanish forces during the Great Seige of Gibraltar.

~1809 – The Battle of La Coruña: At Corunna, Spain a French army under Marshal Soult attacked the British forces led by Sir John Moore. The British had retreated across northern Spain following the defeat of the Spanish and their allies in the campaign and were attempting to embark on ships and return to England. The British repulsed the attack and made good their withdrawal.

~1847 – John C. Fremont was appointed Governor of the new California Territory.

~1883 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, was passed into law.

~1909 – Ernest Shackleton's expedition travelled to within 114 miles of the South Pole.

~1917 - The Zimmermann Telegram: A coded telegram was dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador in Washington, Johann von Bernstorff, at the height of World War I. Bernstorff, per Zimmermann's request, forwarded the telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt. Zimmermann sent the telegram in anticipation of the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the German Empire on February 1, an act which German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg feared would draw the neutral United States into war on the side of the Allies. The telegram instructed Ambassador Eckardt that if the United States appeared likely to enter the war he was to approach the Mexican government with a proposal for military alliance. He was to offer Mexico material aid in the reclamation of territory lost during the Mexican-American War, specifically the American states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Eckardt was also instructed to urge Mexico to help broker an alliance between Germany and Japan.

The Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British cryptographers of Room 40. The revelation of its contents in the American press on March 1 caused public outrage that contributed to the United States' declaration of war against Germany and its allies on April 6.

~1918 - The Fokker D.VII flew for the fist time. In spite of its role as a fighter intended for killing, the aircraft was a pleasure to fly and surviving examples (along with modern replicas) are loved by their pilots for the excellent flight characteristics the little biplane. Manfred von Richthofen himself praised it as the best aircraft he ever flew.

~1919 – The US ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification.

~1923 - The Curtiss P-1 (Model 34), a nimble, fast and ultra dependable open cockpit biplane fighter, took to the skies over Buffalo, New York. Dubbed, the Hawk, it was the first US Army Air Service aircraft to be assigned the "P" (Pursuit) designation.

~1938 – The Benny Goodman Orchestra played Carnegie Hall.

~1941 - The first MiG-3 fighters entered service with the Soviet air force. They were to become the backbone of Soviet Fighter Command during the early part of World War II.

~1942 – TWA Flt. 3 crahed 15 minutes after takeoff from Las Vegas Airport (now Nellis Air Force Base) bound for Burbank. The aircraft slammed into a sheer cliff on Potosi Mountain, 32 miles southwest of the airport. 22 passengers and crew were aboard, including movie star Carole Lombard and her mother, there were no survivors.

~1945 – Adolf Hitler moved into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker. (Hmmm...things weren't going quite as well as you had planned, Adolph?)

~1956 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser vowed to reconquer Palestine. (And speaking of plans that didn't unfold too well...)

~1957 - The Cavern Club, where Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles performing, opened in Liverpool.

~1961 - Mickey Mantle became the highest paid active baseball player of his time by signing a $75,000 contract with the New York Yankees.

~1964 - The original Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! opened at New York City's St. James Theatre.

~1969 – Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by setting himself on fire in Prague, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.

~1970 – Buckminster Fuller received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.

~1970 - Major league player Curt Flood filed suit, stating that major league baseball had violated the American anti-trust laws.

~1977 - The Marx Brothers Groucho, Gummo, Zeppo, Chico and Harpo were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.

~1979 – The Shah of Iran fled Iran with his family and relocated to Egypt.

~1986 – The Internet Engineering Task Force was founded.

~1988 - Sports commentator Jimmy the Greek Snyder wais fired by CBS a day after publicly stating that blacks had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery.

"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way — because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner — the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."

~1992 – El Salvador officials and rebel leaders signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City ending a 12 year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.

~1997 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of actor Bill Cosby, was killed by a gunman while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California.

~2001 – US President Bill Clinton awarded former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service during the Spanish-American War.

~2002 - A student shot 6 people at the Appalachian School of Law, 3 of whom died.

~2002 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban. (And we all know how well THAT worked at shutting them down...)

~2003 – The space shuttle Columbia was launched on what would prove to be its final mission, STS-107. Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry 16 days later.

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