Monday, November 30, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 30

Today in History
November 30
1782 The British sign a preliminary agreement in Paris, recognizing American independence.
1838 Mexico declares war on France.
1861 The British Parliament sends to Queen Victoria an ultimatum for the United States, demanding the release of two Confederate diplomats who were seized on the British ship Trent.
1864 The Union wins the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.
1900 The French government denounces British actions in South Africa, declaring sympathy for the Boers.
1900 Oscar Wilde dies in a Paris hotel room after saying of the room’s wallpaper: "One of us had to go."
1906 President Theodore Roosevelt publicly denounces segregation of Japanese schoolchildren in San Francisco.
1919 Women cast votes for the first time in French legislative elections.
1935 Non-belief in Nazism is proclaimed grounds for divorce in Germany.
1945 Russian forces take Danzig in Poland and invade Austria.
1948 The Soviet Union complete the division of Berlin, installing the government in the Soviet sector.
1950 President Truman declares that the United States will use the A-bomb to get peace in Korea.
1956 The United States offers emergency oil to Europe to counter the Arab ban.
1961 The Soviet Union vetoes a UN seat for Kuwait, pleasing Iraq.
1974 India and Pakistan decide to end a 10-year trade ban.
1974 Pioneer II sends photos back to NASA as it nears Jupiter.
1979 Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope in 1,000 years to attend an Orthodox mass.
1981 Representatives of the US and USSR meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to begin negotiations on reducing the number of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.
1982 Thriller, Michael Jackson’s second solo album, released; the album, produced by Quincy Jones, became the best-selling album in history.
1993 US President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (better known as the Brady Bill) into law.
1994 MS Achille Lauro, a ship with long history of problems including a 1985 terrorist hijacking, catches fire off the coast of Somalia.
1995 Operation Desert Storm officially comes to an end.
1998 Exxon and Mobil oil companies agree to a $73.7 billion merge, creating the world’s largest company, Exxon-Mobil.
2004 On the game show Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings loses after 74 consecutive victories. It is the longest winning streak in game-show history, earning him a total of over $3 million.
2005 John Sentamu becomes Archbishop of York, making him the Church of England’s first black archbishop.

Born on November 30
1667 Jonathan Swift, English satirist who wrote Gulliver’s Travels.
1835 Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), American writer best remembered for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1874 Winston Churchill, British prime minister during and after World War II.
1874 Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables.
1912 Gordon Parks, photographer.
1915 Brownie McGhee, singer and guitarist.
1924 Shirley Chisholm, first African-American congresswoman, a representative for New York.
1929 Joan Ganz Cooney, television executive, founder of the Children’s Television Workshop and mastermind behind Sesame Street.
1929 Dick Clark, television host; (American Bandstand, 1957-87; Pyramid game show); beginning in 1972 and continuing into the 21st century he hostedDick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on television.
1930 G. Gordon Liddy, chief operative for the "White House Plumbers" (July-September 1971) during Richard Nixon’s administration, he organized and oversaw the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. He served nearly 52 months in federal prison.
1936 Abbie Hoffman, political and social activist; co-founded the Youth International Party (Yippies); he became a symbol of the counterculture era.
1937 Sir Ridley Scott, English film director and producer; (Blade RunnerThelma & Louise) won a Best Picture Oscar for Gladiator (2000).
1955 Billy Idol (William Broad), punk rock musician; member of Generation X band.
1962 Bo Jackson, the only pro athlete to be named an All-Star in two major American sports (football and baseball); ESPN named him the greatest athlete of all time.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 29



Today in History
November 29
1760 Major Robert Rogers takes possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain.
1787 Louis XVI promulgates an edict of tolerance, granting civil status to Protestants.
1812 The last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armee retreats across the Beresina River in Russia.
1863 The Battle of Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ends with a Confederate withdrawal.
1864 Colonel John M. Chivington’s 3rd Colorado Volunteers massacre Black Kettles’ camp of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colo.
1903 An Inquiry into the U.S. Postal Service demonstrates the government has lost millions in fraud.
1923 An international commission headed by American banker Charles Dawes is set up to investigate the German economy.
1929 Commander Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole.
1931 The Spanish government seizes large estates for land redistribution.
1939 Soviet planes bomb an airfield at Helsinki, Finland.
1948 The Metropolitan Opera is televised for the first time as the season opens with "Othello."
1948 The popular children’s television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres.
1949 The United States announces it will conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.
1961 NASA launches a chimpanzee named Enos into Earth orbit.
1962 Algeria bans the Communist Party.
1963 President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Chief Justice Earl Warren head of a commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
1967 US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.
1972 Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
2007 Armed forces of the Philippines besiege The Peninsula Manila in response to a mutiny led by Senator Antonio Trillanes.

