On This Day in History... (JFK, Eisenhower, origin, Greek)

[Da Grouch]

~680 - The Third Council of Constantinople commenced.

~1492 -The the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, The Ensisheim Meteorite, struck Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the French village of Ensisheim, in Alsace.

~1665 - The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, was published for the first time.

~1775 - The Royal Govenor of the Colony of Virginia, John Murray, started the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation. It offered freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters in order to fight with Murray and the British.

~1811 - American forces led by William Henry, the governor of the Indiana Territory, defeated the forces of Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his American Indian Confederation at The Battle of Tippecanoe, near today's Battle Ground, Indiana.

~1837 - In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy was shot to death by a mob while he was attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed for a third time.

~1848 - Zachary Taylor was elected president in the first US presidential election to be held in every state on the same day.

~1861 - The Battle of Belmont took place. In Belmont, Missouri, Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant overran a Confederate camp but were forced to retreat when Confederate reinforcements arrive.

~1872 - The brigantine Merchant ship Mary Celeste set sail from New York. She was discovered in December 1872 in the Atlantic unmanned and apparently abandoned. This despite the fact that the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and able seamen. The ship was in perfect condition and still under full sail heading towards the Straits of Gibralter. She had been at sea for a month and still had over six months of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including their valuables. No one aboard was ever seen or heard from again, and what happened to them is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.

The Amazon (later renamed the Mary Celeste) circa 1861



~1874 - A cartoon by Thomas Nast was published in Harper's Weekly, this is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party.

~1885 - In Craigellachie, British Columbia The Last Spike was driven in on the Canadian Pacific Railway’s “Continental Line” (CPR Mainline) extending from east to west across all of Canada.



~1893 - In Colorado women were granted the right to vote.

~1900 – The Battle of Leliefontein, an engagement between Canadian and Boer forces during The Second Boer War that took place 20 miles south of Belfast, in the Transvaal. The Royal Canadian Dragoons would win three Victoria Crosses in the hard-fought battle.

~1907 - Delta Sigma Pi was founded at New York University.

~1907 – In Sonora, Mexico Jesus Garcia saved the entire town of Nacozari de Garcia by driving a burning train full of dynamite six kilometers (3.7 miles) away before it could explode. (OK...that took balls!)

~1908 - In San Vincente, Bolivia Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid were killed.

~1910 - The first air freight shipment took place from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio. It was freight belonging to department store owner Max Moorehouse and was flown by the Wright brothers.

~1914 - The first issue of The New Republic magazine was published.

~1914 – In Shandong Province the German colony of Kiaochow Bay and its centre at Tsingtao were captured by Japanese forces.

~1916 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becaome the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. (Good on you, Jeannie!)

~1917 - In Russia the October Revolution began. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, with the assistance of Bolshevik military leader and philosopher Leon Trotsky, led his revolutionaries in a nearly bloodless coup d'état against the Provisional Government. (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show a date of October 25.)

~1917 - The Third Battle of Gaza ended when British forces captured Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.

~1918 - The Spanish Flu (H1N1) pandemic spread to Western Samoa with a vengeance. In 8 weeks it killed 20% of the population.

~1920 - Patriarch Tikhon issued a decree that led to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

~1921 - Benito Mussolini created the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party, or PNF) in Italy.

~1929 - In New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opened to the public

~1932 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century aired on radio for the first time.

~1933 - Fiorello La Guardia was elected the 99th mayor of New York City.

~1939 - The heartwrenching We'll Meet Again was broadcast on the BBC for the first time. It was performed by a then unknown 22 year old singer named Vera Lynn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY

~1940 - In Washington state “Galloping Girtie”, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed in a windstorm a mere four months after the bridge's completion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw

~1941 - The Soviet ship Armenia, plainly marked as a hospital ship, was sunk in the Black Sea by Luftwaffe He 111's while evacuating refugees, wounded military and staff of several of Crimea's hospitals. Over 5,000 people (some sources claim 7,000) died in the sinking.

~1942 - The most famous bomber of the Second World War, a US 8th Air Force B-17 named "Memphis Belle", flew her first mission - taking part in a raid on Brest, France.

The Memphis Belleb - 1943



~1944 - A passenger train derailed in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico from excessive speed when descending a hill. 16 people were killed and 50 more were injured.

~1944 - Soviet spy Richard Sorge (codenamed Ramsay) and 34 others from his spy ring was were hanged by their Japanese captors in Sugamo prison.

~1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey to become the only U.S. president elected to a fourth term.

~1956 - In response to The Suez Crisis the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for Great Britain, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Egypt immediately. (And even more UN resolutions...)

~1957 - In the US the Gaither Report was released. It called for even more American missiles and fallout shelters.

~1963 - Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners were rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.

~1967 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

~1972 - Republican incumbent President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern to retain the US presidency. (But not for long...)

~1973 - The United States Congress overrode President Richard M. Nixon's veto of The War Powers Resolution, which limited presidential power to wage a war without congressional approval.

~1983 - A bomb exploded inside the US Capitol Building.

~1987 - In Tunisia, president Habib Bourguiba was overthrown and replaced by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

~1988 - Boxing: In Las Vegas, Nevada a 32 year old Sugar Ray Leonard came out of retirement and knocked out Donnie LaLonde in the 9th round to reclaim the championship.

~1989 - Douglas Wilder won the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected black governor in the United States. (Pardon my grin...)

