On this day...

KenOC · Apr 26, 2014

On this day, 26 April 1564: Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (his date of actual birth is unknown).

1803: Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L'Aigle, France; the event convinces European science that meteors exist.

1865: Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia.

1933: The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.

1937: Spanish Civil War: Guernica (or Gernika in Basque), Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.

1956: SS Ideal X, the world's first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.

1965: A Rolling Stones concert in London, Ontario is shut down by police after 15 minutes due to rioting.

1986: A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.

1989: The deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.

2005: Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country.

It's the Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Tragedy, in Belarus.

KenOC · Apr 27, 2014

On this day, 27 April 1296: First War of Scottish Independence: John Balliol's Scottish army is defeated by an English army commanded by John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey at the Battle of Dunbar.

1521: Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.

1667: The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.

1749: First performance of George Frideric Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, London.

1805: First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).

1861: American President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus. A pretty bad-boy thing to do.

1865: The steamboat SS Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom are Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons.

1945: World War II: Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier.

1974: Ten thousand march in Washington, D.C., calling for the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon

1981: Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.

1992: The Russian Federation and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

It's the feast day of the Virgin of Montserrat. Spare a thought!

Taggart · Apr 27, 2014

Birthdays

Edward Gibbon 1737 - Not always appreciated, the Duke of Gloucester remarked -"Another damned thick book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?" on receiving the second volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the author.
Samuel F.B. (Finley Breese) Morse 1791
Ulysses S. Grant 1822

KenOC · Apr 28, 2014

On this day, 28 April 1253: Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the very first time and declares it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.

1503: The Battle of Cerignola is fought, the first battle in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder.

1789: Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1945: Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.

1947: Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

1948: Igor Stravinsky conducts the premier of his American ballet, Orpheus, in New York City at New York City Center.

1952: The United States occupation of Japan ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.

1978: President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1988: Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane's fuselage rips open in mid-flight.

It's World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

KenOC · Apr 29, 2014

On this day, 29 April 711: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).

1429: Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans.

1770: James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia.

1910: The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.

1945: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the following day.

1946: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convenes and indicts former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders for war crimes.

1967: After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.

1991: A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour (249 km/h), killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless.

1992: Riots in Los Angeles, California, following the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.

It's International Dance Day!

Taggart · Apr 29, 2014

Birthdays

Czar Alexander II (Alexander the Liberator) 1745
William Randolph Hearst 1863
Sir Thomas Beecham 1879
Duke Ellington (Edward Kennedy) 1899
Hirohito (Emperor Showa) 1901
Lonnie Donegan 1931
Zubin Mehta 1936
Kate Mulgrew 1955

KenOC · Apr 30, 2014

On this day, 30 April 1492 – Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.

1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.

1803 – The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor. He was not associated with the Dole Food Company (surprise).

1900 – Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughan, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.

1943 – Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer. See the excellent movie, "The Man Who Never Was."

1945 – Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.

1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.

1975 – Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.

1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.

It's International Jazz Day (UNESCO).

KenOC · May 1, 2014

It's Mayday! On this day, May 1 in 1328: Wars of Scottish Independence end. By the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton the Kingdom of England recognizes the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state. But...

1707: The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1753: Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

1776: Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt. Conspiracy theorists rejoice.

1786: In Vienna, Austria, Mozart's the opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.

1840: The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.

1886: Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.

1898: The Battle of Manila Bay: The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the Spanish-American War.

1927: The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris.

1931: The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.

1945: World War II: Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are murdered by Magda by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths.

1960: Cold War: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.

1971: Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.

1999: The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924.

2011: Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, has been killed by United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Due to the time difference between the United States and Pakistan, bin Laden was actually killed on May 2.

It's International Workers' Day, or Labor Day (International).

KenOC · May 2, 2014

On this day, May 2 1536: Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft.

1611: The King James Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.

1670: King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.

1863: American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia eight days later.

1885: The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium. An unfortunate history begins.

1952: The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg. Another unfortunate history begins.

2000: President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.

2008: Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.

2011: Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

KenOC · May 3, 2014

On this day, 3 May 1802: Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.

1849: The May Uprising in Dresden begins, the last of the German revolutions of 1848.

1937: Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1948: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.

1957: Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.

1963: The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

1978: The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

2003: New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.

It's World Press Freedom Day.

KenOC · May 4, 2014

On this day, 4 May 1147: First historical record of Moscow.

1581: Francis Drake is knighted for completing a circumnavigation of the world.

1796: Georges Cuvier delivers his first paleontological lecture at École Centrale du Pantheon of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle on living and fossil remains of elephants and related species, founding the science of Paleontology.