Born on November 29
1803 Christian Doppler, best known for his explanation of perceived frequency variation of sound and light waves, known as the Doppler effect.
1832 Louisa May Alcott, novelist (Little Women).
1895 Busby Berkeley, director (42nd Street).
1898 C.S. Lewis, Christian writer.
1900 Mildred Elizabeth Sisk, aka Axis Sally, Nazi propagandist.
1908 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., politician and Civil Rights leader.
1911 Konrad Fuchs, German atomic physicist.
1918 Madeleine L’Engle, writer (A Wrinkle in Time).
1919 Joe Weider, Canadian-American bodybuilder and magazine publisher; co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness and Muscle & Fitness magazine.
1921 Dagmar (Virginia Ruth Egnor) actress, model, television personality (Dagmar’s Canteen, Broadway Open House).
1932 Jacques Chirac, politician; President of France (1995–2007).
1933 John Mayall, singer, songwriter, musician; founder of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers band.
1940 Chuck Mangione, jazz musician, composer ("Feels So Good").
1942 Ann Dunham, mother of Barack Obama, 44th President of the US; she was an  anthropologist specializing in economic anthropology and rural development.
1955 Howard "Howie" Mandel, Canadian comedian, actor (St. Elsewhere), TV host (Deal or No Deal game show), voice actor (Bobby’s World); judge onAmerica’s Got Talent TV show.
1957 Janet Napolitano, politician, lawyer; first woman to serve as US Secretary of Homeland Security (2009-2013).
1973 Sarah Jones, Tony and Obie award-winning playwright, actress, poet (Bridge & Tunnel).

Saturday, November 28, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 28

Today in History
November 28
1520 Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan, having discovered a strait at the tip of South America, enters the Pacific.
1729 Natchez Indians massacre most of the 300 French settlers and soldiers at Fort Rosalie, Louisiana.
1861 The Confederate Congress admits Missouri to the Confederacy, although Missouri has not yet seceded from the Union.
1868 Mt. Etna in Sicily violently erupts.
1872 The Modoc War of 1872-73 begins in northern California when fighting breaks out between Modoc Chief Captain Jack and a cavalry detail led by Captain James Jackson.
1899 The British are victorious over the Boers at Modder River.
1919 Lady Astor is elected the first woman in Parliament.
1925 The forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry, called the WSM Barn Dance, opens in Nashville, Tennessee.
1935 The German Reich declares all men ages 18 to 45 as army reservists.
1937 Spanish leader Francisco Franco blockades the Spanish coast.
1939 The Soviet Union scraps its nonaggression pact with Finland.
1941 The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departs from Pearl Harbor to deliver F4F Wildcat fighters to Wake Island. This mission saves the carrier from destruction when the Japanese attack.
1943 Sir Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt meet at Tehran, Iran, to hammer out war aims.
1944 The first shipment of supplies reach Antwerp by convoy, a new route for the Allies.
1948 Dr. Edwin Land’s first Polaroid cameras go on sale in Boston.
1950 In Korea, 200,000 Communist troops launch attack on UN forces.
1961 Ernie Davis becomes the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy.
1963 Cape Canaveral is renamed Cape Kennedy.
1971 The Anglican Church ordains the first two women as priests.
1975 East Timor declares independence from Portugal.
1980 Operation Morvarid (Iran-Iraq War); Iranian Navy destroys over 70% of Iraqi Navy.
1984 Republican Robert Dole is elected Senate majority leader.
1989 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces it will give up its monopoly on political power.
1991 South Ossetia declares independence from Georgia.
2002 Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.