~1989 - In California convicted serial killer Richard Ramirez, "The Night Stalker", was sentenced to death. (20 years later and he still hasn't gone to the gas chamber.)

~1989 – East German Prime Minister Willi Stoph and his entire cabinet was forced to resign after huge anti-government protests took place.

~1990 - Mary Robinson bwas elected President of the Republic of Ireland.

~1996 - NASA launched the Mars Global Surveyor.

~1996 - A Nigerian Boeing 727 crashed into a lagoon 40 miles southeast of Lagos, Nigeria killing all 143 passengers and crew.

~2000 - Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush defeated Democrat Vice President Al Gore for the US presidency but the final outcome was not known for over a month because of disputed votes in Florida.

~2000 - Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first First Lady of the United States to win public office.

~2000 – The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) discovered one of the country's largest LSD labs inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas. (Alright...now that was a novel idea.)

~2001 - The super-sonic commercial aircraft Concorde resumed flying following a 15 month hiatus due to the Paris crash of July 25th, 2000.

~2002 - Iran banned advertising of all US products. (By sheer coincidence they didn't ban the sale of Iranian products to the US…no hypocrisy here!)

~2004 - The interim government of Iraq called for a 60 day state of emergency as U.S. forces stormed the insurgent stronghold of Fallujh.

~2007 - The Jokela School Massacre took place when an 18 year old gunman entered a school in Tuusula, Finland and opened fire. He killed 8 people and wounded 12 others before shooting himself. (Too bad he didn't pump a round into his head BEFORE he opened up on the others.)

...

[Da Grouch]

~1519 - Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Montezuma welcomed him with great pomp as would befit a returning god. (No, no, Monty...it's a trick!!!)

~1520 - Following a successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces under the command of Denmark's Chritian II (Christian the Liar), over 100 Swedish leaders were executed. This in spite of a promise of general amnesty from Christian.

~1576 - During The Eighty Years' War, The Pacification of Ghent was signed. It was an alliance of the provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands for the purpose of driving mutinying Spanish mercenary troops from the country.

~1602 - At Oxford University, The Bodleian Library was opened to the public.

~1620 - At The Battle of White Mountain, fought near Prague, Catholic forces won a decisive victory over a Bohemian army of only half their numbers.

~1793 - The French Revolutionary Government opened The Louvre museum to the public.

~1837 - The formation of Mount Holyoke Seminary, the first US college founded for women.

~1847 - Born this day, Bram Stoker, the Irish writer whose works include Dracula. (d. 1912)

~1861 - The Trent Affair: Off the coast of Cuba the USS San Jacinto stopped HMRMS Trent and arrested two confederate envoys aboard her that were enroute to Europe. The incident ignited a major diplomatic crisis between Great Britain and the United States.

~1864 - As The Civil War raged, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected to his second term as US president.

~1886 - In Bristol, England my grandfather was born. (Miss ya', Grampa)

~1889 - Montana was admitted as the 41st state of the union.

~1892 - Grover Cleveland was elected over Benjamin Harrison and James B. Weaver to win the second of his non-consecutive US presidential terms.

~1892 - The New Orleans General Strike began. A successful 4 day general strike by trade unions that united black and white union members for the first time.

~1895 - While experimenting with electricity Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. (Wilhelm!!! You get down here for dinner right away, young man…and why are you glowing?)

~1898 - In Vancouver, BC my grandmother was born. (Miss ya', Gramma.)

~1900 - Born this day, Margaret Mitchell, Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote, amongst other things, Gone With the Wind. (d. 1949)

~1901 - Bloody clashes occurred in Athens, Greece following the translation of the Gospel into demotic Greek. (What the hell was that all about?)

~1906 - The first of its kind, the "all big gun", steam tubine powered, battleship HMS Dreadnought entered service. She received her full commission by the Royal Navy on December 2nd.

HMS Dreadnought




~1917 - Bell Telephone Company ran its first ad for Army operators. There were over 7,000 applicants.

~1923 - Adolf Hitler attempted to start a putsch in Munich's largest beer hall but was arrested two days later. He was trying to emulate Mussolini's March on Rome. Hitler's failed coup became known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

~1932 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected US president. With a landslide victory, and promising a "New Deal" for America, he was to remain in power until his death in 1945. He was re-elected three times.

~1933 - As part of The New Deal, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

~1935 - Fernand Bouisson became the Prime Minister of France. (That and $1.35 will get you a cup of stale coffee down at the Exxon gas bar...)

~1935 - A dozen labor leaders came together to announce the creation of the Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO), an organization charged with pushing the cause for industrial unionism. (That and $1.35...)

~1937 - The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) opened in Munich. (Ooh, ooh...sign me up for tickets to THAT one!!!)

~1939 - In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt while celebrating the 16th anniversary of The Beer Hall Putsch. (That was an unfortunate miss.)

~1939 - The Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS were captured by the Germans.

~1942 - Operation Torch, US and British forces landed in French North Africa.

~1942 – In Algiers The French Resistance Coup took place. 400 civilian French patriots neutralized the Vichy XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of intense fighting. They arrested several Vichy generals which allowed the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.

~1950 - In The Korean War USAF Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying an F-86 Sabre shot down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet on jet dog fight in history.

~1956 - Cecil B. DeMille's cinema classic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, premiered in New York. It later won an Oscar for Best Special Effects, and received a Best Picture nomination.

~1960 - In one of the closest presidential elections in US history, Senator John F. Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, won 49.7% of the popular vote, surpassing by a fraction the 49.6% received by Republican Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

~1965 – The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965 was given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in Great Britain.