1841: William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and with the shortest term served.

1865: American Civil War: A day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.

1933: U.S. Navy airship, USS Akron, is wrecked off the New Jersey coast due to severe weather.

1949: Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1964: The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

1975: Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

KenOC · May 5, 2014

On this day, 5 May 1260: Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

1821: Emperor Napoleon I dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

1860: Giuseppe Garibaldi sets sail from Genoa, leading the expedition of the Thousand to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and giving birth to the Kingdom of Italy.

1891: The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.

1925: Scopes Trial:An arrest warrant is served on John T. Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1945: World War II: Canadian and British troops liberate the Netherlands and Denmark from German occupation when Wehrmacht troops capitulate.

1946: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo with twenty-eight Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

1973: Secretariat (horse) wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59 2/5, a still standing record.

It's Cinco de Mayo (Mexico and the United States) and International Midwives' Day.

KenOC · May 6, 2014

On this day, 6 May 1527: Spanish and German troops sack Rome. Some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.

1536: King Henry VIII of England orders English-language Bibles be placed in every church.

1844: The Glaciarium, the world's first mechanically frozen ice rink, opens.

1877: Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.

1882: The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1937: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.

1949: EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation.

1954: Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1989: Cedar Point opens Magnum XL-200, the first roller coaster to break the 200 ft height barrier, thereby spawning what is known as the "coaster wars".

1996: The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared. Hmmm...

It's International No Diet Day.

Taggart · May 6, 2014

Birthdays

Maximilien Robespierre 1758
Sigmund Freud 1856
Robert E. Peary 1856
Rabindranath Tagore 1861
Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina) 1895
(George) Orson Welles 1915

KenOC · May 7, 2014

On this day, 7 May 1429: Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning, wounded, to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.

1487: The Siege of Málaga commences during the Spanish Reconquista. (The moors are expelled from their final Spanish stronghold, Granada, five years later in 1492.)

1763: Pontiac's War begins with Pontiac's attempt to seize Fort Detroit from the British.

1824: World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer's supervision.

1895: In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention, the Popov lightning detector -- a primitive radio receiver. In some parts of the former Soviet Union the anniversary of this day is celebrated as Radio Day. The Popov-Marconi debates continue.

1915: World War I: German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many formerly pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire.

1942: During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy carrier aircraft attack and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

1945: World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.

1952: The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.

1954: Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat and a Vietnamese victory (the battle began on March 13).

1998: Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $40 billion USD and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

KenOC · May 8, 2014

On this day, 8 May 1541: Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.

1794: Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.

1886: Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.

1902: In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.

1927: Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.

1945: World War II: V-E Day, combat ends in Europe. German forces agree in Reims, France, to an unconditional surrender.

1972: Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.

It's White Lotus Day among Theosophists.

KenOC · May 9, 2014

On this day, 9 May 1671: Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.

1887: Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opens in London.

1936: Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.

1950: Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, which is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.

1960: The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.

1974: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

KenOC · May 10, 2014

On this day, 10 May 1773: The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1774: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France.

1801: First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America.

1857: Indian Rebellion of 1857: In India, the first war of Independence begins. Sepoys mutiny against their commanding officers at Meerut.

1869: The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike.

1893: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883.

1933: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

1940: World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1954: Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts.

1960: The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

1994: Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

KenOC · May 11, 2014

On this day, 11 May 868: A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it oldest known printed book.

912: Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

1846: President James K. Polk asks for and receives a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War

1891: The Ōtsu incident: Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Imperial Russia (later Nicholas II) suffers a critical head injury during a sword attack by Japanese policeman Tsuda Sanzō. He is rescued by Prince George of Greece and Denmark.

1910: An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.

1953: An F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114.

1960: In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement.

1973: Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.

1997: Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

It's Mothers Day (US).

KenOC · May 12, 2014

On this day, 12 May 907: Zhu Wen forces Emperor Ai into abdicating, ending the Tang Dynasty after nearly three hundred years of rule.

1510: The Prince of Anhua rebellion begins when Zhu Zhifan kills all the officials invited to a banquet and declares his intent to oust the powerful Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor.

1780: American Revolutionary War: In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.

1933: The Agricultural Adjustment Act is enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies.

1937: The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at a ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

1942: World War II: The U.S. tanker Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507.

1982: During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan María Fernández y Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an "agent of Moscow".

2008: An earthquake measuring around 8.0 magnitude occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.

It's International Nurses Day. Also International Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day, but I'm too sick and tired to get into that.

On this day...

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