This Day In History

A Day In History - December

Events and birthdays around the world on this day . . .

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In 1640 Portugal regains independence after 60 years of Spanish rule.
In 1783 Charles and M. N. Roberts ascend 2,000' in a hydrogen balloon.
In 1821 Santo Domingo (Dominican Rep) proclaims independence from Spain.
In 1822 Dom Pedro crowned emperor of Brazil.
In 1887 Sino-Portuguese treaty recognizes Portugal's control of Macao.
In 1913 Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (1 car every 2.5 minutes).
In 1918 Iceland becomes independent state under the Danish crown.
In 1919 Lady Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of British Parliament.
In 1929 BINGO invented by Edwin S Lowe.
In 1934 Sergei Kirov Josef Stalin's collaborator, assassinated in Leningrad.
In 1935 Woody Allen [Allen Stuart Konigsberg] (Zelig, Annie Hall, Manhattan Murder Mystery), born.
In 1939 Lee Trevino, golfer (US Open 1968,71), born.
In 1936 Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use.
In 1940 Richard Pryor, comedian/actor (Lady Sings the Blues, Stir Crazy), born.
In 1945 Bette Midler, singer/actress (Do You Want to Dance?), born.
In 1947 Aleister Crowley, occultist dies at 74.
In 1958 Central African Rep made autonomous member of French Commonwealth (Nat'l Day).
In 1959 12 nations sign a treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica.
In 1959 1st color photograph of Earth from outer space.
In 1973 Australia grants self-government to Papua New Guinea.
In 1973 David Ben-Gurion founding father of Israel dies in Tel Aviv at 87.
In 1987 Digging begins to link England and France under the English Channel.
In 1988 Benazir Bhutto named 1st female PM of a Moslem country (Pakistan).
In 1989 East Germany drops the communist monopoly from its constitution.
In 1989 USSR Pres Mikhail S Gorbachev meets Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
In 1990 British and French workers meet in English Channel's tunnel (Chunnel).
In 1990 Iraq accepts Bush's offer for talks.
In 1990 Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia hold their 1st joint session.
In 1991 Inaugural AIDS awareness day.
In 1991 Ukrainian people vote for independence.

2nd

In 1804 Napoleon becomes 1st French emperor, placing crown on his own head.
In 1805 Napoleon defeats Russians & Austrians at Austerlitz.
In 1848 Franz Josef I becomes emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
In 1852 2nd French empire established; Louis Napoleon becomes emperor.
In 1859 Georges Seurat France, painter/pointillist (Grande Jatte), born.
In 1906 Peter Carl Goldmark, developed color TV & LP records, born.
In 1877 The opera "Samson et Dalila" is produced (Rouen).
In 1901 Gillette patents 1st disposable razor.
In 1915 Randolph Hearst newspaper publisher, born.
In 1942 1st controlled nuclear chain reaction (University of Chicago).
In 1958 Benelux treaty signed by Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg.
In 1961 Fidel Castro declares he's a Marxist, & will lead Cuba to Communism.
In 1971 Soviet Mars 3 is 1st to soft land on Mars.
In 1971 Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujeira, Sharjah & Umm ak Qiwain form the United Arab Emirates.
In 1973 Monica Seles tennis star (French Open-1990), born.
In 1975 Laos People's Democratic Republic founded (National Day).
In 1982 1st permanent artificial heart successfully implanted (U of Utah) in retired dentist Barney Clark; lived 112 days with the Jarvic-7 heart.
In 1986 Desi Arnaz actor (Ricky Ricardo-I Love Lucy), dies at 69.
In 1988 "Naked Gun" premieres, a movie based on TV's "Police Squad".
In 1990 1st parliamentary election in newly reunified Germany.

3rd

In 1368 Charles VI [the Well-Beloved], king of France (1380-1422), born.
In 1586 Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England, from Colombia.
In 1621 Galileo perfects the telescope.
In 1678 Edmund Halley receives MA from Queen's College, Oxford.
In 1684 Ludvig Baron Holberg, a founder of Danish & Norwegian literature, born.
In 1795 Sir Rowland Hill introduced 1st adhesive postage stamp (1840).
In 1924 John Backus, inventor (FORTRAN computer language), born.
In 1947 Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire", opens.
In 1948 Ozzy Osbourne heavy metal musician, born.
In 1952 Mel Smith author/comedian, born.
In 1967 1st human heart transplant performed (Dr Christian Barnard, S Africa).
In 1973 Pioneer 10 passes Jupiter (1st fly-by of an outer planet).
In 1984 2,000 die from Union Carbide poison gas emission in Bhopal, India.

4th

1489 Battle of Baza-Spanish army captures Baza from the Moors
1563 Council of Trent holds last session, after 18 years
1619 America's 1st Thanksgiving Day (Va)
1674 Father Marquette builds 1st dwelling in what is now Chicago
1680 Hen in Rome lays an egg imprinted with comet not seen until Dec 16th
1682 1st General Assembly in Pennsylvania (Chester)
1783 General Washington bids officers farewell at Fraunce's Tavern, New York NY
1812 Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa patents a horse-drawn mower
1816 James Monroe, Va elected 5th pres, defeating Federalist Rufus King
1833 American Anti-Slavery Society organizes
1836 Whig party holds its 1st national convention, Harrisburg, Pa
1843 Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) patented, Mass
1864 Romanian Jews are forbidden to practice law
1867 Grange organized to protect farm interests
1875 William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (NYC-Tammany Hall) escapes from jail
1899 56th Congress (1899-1901) convenes
1899 Webb Hayes son of President Rutherford Hayes receives medal of honor
1909 1st Grey Cup game (University of Toronto 26, Toronto Parkdale 6)
1915 Ku Klux Klan receives charter from Fulton County GA
1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition closes in SF (Opened Feb 20 1015)
1918 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats & Slovenes (Yugoslavia) proclaimed
1918 President Wilson sails for Versailles Peace Conference in France, 1st chief executive to travel outside US while in office
1920 1st Pro football playoff game Buffalo-7, Canton-3 at Polo Grounds
1922 Lucille Atcherson, becomes 1st woman legation sect-US foreign service
1927 Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club in Harlem
1933 FDR creates Federal Alcohol Control Administration
1935 1,200 at St Joseph's College (Philadelphia) enroll in anticommunism class
1942 1st US citizenship granted an alien on foreign soil (James Hoey)
1942 FDR orders dismantling of Works Progress Administration
1942 US bombers struck Italian mainland for 1st time in WW II
1943 Commissioner Landis announces any baseball club may sign Negroes
1945 Doc Blanchard becomes 1st junior to win Heisman Trophy
1945 Senate approves US participation in UN
1947 USSR joins International Amateur Athletic Union
1949 Bob Gage ties NFL record of a 97 yard touchdown run
1951 Superheated gases roll down Mount Catarman (Philippines), kills 500
1952 Killer fogs begin in London England. "Smog" becomes a word
1956 Paul Hornung wins the Heisman Trophy
1957 1st edition of "Chase's Annual Events" published
1957 2 commuter trains collide in heavy fog killing 92 (St John's England)
1958 Dahomey (Benin), Ivory Coast become autonomous within Fr Community
1961 Museum of Modern Art hung Matisse's Le Bateau upside down for 47 days
1961 Smallest New York Knick, 49th St MSG crowd-1,300 (snowstorm)
1961 Tanganyika becomes the 104th member of the UN
1964 Beatles release "Beatles For Sale" album
1965 2nd New York Knick game postponed (due to death of opponent 76ers' owner)
1965 Gemini 7 launched with 2 astronauts
1973 John Cappelletti wins Heisman trophy
1974 Dutch DC-8 charter crashes in Sri Lanka killing 191 Moslem pilgrims
1976 Liz Taylor's 7th marriage (John Warner)
1977 Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of Central African Empire, crowns himself
1977 NFL's 5,000th game, Cincinnati beats Kansas City 27-7
1978 Dianne Feinstein is named San Francisco 1st female mayor
1978 Pioneer Venus 1 goes into orbit around Venus
1979 Cleveland Cavaliers retire jersey # 7, Bingo Smith
1979 Liza Minnelli's 3rd marriage (Mark Gero)
1980 Islanders end 15 game undefeated streak (13-0-2) (Colorado Rockies)
1981 "Falcon Crest" premieres on CBS-TV
1981 President Reagan allows CIA to engage in domestic counter-intelligence
1981 According to South Africa, Ciskei gains independence. Not recognized as an independent country outside South Africa
1982 Hershel Walker wins the Heisman Trophy
1983 NJ Devils 1st shut-out, beating Minnesota Detroit Red Wings 6-0
1983 US jet fighters strike Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon
1984 Hijackers commandeered a Kuwaiti airliner
1985 President Reagan appoints Vice Admiral John Poindexter as security adviser
1986 NASA launches Fltsatcom-7
1988 Actor Gary Busey critically injured in motorcycle crash
1990 Due to Persian Gulf crisis gas hits $1.60 per gallon price in NYC
1990 Iraq announces it will release all 3,300 Soviet hostages
1991 Judds final concert (Nashville)
1991 Muslim Shiites release last US hostage Terry Anderson (held 6� years)
1992 US Troops land in Somalia