~1965 – The 173 Airborne was ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War.

~1966 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke became the first black elected to the United States Senate.

~1970 - Placekicker Tom Dempsey of the New Orleans Saints kicked the longest field goal in NFL history at 63 yards. Dempsey's right kicking foot was artificial, and he had to wear a special shoe approved by the league. The kick was the last play of the game, and the Saints beat the Detroit Lions, 19-17. Dempsey also was missing his right hand.

~1973 - The right ear of John Paul Getty III finally arrived at a newspaper together with a ransom note, weeks after being sent. It convinced his father to pay the $3,200,000 demanded.

~1974 - In Salt Lake City, Utah, Carol DaRonch narrowly escaped abduction by serial killer Ted Bundy.

~1976 - Panic ensued when the city of Thessaloniki, Greece was struck by a series of earthquakes. The city was subsequently evacuated.

~1977 - Aristotle University of Thessaloniki professor and archaeologist, Manolis Andronikos, discovered the tomb of Phillip II of Macedon at Vergina, Greece.

~1985 - At a makeshift gun show in Topeka, Kansas, Allen Pascall discovered and purchased for only $65 the Winchester .44 lever action rifle (ser. #1098) originally owned by Buffalo Bill Cody.

Winchester .44 lever action rifle



~1987 - 12 people were killed and another 63 injured when a Provisional IRA bomb ripped through a crowd gathered for a Remembrance Day service at a war memorial in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. (Those bastards just can't leave ANYTHING alone...)

~1988 - Republican Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush was elected the 41st president of the United States. He defeated the Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis.

~1989 - In an event watched on every major television network around the world, The Berlin Wall came down.

~1991 - Despite drug convictions and charges of corruption, Marion Barry was re-elected mayor of Washington, D.C.

~1991 - Sonny Bono was elected to the United States Congress.

~1994 - For the first time in 40 years the United States Republican Party took control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the mid-term congressional elections. (Rush Limbaugh was pleased.)

~1997 - A newborn baby was found inside a washroom in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. To this day the mother remains unknown.

~2002 - The Iraqi Disarmament Crisis: UN Security Council Resolution (more resolutions...)1441 - The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Iraq, demanding that Saddam Hussein disarm or face "serious consequences". (I could run with this one for a week!)

~2004 - More than 10,000 US troops along with a small number of Iraqi army units participated in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~694 - Hispano-Visigothic king Egica accused the Jews of aiding the invading Moors (Moslems) and sentenced them all to slavery. (No trial or anything, just "accusation and sentencing"...all that's necessary.)

~1282 - Pope Martin IV excommunicated Peter the Great (King Peter III of Aragon).

~1313 - The army of Louis the Bavarian defeated the forces of his cousin's Frederick I of Austria at The Battle of Gamelsdorf in Freising, Bavaria.

~1330 - In Transylvania at The Battle of Posada forces under Basarab I of Wallachia ambushed and virtually annihilated a Hungarian army 3 times their numbers led by Charles Robert.

~1492 - In France The Peace of Etaples, between England's King Henry VII and France's King Charles VIII was signed. The treaty stopped the English invasion of France that was begun to end France's support for the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck. France agreed to expel Warbeck and pay England an indemnity of £159,000.

~1494 - The Family de' Medici became the rulers of Florence.

~1520 - The Stockholm Bloodbath (day 2): Danish King Christian II (Christian the Liar) ordered the executions of 50 more nobles. (He was in a pissy mood that day, too.)

~1541 - Under orders of King Henry VIII, Queen Catherine Howard was confined in London Tower.

~1620 - Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower believed that they had sighted land just before nightfall. This was confirmed at sunup the following morning when they laid eyes on present day Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

~1688 - William of Orange's forces captured Exeter during The Glorious Revolution.

~1729 - Spain, France and England signed The Treaty of Seville, ending The Spanish-Anglo War.

~1764 - During The French and Indian War, Lenape Indian captive Mary Campbell was turned over to forces commanded by Colonel Henry Bouquet.

~1791 - Dublin saw the founding of the Society of United Irishmen. (Sorry ladies...no women allowed.)

~1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte led the Coup of 18 Brumaire ending the Directory Government, and becoming one of its three Consuls (Consulate Government).

~1848 - In Vienna, the German revolutionary Robert Blum was executed.

~1851 - Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana and took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

~1862 - Union General Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac, following the removal of General George McClellan by US President Abraham Lincoln.

~1867 - Tokugawa Shogunate returned power to the Emperor of Japan, beginning the Meiji Restoration.

~1872 - The Great Boston Fire occurred. Over 65 acres of Boston's downtown core, including most of the financial district, was gutted in less than 12 hours. Over 20 people died in the inferno.

~1887 - The United States received the rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

~1888 - Jack the Ripper murdered Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

~1906 - Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside of the United States when he left Washington to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal.

~1907 - The Cullinan Diamond was presented to Britain's King Edward VII on his 66th birthday.

~1913 - The Great Lakes Storm of 1913 struck. It was the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, destroying 19 ships and killing more than 250 people.

~1917 - Joseph Stalin entered the provisional government of Bolshevik Russia. (A truly sad day for humanity...)

~1918 - Germany was proclaimed a Republic. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and chose to live in exile in The Netherlands as a result of The German Revolution. (Yah! Tuck yoor tail oop under yoor butt and run like der wind, Willy!)

~1918 - Provisional National Council Minister-President Kurt Eisner declared Bavaria to be a republic.