Born on November 28
1628 John Bunyan, English preacher and writer who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress.
1757 William Blake, English poet.
1907 Alberto Moravia, Italian novelist (The ConformistConjugal Love).
1908 Claude Levi-Strauss, French anthropologist.
1916 Vyes Theriault, French-Canadian author.
1929 Berry Gordy, Jr., recording executive.
1944 Rita Mae Brown, novelist.
1962 Jon Stewart, satirist, writer, director, author, television host, comedian; host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

Friday, November 27, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 27



Today in History
November 27
43BC Octavian, Antony and Lepidus form the triumvirate of Rome.
511 Clovis, king of the Franks, dies and his kingdom is divided between his four sons.
1095 In Clermont, France, Pope Urbana II makes an appeal for warriors to relieve Jerusalem. He is responding to false rumors of atrocities in the Holy Land.
1382 The French nobility, led by Olivier de Clisson, crush the Flemish rebels at Flanders.
1812 One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte’s army across the Beresina River in Russia collapses during a Russian artillery barrage.
1826 Jebediah Smith’s expedition reaches San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the continent.
1862 George Armstrong Custer meets his future bride, Elizabeth Bacon, at a Thanksgiving party.
1868 Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer‘s 7th Cavalry kills Chief Black Kettle and about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River.
1887 U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank Dalton, brother of the three famous outlaws, is killed in the line of duty near Fort Smith, Ark.
1904 The German colonial army defeats Hottentots at Warm bad in southwest Africa.
1909 U.S. troops land in Blue fields, Nicaragua, to protect American interests there.
1919 Bulgaria signs peace treaty with Allies at Unequally, France, fixing war reparations and recognizing Yugoslavian independence.
1922 Allied delegates bar the Soviets from the Near East peace conference.
1936 Great Britain’s Anthony Eden warns Hitler that Britain will fight to protect Belgium.
1942 The French fleet in Toulon is scuttled to keep it from Germany.
1950 East of the Choosing River, Chinese forces annihilate an American task force.
1954 Alger Hiss, convicted of being a Soviet spy, is freed after 44 months in prison.
1959 Demonstrators march in Tokyo to protest a defense treaty with the United States.
1967 Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert McNamara to presidency of the World Bank.
1967 Charles DeGaulle vetoes Great Britain’s entry into the Common Market again.
1970 Syria joins the pact linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.
1973 US Senate votes to confirm Gerald Ford as President of the United States, following President Richard Nixon’s resignation; the House will confirm Ford on Dec. 6.
1978 San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the city’s first openly gay supervisor, assassinated by former city supervisor Dan White.
1978 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Parti Karkerani Kurdistan, or PKK) founded; militant group that fought an armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan.
1984 Britain and Spain sign the Brussels Agreement to enter discussions over the status of Gibraltar.
1999 Helen Clark becomes first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand.
2001 Hubble Space Telescope discovers a hydrogen atmosphere on planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
2004 Pope John Paul II returns relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
2005 First partial human face transplant completed Amiens, France.
2006 Canadian House of Commons approves a motion, tabled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, recognizing the Quebecois as a nation within Canada.

Born on November 27
1701 Anders Celsius, astronomer who devised the centigrade temperature scale.
1870 Joe Mack, builder of gasoline-powered delivery wagons which eventually evolved into the Mack Truck Company.
1874 Charles A. Beard, distinguished American historian who wrote History of the United States.
1909 James Agee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (A Death in the Family).
1942 Jimi Hendrix, influential rock musician.
1955 Bill Nye, scientist, educator, TV host; known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, host of the Disney/PBS children’s show of the same name.
1957 Caroline Kennedy, author, attorney, only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Bouvier; named US Ambassador to Japan (2013– ).
1963 Princess Desiree of Hohenzollern.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 26