5th

1349 Jews are massacred at Nuremberg in Black death riots
1492 Columbus discovers Hispaniola (El Espanola) (Haiti)
1496 Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I
1776 Phi Beta Kappa, 1st American scholastic fraternity, founded
1831 Former President John Q Adams takes his seat as member of House of Reps
1846 C.F. Schoenbein obtains patent for cellulose nitrate explosive
1848 President Polk triggers Gold Rush of '49, confirms California gold discovery
1854 Aaron Allen of Boston patents a folding theater chair
1868 1st American bicycle college opens (New York)
1876 Daniel Stillson (Mass) patents 1st practical pipe wrench
1876 Fire at Brooklyn Theater kills 295, trampled or burned to death
1879 1st automatic telephone switching system patented
1881 47th Congress (1881-83) convenes
1905 Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Lib) becomes PM of England
1908 1st football uniform numerals used (University of Pittsburgh)
1920 Pro football playoff game Akron & Buffalo 0-0 tie, title undecided
1929 1st US nudist organization (American League for Physical Culture, NYC)
1932 German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa
1933 21st Am ratified, 18th Amendment (Prohibition) repealed (5:32 PM EST)
1935 1st commercial hydroponics operation established (Montebello CA)
1935 National Council of Negro Women forms (New York NY)
1936 Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Georgian SSR, Kazakh SSR & Kirghiz SSR becomes constituent republics of the Soviet Union
1941 Football Writers Association of America organized
1941 Sister Elizabeth Kenny new treatment for infantile paralysis approved
1943 NFL Philadelphia Eagle-Pittsburgh Steeler merger dissolves
1946 President Truman creates Committee on Civil Rights by Exec Order #9808
1947 Jersey Joe Walcott beats Joe Louis
1948 New York Giant Charley Conerly sets NFL record of 36 pass completions
1949 Ezzard Charles defeats Jersey Joe Walcott for heavyweight boxing title
1950 Sikkim becomes a protectorate of India
1951 "Dragnet" premiers
1955 AFL & CIO merge, with George Meany as president
1955 Historic bus boycott begins in Montgomery Alabama
1957 NYC becomes 1st city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing market (Fair Housing Practices Law)
1967 Beatles clothing store "Apple" on 94 Baker Street, London, opens
1968 Rolling Stones release "Beggar's Banquet" LP
1970 Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe Trophy & Bill Masterson trophy stolen from NHL hall of fame
1973 Cubs' Ron Santo became 1st baseball player to veto his trade
1973 Paul McCartney releases "Band on the Run" album
1974 1st Washington Capitals penalty shot, Tom Williams unsuccessful vs Buff Sabres
1974 1st World Football League Bowl, Birmingham Americans beat Florida
1974 Airport terminal roof collapses killing 17 (Teheran Iran)
1974 Oliver Tilden Triangle in the Bronx named
1974 Seattle Seahawks formed
1975 NASA launches space vehicle S-196, it failed
1977 Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq & S Yemen
1978 Phillies Pete Rose becomes highest paid baseball player
1978 Pioneer Venus 1 begins orbiting Venus
1978 Islanders took 28 shots in 1 period vs Penguins; Penguins' Ross Lonsberry failed on 7th penalty shot against Islanders
1981 Marcus Allen of USC wins the Heisman Trophy
1982 Herschel Walker of Georgia wins the Heisman Trophy
1982 Seattle University Baptist Church declares sanctuary for Central American refugees
1983 12 killed by a car bomb shattering 9-story building in west Beirut
1983 Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Steve Howe is suspended for 1 year for cocaine use
1985 Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above the 1,500 level for 1st time
1988 Shuttle Atlantis launches world's 1st nuclear-war-fighting satellite
1990 Former Noriega aide Luis del Cid pleads guilty
1991 Charles Keating Jr (Lincoln Savings & Loan fraud), found guilty
1991 New York Daily News files for protection under chapter 11

6th

1492 Haiti discovered by Columbus, at Mole Saint Nicolas
1534 Quito, Ecuador founded by Spanish
1631 1st predicted transit of Venus (Kepler) is observed
1732 1st play in American colonies acted by professional players, New York NY
1768 1st edition of "Encyclopedia Britannica" published (Scotland)
1790 Congress meets in Philadelphia, new temporary US capitol
1825 President John Adams suggests establishment of a US observatory
1846 The opera "La Damnation de Faust" is produced (Paris)
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland
1866 Chicago water supply tunnel 3,227 m into Lake Michigan completed
1870 Joseph H Rainey, 1st black in the House of Reps (SC)
1873 1st international football game in US: Yale 2, Eton (England) 1
1875 44th Congress (1875-77) convenes
1876 1st crematorium in US begins operation, Washington PA
1876 City of Anaheim incorporated for 2nd time
1877 Washington Post publishes 1st edition
1882 Atmosphere of Venus detected during transit
1884 Aluminum capstone set atop Washington Monument, Washington DC
1907 Coal mine explosions in Monongah WV, kills 361
1917 Finland declares independence from Russia (National Day)
1917 French munitions ship "Mont Blanc" explodes in Halifax, kills 1,654
1921 Irish Free State gains independence from Britain
1922 1st constitution of Irish Free State comes into operation
1922 1st electric power line commercial carrier in US, Utica NY
1923 1st presidential address broadcast on radio (President Calvin Coolidge)
1925 Record 73,000 pay to watch Chicago Bears beat New York Giants 19-7
1941 NYC Council agrees to build Idlewild (Kennedy) Airport in Queens
1955 New York psychologist Joyce Brothers won "$64,000 Question" on boxing
1956 Nelson Mandela & 156 others arrested for political activities in S Africa
1957 1st US attempt to launch a satellite fails-Vanguard rocket blows up
1957 AFL-CIO votes to expel Teamsters (readmitted in October 1987)
1958 US lunar probe Pioneer 3 reaches 107,269 km, falls back
1960 AL grants Gene Autry a franchise, Los Angeles Angels
1962 US abandons Skybolt ballistic missile program
1963 Beatles begin a tradition of releasing a Christmas record for fans
1965 2 trucks crashed into a crowd of dancers (Sotouboua Togo) kills 125
1968 Baseball dismisses Commissioner William Eckert after 3 years
1969 300,000 attend the Altamont CA, rock concert feature Rolling Stones
1970 Cleveland Cavaliers 1st NBA home victory, beating Buffalo Braves 108-106
1971 Lewis Franklin Powell confirmed as Supreme Court justice
1973 Gerald Ford sworn-in as 1st unelected VP, succeeds Spiro T Agnew
1973 NL votes to move San Diego Padres to Washington DC (doesn't happen)
1974 George Harrison releases "Ding Dong, Ding Dong"
1975 Sen Robert Dole & Elizabeth Hanford marry
1977 South Africa grants Bophuthatswana independence
1980 Jim Bakker rapes Jessica Hahn
1980 NASA launches Intelsat V
1981 Rob de Castella of Australia sets Marathon record at 2:08:18
1982 Sen Ted & Joan Kennedy divorce
1982 11 soldiers & 6 civilians die by bomb planted by Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland
1983 A bomb planted on a bus in Jerusalem explodes, kills 6 Israelis
1984 Hijackers aboard Kuwaiti jetliner kill 2nd hostage
1985 UK joins US Star Wars project
1986 Vinny Testaverde of Miami wins the Heisman Trophy
1987 Three Satanist Missouri teenagers bludgeon comrade to death for "fun"
1988 Agnes Neil Williams purchases the Baltimore Orioles for $70 million
1988 Arafat meets prominent American Jews in Stockholm, Sweden
1988 Milwaukee Bucks win their 1,000th NBA game (2nd fastest)
1988 Nelson Mandela is transferred to Victor Vester Prison, Capetown
1988 STS-27 Atlantis lands in California after secret mission
1989 Worst Canadian mass murder - man kills 14 women at University of Montreal
1990 NHL grants conditional membership to Tampa Bay Lightning
1990 Saddam announces release of all foreign hostages
1991 "Star Trek VI-The Undiscovered Country" premieres
1992 Riots follow Hindu attack on Ayodha Mosque in India