~1921 - Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the photoelectric effect.

~1923 - Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch failed. In Munich, police and government troops crushed the first Nazi Party attempt to seize control of the German government.

~1932 - Riots erupted and street battles took place between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland. 12 people were killed and another 60 injured before order was restored.

~1937 - Japanese troops seized control of Shanghai, China.

~1938 - Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath died from gunshots fired by Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan.

~1938 - Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany's first large scale act of physical anti-Jewish violence, began. (The term Kristallnacht is a widely used euphemism for Reichspogromnacht.)

~1940 - The city of Warsaw was awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy, by the government in exile. This for the city's defence efforts against the invading German forces in 1939.

~1942 - The newly constructed, and first of her class (Iowa class fast battleship), USS Iowa began her sea trials in New York. She was commissioned on February 22nd, 1943.

USS Iowa firing a full broadside of her 16" main guns



~1953 - Cambodia gained (took) its independence from France.

~1960 - Robert McNamara was named president of Ford Motor Company. The first non-Ford family member to serve in that post. Only one month later, he would resign his position to join the administration of newly elected US President John F. Kennedy.

~1963 - The Miike Coal Mine Disaster occurred at Miike, Japan when an explosion killed 458 and put a further 839 in hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

~1963 - A wreck, involving 3 trains disaster took place Yokohama, Japan. More than 160 people were killed and several hundred others were injured.

~1965 - The Northeast Blackout: Several US states and parts of eastern Canada were caught up in a series of prolonged power outages that lasted for as long as 13 hours.

~1967 - NASA launched the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft atop the very first Saturn V rocket, from Cape Kennedy in Florida.

~1967 – The first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published. (We keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture...)

Rolling Stone #1



~1970 - The US Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 against hearing a case that would allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war. (You chicken ****s!!!)

~1971 - An accountant from Westfield, New Jersey murdered his mother, wife and three children. He then hid under a new identity for 18 years. (Oh, you’re such a BRAVE piece of walking human excrement!!!)

~1979 - In Fort Ritchie, Maryland the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center detected a massive incoming Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the Red Alert was cancelled. Faulty computer hardware was later found to be the cause of the nearly disasterous glitch.

~1985 - Russia's Garry Kasparov, then aged only 22, became the youngest World Chess Champion by defeating fellow Russian Anatoly Karpov.

~1989 - The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Since breaches (unopposed by East German border guards) had been made in the wall the previous day by German civilians, and televised around the world, communist controlled East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall. This allowed its citizens to cross into West Germany. A mass of people then began to demolish the entire wall.

~1990 – A new democratic constitution was issued in Nepal. (To date, China hasn't invaded them over this.)

~1993 - In Mostar, Bosnia, Stari Most (The Old Bridge), built in 1566, collapsed after several days of constant bombarment by Croatian forces.

The Old Bridge in Mostar



~1998 - In the largest civil settlement in United States history, a federal judge approved a settlement requiring dozens of brokerage houses to pay $1.03 billion to investors cheated in a price-fixing scheme on the NASDAQ.

~1998 – Capital punishment in Britain, abolished for murder in 1965, was completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.

~2002 - Television and film actor Merlin Santana was shot to death while sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car in Los Angeles.

~2003 - The (3 day) Paul Massey Blues Festival Marathon concluded, having raised $35,463,812 for cancer research.

~2005 - The Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

~2005 – Three hotels in Amman, Jordan were attacked by suicide bombers killing more than 60 people.

...

[Trudy Rose]

Some interesting events on this day, November 10th:
1444 Battle of Varna/Black Sea.. Sultan MuradII defeats the Crusaders
1674 The Dutch cede New Netherlands ( now know as New York) to the English..
and in 1801 Kentucky finally outlaws dueling

[Da Grouch]

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~1444 - At The Battle of Varna, the crusading forces of King Ladislaus III of Poland were crushed by the Turks under Sultan Murad II and Ladislaus was killed.

~1520 - The Stockholm Bloodbath (day 3): Danish King Christian II (Christian the Liar) ordered the executions of dozens more nobles. (It was his week to be a jerk.)

~1766 - The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signed the charter of Queen's College. It was later renamed Rutgers University.

~1775 - During the American Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution creating the Continental Marines (later renamed the United States Marine Corps) to serve as landing troops for the recently created Continental Navy.

~1847 - Off the southern coast of Ireland the passenger carrying merchant ship Stephen Whitney wrecked in a thick fog. 92 of the 110 aboard were lost. The mishap resulted in the construction the Fastnet Lighthouse.

~1865 - CSA Captain Henry Wirz, the superintendent of Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp in Georgia, was hanged. He was the only Civil War soldier on either side to be executed for war crimes. (Quantrill aside.)

~1871 - New York Herald reporter Henry Stanley located the long missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika. He greeted him with the now famous quote "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

~1898 - The Wilmington Insurrection: In the only instance of a municipal government being overthrown in US history, armed white supremacists seized power in Wilmington, North Carolina. State Governor Daniel Russell and US President William McKinley, who were both well informed of the unfolding events, did nothing in response.

~1918 - The Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia received a top secret (coded) message from Europe that stated "...on November 11, 1918 all fighting will cease on land, sea and in the air". It was forwarded to Ottawa and Washington DC.

~1919 - The first national convention of the American Legion began in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It ran until November 12th.

~1942 - The party was over for French collaborators when German forces invaded Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan‘s agreement to an armistice (surrender) with the Allies in North Africa.