Today in History
November 26
1688 Louis XIV declares war on the Netherlands.
1774 A congress of colonial leaders criticizes British influence in the colonies and affirms their right to "Life, liberty and property."
1789 George Washington proclaims this a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new Constitution. This date was later used to set the date for Thanksgiving.
1812 Napoleon Bonaparte’s army begins crossing the Beresina River over two hastily constructed bridges.
1825 The Kappa Alpha Society, the second American college Greek-letter fraternity, is founded.
1863 The first National Thanksgiving is celebrated.
1901 The Hope diamond is brought to New York.
1907 The Duma lends support to Czar in St. Petersburg, who claims he has renounced autocracy.
1917 The Bolsheviks offer an armistice between Russian and the Central Powers.
1922 Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter, archeologists, open King Tut’s tomb, undisturbed for 3,000 years.
1938 Poland renews nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union to protect against a German invasion.
1939 The Soviet Union charges Finland with artillery attack on border.
1941 The Japanese fleet departs from the Kuril Islands en route to its attack onPearl Harbor.
1947 France expels 19 Soviet citizens, charging them with intervention in internal affairs.
1949 India becomes a sovereign Democratic republic.
1950 North Korean and Chinese troops halt a UN offensive.
1957 President Eisenhower suffers a minor stroke.
1975 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is found guilty of an attempt on President Gerald Ford’s life.
1979 Oil deposits equaling OPEC reserves are found in Venezuela.
1982 Yasuhiro Nakasone is elected the 71st Japanese prime minister.
1983 At London’s Heathrow Airport, almost 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million stolen from Brinks-MAT vault.
1998 Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland’s parliament.
2000 Republican candidate George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida’s electoral votes, giving him enough electoral votes to defeat Democrat Al Gore Jr. for the US presidency, despite losing the popular vote.
2011 NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani checkpost in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others.

Born on November 26
1827 Ellen Gould White, founder of the Seventh Day Adventists.
1876 Willis Haviland Carrier, inventor of the first air conditioning system to control both temperature and humidity.
1894 Norbert Weiner, American mathematician, considered the father of automation.
1912 Eric Sevareid, American broadcast journalist for CBS News.
1920 Cyril Cusack, Irish actor.
1922 Charles M. Shultz, American cartoonist who created "Peanuts" starring Charlie Brown.
1924 George Segal, sculptor.
1933 Robert Goulet, singer, actor.
1938 Rich Little, comedian, actor; noted for his ability to impersonate famous personalities.
1939 Tina Turner, singer, dancer , actress ("What’s Love Got to Do with It").
1954 Velupillai Prabhakaran, founder and leader of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka.
1956 Dale Jarrett, NASCAR driver; won 1999 Winston Cup Series championship.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 25


November 25
2348BC Biblical scholars have long asserted this to be the day of the Great Deluge, or Flood.
1863 Union ends the siege of Chattanooga with the Battle of Missionary Ridge.
1876 Colonel Ronald MacKenzie destroys Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife‘s village, in the Bighorn Mountains near the Red Fork of the Powder River, during the so-called Great Sioux War.
1901 Japanese Prince Ito arrives in Russia to seek concessions in Korea.
1914 German Field Marshal Fredrich von Hindenburg calls off the Lodz offensive 40 miles from Warsaw, Poland. The Russians lose 90,000 to the Germans’ 35,000 in two weeks of fighting.
1918 Chile and Peru sever relations.
1921 Hirohito becomes regent of Japan.
1923 Transatlantic broadcasting from England to America commences for the first time.
1930 An earthquake in Shizouka, Japan kills 187 people.
1939 Germany reports four British ships sunk in the North Sea, but London denies the claim.
1946 The U.S. Supreme Court grants the Oregon Indians land payment rights from the U.S. government.
1947 The Big Four meet to discuss the German and European economy.
1951 A truce line between U.N. troops and North Korea is mapped out at the peace talks in Panmunjom, Korea.
1955 The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel.
1963 The body of assassinated President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1964 Eleven nations give a total of $3 billion to rescue the value of the British currency.
1986 As President Ronald Reagan announces the Justice Department’s findings concerning the Iran-Contra affair; secretary Fawn Hall smuggles important documents out of Lt. Col. Oliver North’s office.
1987 Typhoon Nina sticks the Philippines with 165 mph winds and a devastating storm surge and causes over 1,030 deaths.
1992 Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia votes to partition the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, beginning Jan. 1, 1993.
2008 Sri Lanka is hit by Cyclone Nisha, bringing the highest rainfall the area had seen in 9 decades; 15 people die, 90,000 are left homeless.