7th

43 -BC- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman writer, gets his head & right hand chopped off by Mark Antony's soldiers
36 -BC- Earliest known Mayan inscription, Stela 2 at Chiapa de Corzo
283 St Eutychian ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1787 Delaware becomes 1st state to ratify constitution
1836 Martin Van Buren elected 8th president
1842 New York Philharmonic's 1st concert
1872 HMS Challenger sets sail on 3�-year world oceanographic cruise
1875 Natives Sons of the West organized
1876 New York Mutuals & Philadelphia A's expelled from NL for not completing sked
1885 49th Congress (1885-87) convenes
1891 52nd Congress (1st to appropriate $1 billion) holds 1st session
1909 Leo Baekeland, Yonkers NY, patents 1st thermosetting plastic
1916 David Lloyd George replaces resigning H.H. Asquith as British PM
1917 US becomes 13th country to declare war on Austria during World War I
1921 KWG-AM in Stockton CA begins radio transmissions
1932 1st gyro-stabilized vessel to cross the Atlantic arrives in New York
1934 Wiley Post discovers the jet stream
1935 Winnipeg Blue Bombers become 1st western team to win Grey Cup
1938 WXZY broadcasts facsimile of the St Louis Post-Dispatch by radio
1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (a date that will live in infamy) 1st Japanese submarine sunk by a US ship (USS Ward)
1946 Fire at Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta kills 119
1953 Israel's PM Ben-Gureon retires
1956 Helen O'Connell joins the Today Show panel
1964 George Harrison changes his company's name from Mornyork to Harrisongs
1965 Pope Paul VI & Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led to split of the 2 churches in 1054
1968 Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 launched into Earth orbit
1968 Richard Dodd returns a library book his great grandfather took out in 1823
1971 Wings release their 1st album "Wild Life"
1972 Apollo 17, last of Apollo Moon series, launched
1972 Philippine 1st lady Imelda Marcos stabbed & wounded by an assailant
1973 Wings release "Band on the Run"
1975 10th Islander shut-out opponent-Glenn Resch 3-0 vs Sabres
1976 UN Security Council endorses Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General for 2nd 5 yr term
1977 Islander Billy Smith's 10th shut-out opponent-Black Hawks 4-0
1978 Islander's Mike Bossy's 1st career hat trick
1983 2 jets collided at Madrid Airport killing 93
1985 Atlantis returns to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB
1985 Bo Jackson of Auburn wins the Heisman Trophy
1987 43 die in Pacific Southwest Airline crash in California (man shot pilots)
1987 Gorbachev arrives in the US for a summit meeting
1988 Armenian SSR rocked by earthquake, 8 on Richter scale (55,000 die)
1988 Gorbachev announces 10% unilateral Soviet troop reductions at UN
1988 Mikhail Gorbachev cheered by Wall St crowds upon arrival in NYC
1988 New York Islanders fire Simpson, Arbour new coach
1988 Yasser Arafat recognizes existence of Israel
1990 Iraqi parliament endorses Saddam's decision to free hostages
1990 Ted Turner & Jane Fonda announce their engagement
1993 South African transitional executive council set up
1995 Galileo arrives on Jupiter

8th

1776 George Washington's retreating army crosses Delaware River from NJ
1792 1st cremation in US, Henry Laurens
1794 1st issue of the Herald of Rutland, VT published
1854 Pope Pius IX proclaims Immaculate Conception, makes Mary, free of Original Sin
1863 2,500 reported killed at Church of La Compana, Santiago Chile
1863 Abraham Lincoln announces plan for Reconstruction of South
1869 20th Roman Catholic ecumenical council, Vatican I, opens in Rome
1881 Vienna's Ring Theater destroyed by fire, kills between 640-850
1886 American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed by 26 craft unions; Samuel Gompers elected AFL president
1896 Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Missing 3 Quarter" (BG)
1902 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr became Associate Justice on Supreme Court
1909 Bird banding society found
1913 Construction starts on Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco
1931 Coaxial cable patented
1936 NAACP files suit to equalize the salaries of black & white teachers
1938 Highest temperature for December in US recorded in La Mesa CA
1940 1st NFL championship on national radio; Bears beat Redskins 73-0
1941 San Francisco 1st blackout, at 6:15 PM
1941 US & Britain declares war on Japan, enter WW II
1946 Army rocket plane XS-1 makes 1st powered flight
1949 Chinese Nationalist government moves from Chinese mainland to Formosa
1952 1st TV acknowledgment of pregnancy (I Love Lucy)
1956 16th Olympic games end in Melbourne
1956 1st test firing of the Vanguard satellite program, TV-0
1956 Guy Mitchell's "Singing the Blues," single goes #1 for 10 weeks
1961 Larry Costello scores 32 consecutive pts without a miss (NBA rec)
1962 114-day newspaper strike begins in New York NY
1963 3 fuel tanks explode when jetliner is struck by lightning crashing near Elkton, Maryland. Only case of lightning caused crash
1966 A terrible Yankee trade, Roger Maris for Card's Charlie Smith
1966 US & USSR sign treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in outer space
1967 Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" album is released in UK
1967 NHL California Seals change name to Oakland Seals
1972 United Airlines airplane crashes at Chicago's Midway Airport killing 45
1974 Soyuz 16 returns to Earth
1980 "Bravo" network premiers on cable tv
1982 Clark Gilles fails in 7th Islander penalty shot
1982 Demanding an end to nuclear weapons, Norman Mayer, held the Washington Monument hostage. After 10 hrs, police kill him he had no explosives
1983 9th Space Shuttle Mission-Columbia 6-lands at Edwards AFB
1984 Ringo appears on Saturday Night Live
1985 Ken O'Brien's 96 yard TD pass (New York Jet record) to Wesley Walker
1986 House Dems select majority leader Jim Wright as 48th speaker
1987 Flyers' Ron Hextall becomes 1st goalie to actually score a goal
1987 Jack Sikma (Milwaukee) begins NBA free throw streak of 51 games
1987 Occupied Palestinians start "intefadeh" (uprising) against Israel
1987 President Reagan & Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev sign a treaty eliminating medium range nuclear missiles
1988 Knick's set NBA record of 11 3-pointers & sink Bucks, 113-109
1991 Russia, Byelorussia & Ukraine form Commonwealth of Ind States

9th

1640 Settler Hugh Bewitt banished from Mass colony when he declares himself to be free of original sin
1738 Jews are expelled from Breslau Silesia
1793 Noah Webster establishes New York's 1st daily newspaper, American Minerva
1824 Battle of Ayacucho (Candorcangui), Peru defeats Spain
1851 1st Young Men's Christian Association in North America (Montreal)
1854 Lord Tennyson's poem, "Charge of the Light Brigade," published
1869 Noble Order of Knights of Labor founded, Philadelphia
1883 New Brunswick adopts Eastern Standard Time (until 1902)
1884 Levant Richardson patents ball-bearing skate
1907 1st Christmas Seals sold (Wilmington Del post office)
1909 1st US monoplane flown (Henry W Walden, Long Island NY)
1913 John K Tener becomes president of baseball's National League
1917 British forces capture Jerusalem
1925 Pro football a hit in NYC; Grange & Bears beat Giants before 73,000
1926 USGA legalizes steel shaft golf clubs
1931 Spain becomes a republic
1934 New York Giants defeat Chicago Bears 30-13 for NFL championship
1940 British troops 1st major offensive in North Africa during WW II
1940 Illegal Jewish immigrants to Haifa are deported to Mauritius
1941 1st US WW II bombing mission in the Far East, Luzon, Philippines
1941 300 Montgomery, San Francisco opens as new Bank of America HQ
1941 China declares war on Japan, Germany & Italy
1941 Citizen Register reports "Hostile planes reported nearing Westchester"
1948 UN General Assembly unanimously approves Convention on Genocide
1949 NFL merges Cleveland Browns, San Francisco '49ers & Baltimore Colts from AAFC
1951 Voters approve merger of 3 states to form Baden-Worttemberg, W Germany
1953 General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired
1953 Montreal Canadiens (106) & Toronto Maple Leafs (98) get 204 penalty mins
1958 Robert H.W. Welch Jr & 11 other men meet in Indianapolis to form the anti-Communist John Birch Society
1961 SS Colonel Adolf Eichman found guilty of war crimes in Israel
1961 Tanganyika gains independence from Britain takes name Tanzania
1961 Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points vs New York
1962 "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" closes on Broadway
1962 Tanganyika becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth
1963 Frank Sinatra Jr is kidnapped
1963 Zanzibar gains independence from Britain
1965 Nikolai Podgorny replaces Anastas Mikoyan as president of Presidium
1967 Jim Morrison, arrested on stage for disturbing the peace
1967 Lyndon Johnson's daughter Lynda marries in the White House
1967 Nicolea Ceausescu becomes president (dictator) of Romania
1968 Doug Engelbart demonstrates first computer mouse at Stanford
1971 Lewis F Powell Jr appointed to the Supreme Court
1974 Johnson Grigsby freed after 66 years in jail
1975 President Gerald Ford signs $2.3 B loan-authorization for NYC
1978 Pioneer Venus 2 drops 5 probes into atmosphere of Venus
1978 1st game of the Women's Pro Basketball League (WBL), Chicago Hustle vs Milwaukee Does
1981 Porn star John Holmes charged with Laurel Canyon murders
1982 Mary-Beth & William Hurt divorce
1983 Attorney General Edwin Meese says people go to soup kitchens "...because the food is free and that's easier than paying for it"
1984 6 day hijack of Kuwaiti jet ends
1985 Phoenix Arizona, gets 3" of snow
1987 Larry Bird, ends streak of 59 consecutive free throws
1987 Palestine uprising begin in Israeli-occupied West Bank
1988 New York Yankees sell all TV rights to cable network in $500 M deal
1990 Lech Walesa wins presidential election in Poland
1990 NFL New York Giant Otis Anderson becomes 8th to rush for 10,000th yard
1992 Prince Charles & Princess Diana separation announced by British PM, John Major