~1944 - The ammunition ship USS Mount Hood exploded in Seeadler Harbour at Manus Island (northern Papua New Guinea) killing all 350 aboard, obliterating the ship itself, and sinking or severely damaging 22 smaller craft nearby.

The end of the USS Mount Hood.



~1951 - Direct dial coast to coast telephone service began in the United States.

~1954 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated the USMC War Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial, in Arlington National Cemetery.

~1958 - New York diamond merchant, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian.

~1969 - Sesame Street aired for the first time. (Kermit was pleased!)

~1970 - For the first time in five years, an entire week ended with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia. (That small oversight was rectified the following week.)

~1970 - The Soviets launched the lunar probe Lunokhod 1.

~1971 - In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attacked both the city and the airport of Phnom Penh, killing 44, wounding more than 30 others.

~1972 - Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham was hijacked and threatened to be crashed into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 2 days later the plane landed in Havana, Cuba. There the hijackers were jailed on the direct orders of Fidel Castro. (That one didn't work out the way you planned, did it...you idiots!)

~1975 - The Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a fierce storm on Lake Superior. All 29 crew aboard were lost.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald



~1975 - The United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 3379 which equated Zionism with racism. The resolution was repealed 1,307 resolutions later in December 1991 with yet another resolution, Resolution 4686. (*sigh* Just what would the UN ever do with itself if it didn't have its little toybox full of resolutions to play with?)

~1989 - After 35 years of communist rule in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov was replaced by former Prime Minister Petre Mladenov who changed the party's name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

~1992 - Le Banque du Montreal (The Bank of Montreal), Canada's oldest financial institution, was rocked by an embezzelment scandal involving over $17.5 million.

~1995 - In Nigeria, playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa, along with eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop), were hanged by government forces.

~1997 - Telcoms WorldCom and MCI announced a US $37 billion merger. It was the largest corporate merger in US history at the time.

~2007 - The ¿Por qué no te callas? Incident: At the 2007 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, Spanish King Juan Carlos became seriously annoyed at Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Chavez was making constant interruptions of a speech being made by Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero when Juan Carlos leaned toward Chavez and said "¿Por qué no te callas? " (English: "Why don't you just shut up?")

~1997 - Seymore Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot" was published. It included, amongst other things, allegations of explicit photos of John F. Kennedy with various sex partners having been taken and brought to a Washington, D.C. gallery for framing by a Secret Service agent.

...

[Trudy Rose]

Today is November 11th..Veteran's Day
Let's all take some time to think about and thank all of our Veterans for their devotion and sacrifices that they make for our freedom every day

[Da Grouch]

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~1500 - France's King Louis XII and Ferdinand II of Aragon reach agreement on how to divide up the Kingdom of Naples between them with the signing of The treaty of Granada.

~1620 - In what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod, the Mayflower Compact was signed aboard the Mayflower, establishing the basic laws for the Plymouth Colony.

~1634 - Due mainly to political pressure being applied by Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passed "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery".

~1673 - In the Ukraine at The Second Battle of Khotyn the combined Polish and Lithuanian forces under the command of Jan Sobieski defeated the Ottoman army. For the first time, rockets (manufactured by Kazimierz Siemienowicz) were successfully utilized in warfare.

~1675 - Guru Gobind Singh became The Tenth Guru of the Sikhs.

~1675 - Integral calculus was demonstrated for the first time, by Gottfried Leibniz, to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).

~1724 - The famous highwayman Joseph Blake, aka Blueskin, was hanged in London.

~1750 - The F.H.C. Society (Flat Hat Club), was formed at Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was the first college fraternity.

~1778 - Seneca Indian and Loyalist forces attacked a fort and village in eastern New York during The American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers in what has become known as The Cherry Valley Massacre.

~1805 - At The Battle of Durenstein 8000 French troops attempted to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force. The battle was fought to an inconclusive end.

~1813 - British and Canadian troops defeated a much larger American force at The Battle of Crysler's Farm. The Americans were forced to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.

~1831 - In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner was hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

~1839 - The Virginia Military Institute was founded in Lexington, Virginia.

~1864 - Sherman's March to the Sea - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered that Atlanta, Georgia be burnt to the ground as he prepared for his army's march south.

~1865 - Bhutan ceded the areas to the east of the Teesta River to the British East India Company with the signing of The Treaty of Sinchula.

~1869 - In Australia, the Aboriginal Protection Act was enacted giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and (most insidious of all) of their children. This led to what is now known as The Stolen Generations. (All in the name of protection; kinda sounds like some of the crap Washington is trying to pull off these days...)

~1880 - The notorious Australian bushranger Neds Kelley was hanged at Melbourne Gaol.

~1887 - In the culmination of The Haymarket Affair, anarchists Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel and August Spies were hanged in Chicago.

~1887 – Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal began at Eatham.

~1889 - Washington was admitted as the 42nd state of the union.

~1911 - As a strong cold front rolled through the American Midwest a great many cities broke their record high and low temperatures records for the day.

~1918 - At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent along the Western Front. And so ended The Great War, the War to end All Wars, that which we know today as World War I...and in its wake lay eighteen million dead.

They shall not grow old,
As those that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.




~1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria abdicated the throne. (Running in Wilhelm's footsteps...)

~1919 - The Centralia Massacre took place in Centralia, Washington. It resulted in the deaths of 5 members of the American legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.

~1919 – Lāčplēša day – During the Latvian War of Independence, Latvian forces defeated the German Freikorps at Riga.