Born on November 25
1844 Carl Benz, pioneer of early motor cars.
1896 Virgil Thompson, American composer (Four Saints in Three ActsThe Mother of Us All).
1910 Alwin Nikolais, choreographer.
1913 Lewis Thomas, physician and author (The Lives of a Cell).
1914 Joe DiMaggio, Hall of Fame baseball star who led the New York Yankees to ten World Series.
1939 Shelagh Delaney, playwright (A Taste of Honey).
1942 Bob Lind, singer, songwriter who was an important influence in the 1960s folk rock movement in the US and UK ("Elusive Butterfly").
1945 Gail Collins, journalist; first woman to serve as editorial page editor of The New York Times.
1953 Jeffrey Skilling, former CEO of Enron Corp.; convicted of multiple felony charges in 2006, relating to Enron’s financial collapse.
1960 John F. Kennedy Jr., elder son of US Pres. John F. Kennedy (assassinated three days before JFK Jr.’s third birthday); co-founded George magazine in 1995; died in plane crash, July 16, 1999.
1971 Christina Applegate, actress (Married . . . with ChildrenSamantha Who? TV series).
1981 Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of US Pres. George W. Bush; she and her sororal twin sister were the first twin children of a US president; presently (2013) a special correspondent to NBC’s Today Show and a contributor to NBC Nightly News.
1986 Amber Hagerman, whose kidnapping and murder in Jan. 1996 led to the development of the AMBER Alert system to notify surrounding communities when a child is reported missing or abducted.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - November 24

Today in History
November 24
1542 The English defeat the Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss in England.
1859 Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. The first printing of 1,250 copies sells out in a single day.
1863 In the Battle Above the Clouds, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s forces take Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1864 Kit Carson and his 1st Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, attack a camp of Kiowa Indians in the First Battle of Adobe Walls.
1874 Joseph Glidden receives a patent for barbed wire.
1902 The first Congress of Professional Photographers convenes in Paris.
1912 Austria denounces Serbian gains in the Balkans; Russia and France back Serbia while Italy and Germany back Austria.
1927 Federal officials battle 1,200 inmates after prisoners in Folsom Prison revolt.
1938 Mexico seizes oil land adjacent to Texas.
1939 In Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo execute 120 students who are accused of anti-Nazi plotting.
1944 American B-29s flying from Saipan bomb Tokyo.
1949 The Iron and Steel Act nationalizes the steel industry in Britain.
1950 UN troops begin an assault into the rest of North Korea, hoping to end the Korean War by Christmas.
1961 The United Nations adopts bans on nuclear arms over American protests.
1963 Jack Ruby fatally shoots the accused assassin of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the garage of the Dallas Police Department.
1977 Greece announces the discovery of the tomb of King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
1979 The United States admits that thousands of troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange.
1992 US Congress passes the Brady Bill requiring a 5-day waiting period for handgun sales; the bill is named for Pres. Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was left partially paralyzed by a bullet during an assassination attempt on Reagan.
1995 Ireland votes 50.28% to 49.72% to end its 70-year-old ban on divorce.
2012 A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills over 110 people.

Born on November 24
1784 Zachary Taylor, general during the Mexican War, 12th President of the United States.
1826 Carlo Collodi, the creator of Pinocchio.
1849 Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden.
1859 Cass Gilbert, architect.
1864 Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, French post-impressionist painter.
1868 Scott Joplin, composer.
1886 Margaret Anderson, editor, founder of The Little Review.
1888 Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.
1912 Garson Kanin, writer and director (Born Yesterday).
1925 William F. Buckley, Jr., journalist, founder of National Review.
1946 Ted Bundy, serial killer; he confessed to 30 murders between 1974-78, but the total could be much higher.
1948 Spider Robinson, Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction author (Callahan’s Crosstime SaloonMelancholy Elephants); received Robert A. Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in 2008.
1949 Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded Monica Lewinsky’s confidential phone calls about Lewinsky’s affair with then-President Bill Clinton.