10th

1520 Martin Luther publicly burned papal edict demands he recant
1672 New York Gov Lovelace announces monthly mail service between New York & Boston
1690 Mass Bay becomes 1st American colonial government to borrow money
1810 Tom Cribb (GB) beats Tom Molineaus (US-Negro) in 1st interracial boxing championship (40 rounds)
1817 Mississippi admitted as 20th state
1831 "Spirit of the Times" begins publishing (weekly horse racing sheet)
1864 Sherman reaches Savannah & 12 day siege begins
1869 Women suffrage (right to vote) granted in Wyoming Territory (US 1st)
1896 1st intercollegiate basketball game (Wesleyan beats Yale 4-3)
1898 Spanish-American War ends; US acquires Philippines, PR & Guam
1901 1st Nobel Peace Prizes (to Jean Henri Dunant, Frederic Passy)
1906 President Theodore Roosevelt (1st American) awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1911 Calbraith Rogers completes 1st crossing of US by airplane (84 days)
1915 President Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Galt
1918 John A Heyder becomes president of baseball's National League
1920 President Woodrow Wilson receives Nobel Peace Prize
1922 Pete Henry makes longest known NFL drop-kicked field goal, 45 yards
1927 Grand Ole Opry makes its 1st radio broadcast, in Nashville, TN
1931 Jane Addams (1st US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize
1932 Thailand receives its 1st constitution
1934 NFL adopts player waiver rule; applies after 6th game of the season
1936 England replaces King Edward VIII stamp series with King George VI
1948 UN General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1950 Ralph J Bunche (1st black American) presented Nobel Peace Prize
1952 Yitchak Ben-Zvi elected 2nd president of Israel
1954 Philadelphia Phillies purchase Connie Mack Stadium
1958 1st domestic (NY-Miami) passenger jet flight-National 707 flew 111
1961 Houston Oiler Billy Cannon gains record 373 yards against Titans
1962 Hunters Point (San Francisco) jitney ends service after 50 years
1963 6 year old Donny Osmond singing debut on the Andy Williams Show
1963 Zanzibar becomes independent within British Commonwealth
1966 Israeli Shmuel Yosef Agnon wins Nobel Prize for literature
1970 North American Soccer League awards New York & Toronto franchises
1971 William H Rehnquist confirmed as Supreme Court justice
1973 1st time since 1885, tennis has 2 top males (S Smith & J Connors)
1974 Helios 1 launched by US, Germany; later makes closest flyby of Sun
1975 Andrei Sakharov's wife Yelena Bonner, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize
1976 Wings release triple album "Wings Over America"
1977 Soyuz 26 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station
1978 In Oslo, Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat accept 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
1978 Islanders ends 15 game undefeated streak (12-0-3) to Canadians
1980 Soyuz T-3 returns to Earth
1982 Michael Doakes KOs Mike Weaver in 1:03
1982 Soyuz T-5 returns to Earth, 211 days after take-off
1983 Danuta Walesa, wife of Lech Walesa, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize
1983 Last NFL game at Shea Stadium; Steelers beat New York Jets 34-7
1983 Raul Alfonsin inaugurated as Argentina's 1st civilian president
1984 South African Bishop Desmond Tutu received his Nobel Peace Prize
1984 WNSY-AM in Newport News VA returns from WGH
1986 Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepts 1986 Nobel Peace Prize
1987 "Nightline" is seen in the USSR for 1st time
1988 Massive Earthquake in Armenia kills 100,000 in cities of Leninakan & Spitak
1988 Washington Capitals 1st NHL scoreless tie, vs. Montreal Canadians
1990 Space Shuttle STS 35 (Columbia 11) lands

11th

384 St. Damascus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1620 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (12/21 NS)
1719 1st recorded display of Aurora Borealis in US (New England)
1792 France's King Louis XVI went on trial, accused of treason
1816 Citizens of Geneva thwarted Savoyard invaders
1816 Indiana becomes 19th state
1844 1st dental use of nitrous oxide, Hartford, Ct
1866 1st yacht race across the Atlantic Ocean
1872 1st black US governor took office, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (La)
1882 Boston's Bijou Theatre, 1st American playhouse lit exclusively by electricity, 1st performance, Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe"
1888 French Panama Canal company fails
1901 Marconi sends 1st transatlantic radio signal, Cornwall to Nfld
1905 120� F (49� C), Rivadavia, Argentina (South American record)
1909 Colored moving pictures demonstrated at Madison Square Garden, NYC
1914 Stockton Street Tunnel (San Francisco) completed
1917 13 black soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot
1917 German-occupied Lithuania proclaims independence from Russia
1919 Boll weevil monument dedicated in Enterprise, Ala
1928 Buenos Aires police thwart an attempt on Pres-elect Herbert Hoover
1931 British Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Newfndlnd
1932 San Francisco's coldest day (27�F).
1932 Snow falls in San Francisco
1934 1st Toronto Maple Leaf penalty shot, Conacher unsuccessful vs. Rangers
1934 Ford C Frick becomes president of baseball's National League
1936 King Edward VIII of England abdicates for woman he loves
1937 Italy withdraws from League of Nations
1941 Germany & Italy declare war on US
1941 Japanese occupy Guam
1946 UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) established (Nobel 1965)
1947 Pacific Coast League application for major league status rejected
1949 Chicago Bear Johnny Lujack passes for 6 touchdowns vs Chicago Cards (52-29)
1949 Cleveland Browns beat San Francisco '49ers 21-7 in final AAFC championship game
1951 Joe Dimaggio announces his baseball retirement
1953 KTVA, Anchorage becomes Alaska's 1st TV station
1954 USS Forrestal christened in Newport News, Va
1957 Jerry Lee Lewis weds Myra
1958 Upper Volta (now Bourkina Fasso) gains autonomy from France
1959 Yanks trade Marv Thronberry, Don Larsen, Hank Bauer & Norm Seibern for Roger Maris, Kent Hadley & Joe Deaestri
1961 Adolf Eichman is found guilty of war crimes, in Israel
1961 Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii," album goes to #1 & stays #1 for 20 wks
1961 JFK provides US military helicopters & crews to South Vietnam
1966 Al Nelson sets NFL record returning missed field goal, 100 yards
1967 Beatles' Apple Music signs its 1st group-Grapefruit
1967 SST prototype "Concorde" 1st shown (France)
1968 US Soccer Football Association refuses to let NASL disband
1972 Astronauts Cernan & Harrison become 11th & 12th on the Moon
1972 Jet's Don Maynard becomes all time pro reception leader (632)
1973 Houston Astro Caesar Cedino jailed in death of 19 year old woman
1973 NA Soccer League awards Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle & Vancouver franchises
1973 Ron Santo becomes 1st to invoke no-trade clause of 10-year-1-club vet
1975 1st class postage rises from $0.10 to $0.13
1975 Great Yankee trade getting Willie Randolph, Dock Ellis & Ken Brett from Pirates for George "Doc" Medich
1978 6 masked men bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at New York Kennedy Airport & made off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry
1981 Muhammad Ali's 61st & last fight, losing to Trevor Berbick
1981 Spacelab I arrives at Kennedy Space Center
1981 UN Sec Council chose Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as 5th Secretary-General
1981 Washington Capitals biggest margin of victory (9) beating Toronto 11-2
1983 1st visit to Lutheran church by a pope (John Paul II in Rome)
1985 Edmonton Oilers (36) & Chicago Black Hawks (26) score NHL record 62 points
1985 General Electric acquires RCA Corp & its subsidiary, NBC
1985 NHL Record 62 points scored, Edmonton (36) beats Chicago (17) 12-9 & ties record of 21 goals
1986 A Bartlett Giamatti becomes president of baseball's National League
1989 Mark Davis signs record $3.25 million per year Kansas City Royals contract
1990 13 die in 83 vehicle accident in Chattanooga TN, due to fog
1990 US 69th manned space mission STS 35 (Columbia 11) returns from space
1991 William Kennedy Smith found not guilty of rape