~1921 - US President Warren Harding dedicated The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

~1924 - Prime Minister Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaimeds the first recognized Greek Republic.

~1926 - One of the greatest American icons was born with the establishment of U.S. Route 66. It ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, a total of 2,448 miles.

~1930 - Patent number US1781541 was awarded to Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator. (And a very smart refrigerator it was, too!)

~1940 - In The Battle of Taranto, the Royal Navy launched the first aircraft carrier strike in history, destroying the Italian fleet lying at anchor in Taranto.

~1940 – The German Kreigsmarine light auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captured top secret British mail and sent it on to Japan.

~1940 – The Great Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard struck the US Midwest leaving 144 dead.

~1942 - Nazi Germany completed its total occupation of France.

~1960 - In South Vietnam an attempted military coup to oust President Ngo Dinh Diem was crushed.

~1965 - In Rhodesia, the white minority government of Ian Smith made a unilateral declaration of independence.

~1966 - Astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin blasted off on a daring space mission when NASA launched Gemini 12. Gemini 12 was designed to perform rendezvous and docking with the Agena target vehicle.

Agena 12 rendezvous target vehicle



~1967 - During a purely propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, 3 American POW's were handed ove to the New Left antiwar activist Tom Hayden. (Oh well, at least it brought 3 of our guys home again.)

~1968 - Operation Commando Hunt was initiated, the goal of which was to interdict troops and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos and into South Vietnam.

~1972 - The US Army turned over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.

~1975 - During The Australian Constitutional Crisis, Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the government of Gough Whitlam. He then appointed Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announced a general election to be held in early December.

~2000 - 155 skiers and snowboarders died when a cable car caught fire inside an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.

~2001 - Journalists Volker Handloik, Johanne Sutton andPierre Billaud were killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they were traveling with.

~2004 - In New Zealand The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was dedicated at the National War Memorial in Wellington.

~2004 -The Palestine Liberation Organization finally confirmed the circulating rumors that Yasser Arafat had died. (Good news is still good news, even if it's delayed good news...)

~2008 - It was the end of an era as a modern day legend, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 set sail on her final voyage to Dubai.




...

[Da Grouch]

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~764 - Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, was occupied by Tibetan troops for fifteen days. (Now there’s a switch…Tibet invading and occupying China!)

~1028 - In accordance with the death wish of Constantine VIII, the (future) Empress Zoe of Byzantine married Romanus Argyrus.

~1439 - In England, Plymouth became the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

~1555 -Catholicism was re-established by the English Parliament. (Well we would certainly hope so then, wouldn't we!)

~1793 - In France, the first mayor of Paris, Jean Bailly, was sent to the guillotine. (A bit harsh perhaps but I suppose that's one way of dealing with inept politicians.)

~1847 - Sir James Simpson, a British physician, was the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic.

~1893 - The Treaty of the Durand Line was signed between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Durand Line has since gained worldwide recognition as the (largely ignored) international border between the two nations.

~1905 - A referendum was held in Norway to determine if the country would become a republic or continue on as a monarchy. The pro-monarchy side prevailed.

~1912 - In Antarctica, the frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men were found on the Ross Ice Shelf just 11 miles (18 km) short of One Ton Depot.

~1918 - Austria became a republic.

~1920 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes signed The Treaty of Rapallo with Italy. It resolved the long standing territorial disagreements over areas of the upper Adriatic.

~1927 - Joseph Stalin had Leon Trotsky expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Stalin with undisputed control of the Soviet Union. (Still not good enough for Pinko Joe, he had Trotsky murdered in his home at Coyoacan, Mexico in 1940.)

~1929 - Grace Kelly, movie star and later Princess of Monaco, was born. (d. 1982)

~1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuted, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief.

~1936 - The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic.

The Bay Bridge at night

Photo by Milo Zinkova

~1941 – The Soviet light cruiser Chervona Ukraina was sunk by German aicraft during The Battle of Sevastopol.

~1941 - Temperatures in and around Moscow dropped to -12 ° C and the soviets mount a counter attack of ski troops (the first time ever used in battle) against the freezing and ill-prepared German forces near the city.

~1942 - The opening shots were fired in the 3 day long Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between US Navy and Japanese Imperial Navy forces. Over 3,600 servicemen from both sides would lose their lives in the battle and 26 ships along with 101 aircraft would end up on the floor of Ironbottom Sound.

Smoke rises from two Japanese aircraft shot down off Guadalcanal on November 12th, 1942. Photographed from the USS President Adams.



The battleship USS Washington fires upon Kirishima during the battle on the night of November 15th.



~1944 - The Royal Air Force launched a force of 29 Avro Lancaster bombers in one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of the Second World War and, by dropping 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs, sank the German battleship Tirpitz off Tromsø, Norway.

Tirpitz off the Norwegian coast in June, 1941



~1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois opened the first ten drive-up teller windows.

~1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentenced seven Japanese military (including General Hideki Tojo) and government officials to death for their roles in The Second World War.

~1956 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.

~1958 - In California's Yosemite Valley a team of rock climbers completed the first ever ascent of The Nose on El Capitan.

~1969 - During The Vietnam War, independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre.

~1970 – Cyclone Bhola made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Over 200,000 died making Bhola the deadliest tropical cyclone in history.

~1971 - US President Richard Nixon set February 1st, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.

~1979 - In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter ordered that all United States imports of petroleum products from Iran be halted immediately. (Nothing like hitting the scum in the pocketbook, yes?)