12th

1479 Jews are expelled from Schlettstadt Alsace by Emperor Frederick III
1769 Pope Clement XIV proclaims a universal jubilee
1777 Rev Benjamin Russen executed at Tyburn, England for rape
1787 Pennsylvania becomes 2nd state to ratify US constitution
1791 Bank of the US opens
1792 In Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven (22) receives 1st lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn
1800 Washington DC established as capitol of US
1870 Joseph Rainey (SC) became 1st black sworn into House of Reps
1871 Jules Janssen discovers dark lines in solar corona spectrum
1899 George F Grant of Boston patents golf tee
1901 Marconi receives 1st transatlantic radio signal, England to US
1906 Oscar Straus, 1st Jewish cabinet member, appointed Sec of Commerce
1913 "Mona Lisa," stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911, recovered
1915 1st all-metal aircraft (Junkers J.1) test flown at Dessau Germany
1917 French troop train derails in French Alps killing 543
1917 Rev Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha NB
1925 Arthur Heinman coins term "motel," opens Motel Inn, San Luis Obispo
1925 last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rexa Shah Pahlavi takes over
1937 1st mobile TV unit (New York NY)
1937 Japanese aircraft shell & sink US gunboat Panay on Yangtze River in China. (Japan apologized & eventually paid US $2.2 M in reparations)
1941 German occupying army do a house search in Paris looking for Jews
1946 Ice plant collapses, shearing a tenement building & burying 38
1946 UN accepts 6 Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D Rockefeller Jr
1947 United Mine Workers union withdrew from AFL
1952 Dallas Texans (former Boston Yanks) play last game, last original team
1953 Chuck Yeager reaches Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane
1957 US announces manufacture of Borazon (harder than diamond)
1959 UN Committee on Peaceful Use of Outer Space is established
1961 Ham radio satellite Oscar 1 launched with military Discoverer 36
1961 Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators arrested in Albany GA
1963 Frank Sinatra Jr returned after being kidnapped
1963 Kenya gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1964 Shooting starts for Star Trek pilot, "The Cage" (Menagerie)
1965 Gale Sayers of Chicago Bears scores 6 TDs, ties NFL record
1967 US launches Pioneer 8 into solar orbit
1968 Rolling Stones film TV show "Rock 'n Roll Circus"-never aired
1970 Small Astronomy Satellite Explorer 42 launched to study X-rays
1973 San Diego files anti-trust against NL (stopping Padres move to DC)
1975 Gas stove explodes & starts fire killing 138 (Mecca Saudi Arabia)
1975 Sara Jane Moore pled guilty to trying to kill President Gerald Ford
1976 QB Joe Namath last game as a New York Jet
1977 Yanks purchase Andy Messersmith from Braves
1979 Gold hits record $462.50 an ounce
1979 Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe
1980 US's copyright law amended to include computer programs
1981 Wayne Gretsky scores quickest 50th goal (game 39)
1983 A truck bomb explodes at the US Embassy in Kuwait
1985 248 US soldiers & 8 crew members die in Arrow Air charter crash
1985 NASA launches space vehicle S-207
1986 Bone Crusher Smith KO's WBA champ Tim Witherspoon in MSG
1986 Microlite aircraft circles world non-stop
1987 Mookie Blaylock sets NBA record of 13 steals in a game
1987 Rollermania at MSG, Eastern Express beats Midwest Pioneers
1988 NYC Subway system adds new stations (the Z line)
1988 Sandra Miller of Queens sues Mike Tyson for sexual harassment
1990 US ambassador to Kuwait, Nathaniel Howell leaves Kuwait
1991 Actor Richard Gere marries super model Cindy Crawford
1991 NJ Nets set NBA record of 22 blocks beating Nuggets 121-81
1991 Orion Pictures filed Chapter 11 for bankruptcy protection
1993 Ultra-Nationalists make strong gains in Russian elections

13th

1545 Council of Trent (19th ecumenical council) opens
1577 Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to go around the world
1642 New Zealand discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman
1769 Dartmouth College in New Hampshire received its charter
1774 1st incident of the Revolution-400 attack Fort William & Mary, NH
1816 Patent for a dry dock issued to John Adamson, Boston
1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Va; South beats North
1879 1st federal fish hatching steamer launched (Wilmington Delaware)
1903 Italo Marcioni patents the ice cream cone (NJ)
1916 Avalanche kills 10,000 Austrian & Italian troops in 24 hrs in Tyrol
1918 US army of occupation crosses the Rhine, enters Germany
1918 Wilson, becomes 1st to make a foreign visit as president (France)
1919 Ross & Smith land in Australia from a flight from London
1920 F Pease's interferometer measures 1st stellar diameter (Betelgeuse)
1924 KOA-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions
1928 George Gershwin's "An American In Paris" premieres (New York NY)
1936 Final Boston Redskin NFL game, lose to Packers 21-6, move to Wash DC
1938 Los Angeles freezes at 28�
1944 Japanese kamikaze crashes into US cruiser Nashville, kills 138
1947 Maine Turnpike opens to traffic
1949 AL votes down proposal to revive the spitball
1949 Knesset votes to transfer Israel's capitol to Jerusalem
1951 Future British PM Margaret Roberts Thatcher marries Denis Thatcher
1959 Archbishop Makarios elected 1st president of Cyprus
1960 Italy beats US in Davis cup (1st time in 24 years US not in finals)
1963 Capitol records signs right of 1st refusal agreement with the Beatles
1964 In El Paso, TX, LBJ & Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion diverting Rio Grande, to reshape US-Mexico border
1967 United Soccer Association & National Pro Soccer League merge into NASL
1968 Playland at the Beach reopens
1969 Billy Martin fired as Twins' manager
1971 John Sinclair (sentence: 10 yrs, sold 2 marijuana joints) is freed
1973 World Football League grants 1st franchise (Detroit)
1974 Malta becomes a republic
1976 Golden Gate Bridge District starts ferry service to Larkspur
1976 Longest non-stop passenger air flight (Sydney to San Francisco 13h14m)
1977 Entire University of Evansville basketball team, die in plane crash
1978 Susan B Anthony dollar, 1st US coin to honor a woman, issued
1981 Polish government declares martial law, arrests Solidarity activists
1982 Devils' 1st hat trick-Steve Tambellini
1983 9,655 see highest-scoring NBA game: Detroit 186, Denver 184 (3 OT)
1983 Islander's Butch Goring scorings 4 goals against Oilers
1983 KYA-AM in San Francisco CA changes call letters to KOIT
1983 Martha Layne Collins inaugurated as Kentucky's 1st female governor
1984 Artificial heart recipient William Schroeder suffers 1st stroke
1988 3 men end 29-hr all-466-station subway ride in NYC
1988 Arafat addresses UN in Geneva
1989 Walter Davis (Denver) ends NBA free throw streak of 53 games
1989 Forced repatriation of Vietnamese in Hong Kong
1990 President De Klerk of S Africa meets with Mandela to talk of end of apartheid
1991 Both Koreas sign an accord calling for reconciliation
1991 New York assembly speaker Mel Miller is convicted of federal mail fraud
1991 Ricky Pierce (Seattle) ends NBA free throw streak of 75 games

14th

867 Adrian II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
872 John VIII begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1287 Zuider Zee seawall collapses with loss of 50,000 lives
1656 Artificial pearls 1st manufactured by M Jacquin in Paris made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales
1782 Charleston, SC evacuated by British
1793 1st state road authorized, Frankfort, Ky to Cincinnati
1798 David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patents a nut & bolt machine
1819 Alabama admitted to the Union as 22nd state
1825 Decembrist uprising in Russia against Tsar Nicholas I begins
1849 1st chamber music group in US gives their 1st concert (Boston)
1863 Battle of Bean's Station-Confederacy repulses Union in Tennessee
1889 American Academy of Political & Social Science organized, Philadelphia
1901 1st table tennis tournament is held, at the London Royal Aquarium
1911 South Pole 1st reached, by Norwegian Roald Amundsen
1927 Iraq gains independence from Britain, but British troops remain
1930 New York Giants defeat Notre Dame 22-0 in a charity game
1934 1st streamlined steam locomotive introduced, Albany NY
1939 League of Nations drops the Soviet Union
1941 1st NFL division playoff, Bears beat Packers 33-14
1944 Congress establishes rank of General of the Army (5-star general)
1946 Togo made a trusteeship territory of the UN
1946 UN General Assembly votes to establish UN HQs in NYC
1947 Cleveland Browns beat New York Yankees 14-3 in AAFC championship game
1950 UN General Assembly establishes High Comm for Refugees (Nobel 1954)
1959 J.B. Jordan in F-104C sets world altitude record, 31,513 m
1962 Mariner 2 launched, makes 1st US visit to another planet (Venus)
1964 Michael Brown meets Rene Fladen, then writes "Walk Away Rene"
1971 Golden Gate Bridge lights out all night due to power failure
1974 Islander Glenn Resch's 1st shut-out opponent-Kings 3-0
1975 6 So Moluccan terrorists surrender, holding 23 hostages for 12 days
1975 WCPR (Brooklyn NY pirate radio station) begins broadcasting on 1620 AM
1977 Egypt & Israel reps gather in Cairo for 1st formal peace conference
1980 Anders Kailur scores on 6th Islander penalty shot
1980 At 2 PM EST there is 10 minutes of silence in memory of John Lennon
1980 New Orleans Saints end 14 game losing streak, beat New York Jets 21-20
1981 Israel annexes Golan Heights
1982 Marcel Dionne, Los Angeles, becomes 9th NHLer to score 500 goals
1986 Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards AFB, CA on 1st non-stop, non-refueled flight around world
1988 CBS' $1.1 B bid wins exclusive 1990-94 major-league baseball rights
1988 NBA's Miami Heat wins 1st game ever, 89-88 (Clippers), after 17 losses
1988 Spanish general strike to protest austerity measures
1988 US agrees to talk to Palestine Liberation Org (1st time in 13 yrs)
1990 Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed, she dies 12 days later
1991 Desmond Howard of Michigan wins the Heisman trophy

15th

687 St. Sergius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1612 Simon Marius, is 1st to observe Andromeda galaxy through a telescope
1791 Bill of Rights ratified when Virginia gave its approval
1792 1st life insurance policy issued in US, Philadelphia
1794 Revolutionary Tribunal abolished in France
1810 1st Irish magazine in US, the Shamrock, is published
1820 1st general pharmacopoeia in US published, Boston
1836 Patent Office burns in Washington DC
1854 1st street-cleaning machine in US 1st used in Philadelphia
1859 GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of Sun
1874 1st reigning king to visit US (of Hawaii) received by President Grant
1891 James Naismith invents basketball (Canada)
1909 Thomas J Lynch becomes president of baseball's National League
1914 Battle of Lodz ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
1914 American Radio Relay League (organization for hams) founded by Hiram Percy Maxim
1916 French defeat Germans in WW I Battle of Verdun
1917 Moldavian Republic declares independence from Russia
1925 1st hockey game at Madison Square Garden, Montreal Canadians 3, New York Americans 1
1925 1st road with a depressed trough (Texas) opened to traffic
1927 Ed Hickman kidnaps child he later beheads
1936 KVL-AM in Seattle Wash changes call letters to KEEN (now KING)
1938 Groundbreaking begins for Jefferson Memorial in Wash DC
1939 1st commercial manufacture of nylon yarn, Seaford, Delaware
1939 World premiere of "Gone With The Wind" in Atlanta GA
1941 USS Swordfish becomes 1st US sub to sink a Japanese ship
1942 Massachusetts issues 1st US vehicular license plate tabs
1944 Bandleader, Major Glenn Miller, lost over English Channel
1945 John J "Cardinal" O'Connor, ordained as a priest
1946 Chicago Bears beat New York Giants 24-14 in NFL championship game
1946 Giants Filchock & Hapes suspended by NFL, didn't report bribe attempt
1948 Former state department official Alger Hiss indicted in NYC for perjury
1950 Ezzard Charles KOs Nick Barone to retain heavyweight boxing title
1950 NYC's Port Authority opens
1954 Fordham University scraps football team for financial reasons
1954 Netherlands Antilles becomes co-equal part of Kingdom of Netherlands
1959 Everly Brothers record "Let It Be Me"
1961 Adolf Eichmann convicted of crimes against humanity in Israel
1962 Vaughn Meader's "The 1st Family," album goes #1 & stays #1 for 12 wks
1964 Canada adopts maple leaf flag
1965 3rd cyclone of year kills another 10,000 at mouths of Ganges River, Bangladesh
1965 Gemini 6 launched; makes 1st rendezvous in space (with Gemini 7)
1965 William Eckert replaces Ford Frick as 4th commissioner of baseball
1966 Audouin Dollfus discovers 10th satellite of Saturn, Janus
1966 John W Mecom Jr becomes 1st owner of the New Orlean Saints
1967 Beatles release "Christmas Time is Here Again"
1967 Joe Garagiola joins the Today Show panel
1967 Silver Bay bridge (Oh-WV) collapses during afternoon rush hr, 34 die
1969 San Francisco Fire Department replaces leather helmets with plastic ones
1970 Ferryboat capsized in Korean Strait drowning 261
1970 Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus)
1973 Golf Resort (The Disney Inn) opens
1973 Pirates of Caribbean opens
1973 Sandy Hawley becomes 1st jockey to win 500 races in 1 year
1973 Tennessee beats Temple 11-6 in low scoring NCAA basketball game
1974 A's Catfish Hunter is ruled a free agent (later signs with Yankees)
1976 Argo Merchant tanker off Massachusetts' SE coast, spills 7.6 m gallons of crude when the ship runs aground
1979 Deposed Shah of Iran leaves US for Panama
1979 World Court in Hague rules Iran should release all US hostages
1980 Free agent Dave Winfield signs with Yankees
1981 NASA launches Intelsat V
1982 Bill Parcells becomes the 12th head coach of the New York Giants
1982 Roy Williams, Teamsters pres, & 4 others convicted of bribery
1982 Spain reopens border with Gibraltar
1983 Columbia flies to Kennedy Space Center via El Paso, Kelly AFB
1984 USSR launches Vega 1 for rendezvous with Halley's Comet
1985 Sylvester Stallone & Brigitte Nielson wed
1986 Carnegie Hall reopens after a $50 million facelift
1986 CIA director William Casey suffers a cerebral seizure
1988 Lori Davis of Long Island sues Mike Tyson for grabbing her buttocks
1990 Rocker Rod Stewart marries super model Rachel Hunter
1993 GATT Uruguay Round completed
1993 Downing Street Declaration on Northern Ireland issued
1994 Diane Modahl banned from Athletics for Drug Use, in the UK

16th

882 John VIII ends his reign as Catholic Pope
882 Marinus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1631 Mount Vesuvius, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages & kills 4,000
1653 Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland & Ireland
1689 English Parliament adopts Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution
1773 Big tea party in Boston harbor-Indians welcome
1809 Napoleon Bonaparte divorces Empress Josephine by the French Senate
1811 Most violent & prolonged quakes in US begins in Midwest region
1835 Fire consumes over 600 buildings in New York NY
1838 Boers beat Zulu chieftain Dingaan in South Africa
1857 Earthquake in Naples, Italy
1862 Kingdom of Nepal accepts its constitution
1864 Battle of Nashville
1893 Anton Dvorak's "New World Symphony" premieres
1897 1st submarine with an internal combustion engine demonstrated
1903 Majestic Theater, New York NY, becomes 1st in US to employ women ushers
1905 "Variety," covering all phases of show business, 1st published
1907 Great White Fleet sails from Hampton Downs on its World Cruise
1908 1st credit union in US formed, Manchester, NH
1909 US pressure forces Nicaraguan President Jose Santos Zelaya from office
1912 1st US postage stamp picturing an airplane, $0.20 parcel post, issued
1920 Over 180,000 die when earthquake destroys 15,000 miles (Kansu China)
1926 WOW-AM in Omaha NE begins radio transmissions
1929 1st NHL game at Chicago Stadium (Black Hawks)
1941 Sarawak occupied by the Japanese
1943 "Tamiami Champion" trains collide, kills 73 & injures 200
1944 Battle of the Bulge begins in Belgium
1950 Truman proclaims state of emergency against "Communist imperialism"
1959 Snow falling in Lowarai Pass West Pakistan kills 48
1960 134 die as United DC-8 & TWA Super Constellation collide over Staten Island, NYC
1962 Constitutional Monarchical Hindu State of Nep l adopts new constitution
1962 New York Giant YA Tittle sets NFL season touchdown pass record at 33 with 6 touchdowns vs Dallas (41-31)
1965 Gemini 6 returns to Earth
1965 Pioneer 6 launched into solar orbit
1966 Beatles release "Everywhere it's Christmas" in the UK
1967 Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Philadelphia 76ers scores 68 points vs Chicago
1969 "War is Over! If You Want It, Happy Christmas from John & Yoko" posters begin appearing
1970 1st successful landing on Venus (USSR)
1971 Pakistan army surrenders to Indian army in Bangladesh
1972 Miami Dolphins become 1st undefeated NFL team (14-0-0)
1973 O.J. Simpson becomes 1st NFLer to rush 2,000 yard in a season
1976 Government halts swine flu vaccination program following reports of paralysis
1978 Ronald Reagan denounces President Jimmy Carter's recognition of China PR
1980 Pres-elect Reagan announces Alexander Haig as secretary of state
1983 Yogi Berra named Yankee manager for 2nd time
1983 Riverside, Cal judge denies cerebral palsy victim Elizabeth Bouviato request to starve herself to death in a county hospital
1985 Challenger moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 51-L mission
1987 Roh Tae Woo wins Presidential Election in South Korea
1988 Political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche convicted of tax, mail fraud
1990 KUSW, Salt Lake City Utah, final short-wave radio transmissions
1991 UN reverses ruling that Zionism is racism by 111-25 (13 abstain) vote
1992 Israel orders deportation of 415 Palestinians after escalating terrorist activity