~1980 - More than 26 months after its launch NASA's space probe Voyager I arrived at Saturn. It made its closest approach to the planet and took the first close up pictures of its rings.

~1981 - For the first time ever a manned spacecraft was re-used and launched into space twice when Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Mission STS-2.

~1982 - Yuri Andropov became the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee. He succeeded Leonid Brezhnev.

~1982 – After 11 months of confinement, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was released from a Polish prison.

~1990 - Crown Prince Akihito was formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan, becoming the 125th Japanese monarch.

~1990 - Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

~1991 - The Santa Cruz Massacre: Indonesian forces opened fire on a crowd of pro-independence student demonstrators in Dili, East Timor, killing more than 400 and wounding hundreds more. The event was caught on videotape by Max Stahl, who was filming undercover for Yorkshire Television. Stahl's footage, combined with the testimony of others, caused outrage around the world.

~1996 - A mid-air collision occurred between a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane New Delhi, India. 349 were killed in the accident making it the deadliest mid-air collision to date.

~1997 - In a New York courtroom, Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the World Trade Center Bombing in 1993.

~1998 - US Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol. (Well...that one went on to go down in a ball of flames.)

~1998 – Germany's Daimler-Benz completed its merger (takeover) with Chrysler Vorporation to form Daimler-Chrysler. (That was a marriage doomed to end up in divorce court sooner than later...)

~1999 - The magnitude 7.2 Duzce Earthquake struck northwest Turkey, killing 894 people and injuring thousands more.

~2001 - Just minutes after takeoff from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport American Airlines Flt. 587, an Airbus A300, crashed killing all 260 on board as well as 5 more on the ground.

Impact area of Flt. 587



~2001 - Taliban forces abandoned Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops. (And did we pursue them and put an end to their threat? OH HELL NO! - And has that small oversight now come back to bite us in the ass? OH HELL YEAH!)

(Moving right along...)

~2003 - In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people (among them the first Italian casualties of the Iraq war) were killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.

~2003 - Died this day: Penny Singleton, of Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead fame. (b. 1908)

~2003 – Shanghai Transrapid set a new world speed record of 501 km/h (311) for commercial railway systems.

~2006 - Even though the government of Georgia declared it illegal, South Ossetia held an independence referendum. Over 99 percent of voters supported preserving the region's status as a de facto independent state.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~1002 - The Saint Brice's Day Massacre: England had been attacked by Vikings every year from 997 to 1001 causing the system of national defence to break down completely. England's King Ethelred the Unready was advised that the raiders were receiving support from the many Scandinavians living in England. In a desperate attempt to get rid of his enemies once and for all orders were issued commanding the slaughter, on St Brice's day, "all the Danish men, women and children residing in England". There are no accurate records still in existence as to how many were murdered in the ensuing bloodbath.

~1160 - Adele of Champagne married King Louis VII of France.

~1642 - During The First English Civil War, the Parliamentarian army gained a strategic victory when they halted the advance of the Royalist forces at The Battle of Turnham Green. Unable to take London the Royalists were forced to withdraw.

~1775 - Patriot revolutionary troops under General Richard Montgomery captured Montreal from the British without fiing a shot.

~1841 – James Braid observed a demonstration of animal magnetism. This led to his study of the subject he eventually named Hypnotism.

~1851 - The Denny Party landed at Alki Point. They were the first settlers of what would become, in December of 1869, Seattle, Washington.

~1887 - Bloody Sunday: Over 2000 police attacked unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in central London who were protesting coercion in Ireland and demanding the release from prison of MP William O'Brien. While only 3 protesters died, hundreds more were seriously injured.

~1901 - The Caister Lifeboat Disaster occurred. In Norfolk, England at the height of The Great Storm of 1901, the 36 ft. long lifeboat Beauchamp was launched, to effect a rescue on a grounded ship. Soon after launching she was overwhelmed by the heavy seas and capsized. 9 crewmen were lost in the incident.

~1909 - The Ballinger-Pinchot Scandal began. Collier's magazine accused US Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of questionable dealings in the Alaskan coal fields.

~1916 - Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes was expelled from his own party, the Labor Party, over his support for conscription.

~1918 – Constantinople, the capital of the defunct Ottoman Empire, was occupied by Allied troops.

~1927 – The Holland Tunnel opened to traffic, it was the first vehicle tunnel under the Hudson River linking New York City to New Jersey.

The Holland Tunnel

Photo by Kmf164


~1940 - Walt Disney’s stunning classic animated feature length film Fantasia was released.

~1941 - The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed by U 81. This resulted in its sinking on November 14.

HMS Ark Royal (c. 1939)



~1942 - During The Battle of Guadalcanal torpedo bombers from the USS Enterprise sank the Japanese heavy cruiser BB-Hiei.

~1950 - Venezuelan President General Carlos Delgado Chaulbaud was assassinated in Caracas.

~1954 - In Paris, in front of over 30,000 spectators, Great Britain defeated (whumped on!) France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup.

~1960 - Sammy Davis, Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt. At the time interracial marriage was still illegal in 31 of the 50 US states. (Not that Sammy would give a damn about those laws anyway...)

~1961 - Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeded Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB.

~1965 - The SS Varmouth burnt and sank 60 miles off the coast of Nassau with the loss of 90 lives.

~1970 - After making landfall late the the previous evening, the 110-mph tropical Cyclone Bhola roared up the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) overnight. She killed an addition 250,000 people over and above the quarter million killed the previous day; with a total death toll of over 500,000 this is regarded as the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster.