17th

283 St Gaius begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1538 Pope Paul III excommunicated England's King Henry VIII
1777 France recognizes independence of English colonies in America
1790 Aztec calendar stone discovered in Mexico City
1791 NYC traffic regulation creates 1st 1-way street
1792 Opening of 1st legislative assembly of Lower Canada in Quebec city
1798 1st impeachment trial against a US senator (Wm Blount, TN) begins
1819 Congress of Angostura establishes Columbia's independence from Spain
1821 Kentucky abolishes debtors prisons
1852 1st Hawaiian cavalry organized
1860 Anaheim Township created in Los Angeles County
1862 General US Grant issues order #11, expelling Jews from Tennessee
1875 Violent bread riots in Montreal
1895 Anti-Saloon League of America formed, Washington, DC
1895 George Brownell patents a machine to make paper twine (Mass)
1900 1st prize of 100,000 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too easy
1903 At 10:35 AM, 1st sustained motorized aircraft flight (Orville Wright)
1914 Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities
1920 British Empire receives League of Nations mandate to Nauru
1920 Japan receives League of Nations mandate over Pacific islands
1920 South Africa receives League of Nations mandate over SW Africa
1924 1st US diesel electric locomotive enters service, Bronx NY
1925 Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell court-martial for insubordination
1926 KYA-AM in San Francisco CA begins radio transmissions
1927 US sub 'S-4' sinks after collision kills all 34 aboard
1933 National Football League starts keeping official statistics as Bears beat Giants 23-21 in championship game
1939 German pocket battleship Graf Spee scuttled by its crew off Uruguay
1941 German troops led by Rommel begin retreating in North Africa
1944 Japanese-Americans released from detention camps
1944 M-Ocean View streetcar resumes service & is extended to Market St
1944 US Army announces end of excluding Japanese-Americans from West Coast
1946 US V-2 rocket reaches 183 km, White Sands Proving Grounds, NM
1947 New York struck by a blizzard, resulting with 27" of snow
1954 1st fully automated railroad freight yard (Gary IN)
1957 US successfully test-fires Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile
1959 1st movie opening simultaneously in major cities (On The Beach)
1961 Disgruntled employee set fire to a circus tent in Niteroi Brazil
1961 India seizes Goa & 2 other Portuguese colonies
1962 Current constitution of Monaco promulgated
1965 Largest newspaper-Sunday New York Times at 946 pages ($0.50)
1969 50m TV viewers saw singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky, on Tonight Show
1969 USAF closes Project Blue Book, concluding no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings
1971 Cease-fire between India & Pakistan in Kashmir
1971 Radio Bangladesh begins transmitting
1972 New line of control agreed to in Kashmir between India & Pakistan
1975 1st time New York Islanders shut-out New York Rangers, 3-0-Billy Smith's 5th
1975 John Paul Stevens appointed to the Supreme Court
1975 Lynette Fromme was sentenced to life for attempt on President Ford's life
1978 Referendum approves new constitution of Rwanda
1979 Budweiser rocket car reaches 1190 kph (record for wheeled vehicle)
1981 Members of the Red Brigades kidnap Brigadier General James L Dozier
1984 NJ Devils 1st penalty shot-Rocky Trottier scores against Edmonton
1988 Bryan Murray becomes the 17th NHL coach to win 300 games (Wash Caps)
1988 New York Islanders break 12 game losing streak, beat Devils 5-2
1988 USS Tennessee, 1st sub to carry Trident 2 missiles, commissioned
1990 KTBN, Salt Lake City Utah, begins short-wave radio transmissions
1991 NBA's most lopsided game Cleveland beats Miami 148-80
1991 Soap opera "One Life To Live" airs its 6,000th episode

18th

1774 Jews expelled from Prague, Bohemia & Moravia by Empress Maria Theresa
1777 1st national Thanksgiving Day, commemorating Burgoyne's surrender
1787 New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify constitution
1796 1st US newspaper to appear on Sunday, Baltimore Monitor
1799 George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon
1813 British take Fort Niagara in the War of 1812
1839 1st celestial photograph (of the moon) made in US, John Draper, New York NY
1849 William Bond obtains 1st photograph of Moon through a telescope
1859 South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth"
1865 13th Amendment ratified, slavery abolished
1865 1st US cattle importation law passed
1898 Automobile speed record set-63 kph (39 mph)
1915 President Wilson, widowed the year before, marries Edith Bolling Galt
1923 International zone of Tangier set up in Morocco
1932 Chicago Bears beat Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in 1st NFL playoff game
1936 1st giant panda imported into US
1944 Destroyers "Hull," "Spence" & "Monaghan" sink in typhoon (Phillippines)
1945 Uruguay joins the United Nations
1946 TV's 1st network dramatic serial "Faraway Hill" ends 2 month run
1949 Philadelphia Eagles beat Los Angeles Rams 14-0 in NFL championship game
1956 Japan admitted to UN
1957 Shippingport Atomic Power Station, 1st nuke plant to generate electricity
1958 1st test project of Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equip
1958 1st voice from space: recorded Christmas message by Eisenhower
1958 Niger gains autonomy within French Community (National Day)
1959 Sammy Baugh named 1st coach of New York Titans (AFL)
1961 For 2nd cons year, AP names Wilma Rudolph female athlete of year
1961 India annexes Portuguese colonies of Goa, Damao & Diu
1961 Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Philadelphia Warriors scores 78 points vs Los Angeles
1963 Muskegon, MI gets 3' of snow
1965 Borman & Lovell Splash down in Atlantic ends 2 week Gemini VII mission
1965 Kenneth LeBel jumps 17 barrels on ice skates
1969 Britain abolishes death penalty
1971 1st Candlelight Processional
1971 People United To Save Humanity (PUSH) forms by Jesse Jackson in Chic
1972 US began its heaviest bombing of North Vietnam
1973 Soyuz 13 launched into Earth orbit for 8 days
1974 San Francisco Visitors Center at City Hall opens
1977 Cleveland Cavaliers retire jersey # 42, Nate Thumond
1979 Stanley Barrett 1st to exceed land sonic speed (739.666 MPH)
1980 Bruce Sprinsteen's concert at Madison Square Garden
1982 Flight readiness firing of Challenger's main engines; 20 seconds
1983 NBA San Diego Clippers ends 29 game road losing streak
1985 UN Security Council unanimously condemns "acts of hostage-taking"
1987 Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's future pres, marries Asif Ali Zardari
1988 5th meeting of Giants-Jets, Jets win & eliminate Giants from playoffs
1988 Seattle Seahawks win their 1st ever division title with 9-7 record
1989 "I Love Lucy" Christmas episode, shown for 1st time in over 30 years
1991 DeForest Kelly (Dr McCoy on Star Trek) gets a star in Hollywood
1991 General Motors announces the closing of 21 plants