~1971 - NASA's space probe, Mariner 9, became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet successfully, swinging into its planned trajectory around Mars..

~1982 - Korean boxer Kim Duk Koo was left in a coma after being knocked out by Ray Mancini during a match in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kim's subsequent death on November 17 led to significant changes in the rules governing the sport.

~1982 - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) was dedicated in Washington D.C. following a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.

The Wall

photo by Kelvin Kay


~1985 - The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buried Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.

~1988 - Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian law student studying in Portland, Oregon was beaten to death by members of the Neo-Nazi group East Side White Pride.

~1990 - The Aramoana Massacre: In the small seaside township of Aramoana, New Zealand a gunman randomly shot and killed 13 people.

~1990 - The first known World Wide Web page was written.

~1994 - In a national referendum voters in Sweden decided to join the European Union.

~1995 - A truck bomb exploded outside of a US operated Saudi Arabian National Guard training center in Riyadh. 5 Americans and 2 Indians were killed. A group called the Islamic Movement for Change would later claim responsibility.

~2000 – Philippine House Speaker Manuel Villar Jr.passed the articles of impeachment against Philippine President Joseph Estrada.

~2001 – In the first such act since the Second World War, US President George W. Bush signed an executive order allowing for military tribunals against any foreigners "suspected" of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States. (What's the matter Georgy...didn't have the balls to try and put that one through Congress?)

~2002 - Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441. (They never actually got around to complying with it, though...)

~2002 - The oil tanker Prestige sank off the Galician coast causing a massive oil spill.

~2007 – A bomb explosion rocked the south wing of the House of Representatives of the Philippines in Quezon City. 4 people were killed and 6 others injured.

...

[Da Grouch]

.

~1532 – Spanish Conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro arrived at Cajamarca, Peru in the Incan Empire.

~1862 – US President Abraham Lincoln approved General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. This led to The Battle of Fredericksburg.

~1889 – Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly began a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completed the trip with 8 days to spare.

~1896 – The power plant at Niagara Falls began operation.

~1910 – In Hampton Roads, Virginia, Eugene Ely made the first take-off from a ship. He lifted off from a makeshift deck on the cruiser USS Birmingham in a Curtiss Model D pusher-plane.

Curtiss Model D


USS Birmingham


~1918 – Czechoslovakia became a republic.

~1919 - During The Russian Civil War, the Red Army captured Omsk, Siberia from White Russian forces.

~1921 – The Communist Party of Spain was founded. (Let's all cheer for that one...)

~1922 – The British Broadcasting Corporation (The BBC) began radio service in the United Kingdom.

~1923 – Kentaro Suzuki completed his ascent of Mount Iizuna.

~1927 – 28 workers died when the worlds largest gas tank, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, exploded.

~1935 - Nazi Germany stripped all German Jews of their citizenship.

~1939 – An oil refinery fire killed over 500 people and destroyed virtually all of Lagunillas, Venezuela.

~1940 - In a massive air raid, German Luftwaffe bombers levelled nearly all of historic Coventry, England.

Coventry's city center following the raid.



~1942 – The last of the Vichy French troops in Algeria surrendered to Allied forces.

~1952 – The first regular UK singles chart was published by the New Musical Express.

~1956 – The final pockets of resistance in The Hungarian Revolution were put down by the Red Army. (In their typical bloody fashion...)

~1957 – Acting on a hunch, law enforcement raided a mansion outside Binghamton, New York. They stumbled upon The Apalachin Meeting in progress, resulting in the arrest of many of the US's highest level Mafia figures.

~1960 - Belgium threatened to leave the UN due to criticism on it's Congo policy. (AWWWW! Anybody got a crying towel for the poor Belgians?)

~1965 – The Battle of the Ia Drang began, it was the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces. On the same day the, back in Washington DC, the decision was made by the US military to send 90,000 more troops to Vietnam.

~1969 - NASA launched Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.

Perhaps the most famous photo of the Apollo program: On the lunar surface, Pete Conrad is reflected in the facemask of Alan Bean.



~1970 - Southern Airways Flt. 932, a DC-9, crashed in the mountains near
Huntington, West Virgina killing all 75 aboard.

~1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.

~1973 – In Westminster Abby, Britain's Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips.

~1975 – Spain officially abandoned Western Sahara.

~1984 – Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, was assassinated in his home city. (That was Marcos' typical answer to anyone who opposed or criticized him.)

~1991 – American and British authorities announced that 2 Libyan intelligence officials had been indicted in connection with the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

~1991 – In Royal Oak, Michigan, a fired United States Postal Service employee went on a shooting rampage, killing 4 and wounding another 5 before committing suicide.

~1995 – A budget standoff between the Democrats and the Republicans in the U.S. Congress forced the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.

~1998 - Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra were married in Las Vegas, Nevada. (What in HELL were you thinking, Carmen?)

~2000 - Netscape Navigator version 6.0 was launched following two years of open source development.

~2001 – Afghan Northern Alliance fighters seized control of the capital Kabul which had been abandoned by the retreating Taliban.

~2002 – Argentina defaulted on a US $805 million World Bank payment.

~2002 – The United States House of Representatives voted not to create an independent commission to investigate the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

~2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discovered 90377 Sedna, a Trans-Neptunian cold planetoid about 2/3 the size of Pluto.

Computer generated rendition of 90377 Sedna



~2007 – In New York, the last direct current electrical distribution system (DC power) in the United States was shut down by Con Edison.

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