19th

401 St Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1732 Benjamin Franklin begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"
1776 Thomas Paine publishes his 1st "American Crisis" essay
1777 Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge, Pa for the winter
1795 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1823 Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law
1828 South Carolina declares the right of states to nullify federal laws
1842 US recognizes independence of Hawaii
1843 Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol," in England
1854 Allen Wilson of Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
1859 Grading started for Market Street RR
1861 Battle of Black Water
1867 Victims of "Angola Horror" burned to death (Angola NY)
1871 Albert Jones, New York NY, patents corrugated paper
1881 The opera "Herodiade" is produced (Brussels)
1887 Jake Kilrain & Jem Smith fight 106 round bare knuckle draw
1889 Bishop Museum founded in Hawaii
1890 Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of The Beryl Coronet" (BG)
1891 1st Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore
1903 Williamsburg suspension bridge opens between Brooklyn & Manhattan
1904 The Dawson City (Yukon) hockey team starts walking towards Seattle to catch a train to Ottawa to play in the Stanley Cup on Jan 13 1905
1907 239 workers died in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek PA
1907 Explosion at Jacobs Creek PA, coal mine kills 239
1910 1st city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas (Baltimore)
1910 Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook PA
1917 1st NHL game played on artificial ice (Toronto)
1917 Quebec Bulldogs play their 1st professional hockey game
1919 American Meteorological Society found
1920 1st US indoor curling rink opens (Brookline, Mass)
1922 Mrs. Therese Vaughn, 24, confessed in court to being married 62 times
1928 1st autogiro (predecessor of helicopter) flight in US
1930 James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP
1932 British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas
1933 Electric Home & Farm Authority Inc, authorized
1945 Austrian Republic re-establishes
1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
1948 8th largest snowfall in NYC history (15.3")
1948 Cleveland Browns beats Buffalo Bills 49-7 in AAFC championship game
1948 Philadelphia Eagles shutout Chicago Cards 7-0 in NFL championship game
1950 General Eisenhower named NATO commander
1957 "The Music Man," starring Robert Preston, opens on Broadway
1959 1st Liberty Bowl game-Penn State beats Alabama 7-0
1960 Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction at Brooklyn (50 die)
1960 Mercury-Redstone 1A reaches 210 km in test flight
1962 Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland
1962 Street signs in Golden Gate Park approved by Park Commission
1962 Transit 5A1, 1st operational navigational satellite, launched
1969 Beatle's 7th Christmas album is released
1971 NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp
1972 Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth
1974 Dave Kryskow scores Washington Capitals 1st NHL shorthanded goal
1974 Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as the 41st VP
1975 John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1980 Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts
1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1984 Fire at the Wilberg Mine in central Utah killed 27 people
1984 Scotty Bowman becomes NHL's all time winningest coach
1984 Wayne Gretzky becomes 18th NHLer to score 1,000 points
1985 STS 61-C scrubbed at T -13s because of SRB auxiliary power problem
1986 USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
1987 Bruins' Linseman & Blues' Doug Gilmore score goals, 2 seconds apart
1988 NASA unveils plans for lunar colony & manned missions to Mars
1988 Oklahoma's College football team gets 3 year probation
1988 Unexploded WW II bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated
1989 American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route
1989 Larry Bird (Celtics) begins NBA free throw streak of 71 games
1991 6,000th episode of One Life To Live
1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin
1991 New York Yankee pitcher Steve Howe arrested for cocaine possession

20th

1606 Virginia Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown
1669 1st jury trial in Delaware; Marcus Jacobson condemned for insurrection & sentenced to flogging, branding & slavery
1699 Peter the Great ordered Russian New Year changed-Sept 1 to Jan 1
1790 1st successful US cotton mill to spin yarn (Pawtucket, RI)
1803 Louisiana Purchase formally transferred from France to US for $27M
1820 Missouri imposes a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 & 50
1850 Hawaiian post office established
1860 SC votes 169-0 for Ordinance of Secession, 1st state to secede
1879 Tom Edison privately demonstrated incandescent light at Menlo Park
1880 New York's Broadway lit by electricity, becomes known as "Great White Way"
1883 International cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls
1891 Strongman Louis Cyr withstands the pull of 4 horses
1892 Phileas Fogg completes around world trip, according to Verne
1892 Pneumatic automobile tire patented, Syracuse NY
1893 1st state anti-lynching statue approved, in Georgia
1900 Giacobini discovers a comet (will be 1st comet visited by spacecraft)
1907 Explosion at Yolande Alabama, coal mine kills 91
1919 Canadian National Railways established (N America's longest, 50,000 KM)
1922 14 republics form Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR)
1928 1st international dogsled mail leaves Minot, Maine for Montreal, Quebec
1929 Mount Davidson dedicated as a San Francisco city park
1938 V.K. Zworykin receives patent on the Iconoscope TV system
1939 Radio Australia begins overseas short-wave service
1944 Battle of Bastogne, Nazis surround 101st Airborne (NUTS!)
1962 The Osmond brothers debut on the Andy Williams Show
1963 Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners
1966 NBA awards Seattle Supersonics a franchise for 1967-68 season
1973 AL President Joe Cronin refuses to allow Dick Williams to manage Yankees
1973 Montreal Canadien Henri Richard scores his 1,000th NHL point
1974 George Harrison releases his "Dark Horse" album in UK
1976 Israel's PM Yitzhak Rabin resigns
1977 1st Space walk made by G Grechko from Salyut
1978 H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's White House chief of staff released from jail
1980 USSR formally announces death of Alexei Kosygin
1981 "Dreamgirls" opens on Broadway
1981 Dou Small (Winnipeg Jets) ties NHL record scoring at 5 second mark
1983 Guy Lafleur, Montreal, became 10th NHLer to score 500 goals
1983 New York Islanders score their most goals (11) vs Pittsburgh Penguins
1983 PLO chairman Yasser Arafat & 4,000 loyalists evacuate Lebanon
1984 33 unknown Bach keyboard works found in the Yale library
1985 Denis Potvin passes Bobby Orr as NHL defenseman scorer (916 points)
1986 White teenagers beat blacks in Howard Beach NY
1987 Worst peacetime shipping disaster, Dona Paz collides with Vector 1,749 confirmed deaths (probably closer to 3,000)
1988 Animal rights terrorists fire-bomb Harrod's department store, London
1988 NBC signs lease to stay in NYC, 33 more years
1989 US troops invade Panama & oust Manuel Noriega, but don't catch him
1990 Pentagon warns Saddam that US air power is ready to attack on 1/15
1990 Robert F.X. Sillerman purchases WAFL NY-NJ Knights for $11 million
1990 Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze resigns
1991 NHL grants permanent membership to Tampa Lightning & Ottawa Senators

21st

1620 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (12/11 OS)
1784 John Jay becomes 1st US secretary of state (foreign affairs)
1829 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US dedicated, Baltimore
1849 1st US skating club formed (Philadelphia)
1891 18 students play 1st basketball game (Springfield College)
1898 Scientists Pierre & Marie Curie discovers radium
1909 University of Copenhagen rejects Cook's claim that he was 1st to North Pole
1913 1st crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) printed in New York World
1914 1st feature-length silent film comedy, "Tillie's Punctured Romance" released. (Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand & Charles Chaplin)
1915 25.83 cm (10.17") of rainfall, Glenora, Oregon (state record)
1921 Supreme Court rules labor injunctions & picketing unconstitutional
1923 Nepal changes from British protectorate to independent nation
1929 1st group hospital insurance plan effected, Dallas TX
1929 1st US group hospital insurance plan instituted, Dallas, TX
1933 Dried human blood serum 1st prepared, University of Pennsylvania
1933 Newfoundland reverts to being a crown colony
1937 1st feature-length color & sound cartoon premiers (Snow White)
1941 Last NFL drop kick for an extra point (Ray McLean, Chicago Bears)
1948 O'Neil Place in the Bronx erroneously renamed O'Neill Place
1948 State of Eire (formerly Irish Free State) declares its independence
1952 Broadway Tunnel opens in San Francisco
1954 Dr Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn is murdered (he is accused of crime)
1958 Charles De Gaulle wins 7 year term as 1st President of 5th Rep of France
1959 10th largest snowfall in NYC history (13.7")
1959 Citizens of Deerfield Ill block building of interracial housing
1961 Beatles record "Sweet Georgia Brown" & "Ready Teddy"
1966 USSR launches Luna 13; soft-landed in Oceanus Procellarum
1968 Apollo 8 (Frank Borman Jim Lovell Bill Anders) 1st manned Moon voyage
1969 Vince Lombardi (Redskins) coaches his last football game, losing
1971 UN Security Council chooses Kurt Waldheim as 4th secretary general
1972 Soviet Union signs a separate peace with East Germany
1973 Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, US & USSR meet in Geneva
1975 1st New York Jet to gain 1,000 yards rushing (John Riggins)
1975 Buffalo Sabres set NHL record of 40 points beating Caps 14-2 scoring 5 goals vs Washington Caps in 4:57
1976 20th Islander shut-out opponent-Billy Smith 3-0 vs Bruins
1976 Patricia R Harris named secretary of HUD
1976 UN General Assembly passes a resolution declaring 1979-Year of Child
1978 Police in Des Plaines IL, arrested John W Gacy Jr for murder
1979 Gary Unger plays in record 914th consecutive NHL game
1981 Cincinnati beats Bradley 75-73 in 7 OTs (NCAA record)
1983 Loretta Swit weds Dennis Holahan
1983 NBA Indiana Pacers end a 28 game road losing streak
1984 Islander Kelly Hrudy's 1st shut-out win-Whalers 1-0
1984 USSR launches Vega 2 for fly-by of Halley's Come
1985 ARCO Anchorage runs aground near Port Angeles, WA
1985 Heart's "Heart," album goes #1
1987 3 white New York teens convicted of manslaughter in death of a black man
1987 Soyuz TM-4 carries 3 cosmonauts to space station Mir
1987 Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov launched
1988 Drexel agrees guilt to security felonies, pays a $650 million fine
1988 New York bound Pan Am jumbo jet explodes over Scotland all 258 aboard die
1988 Pan Am "Flight 103" explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270
1988 Vladimir Titov & Musa Manarov return to earth (a year) with Chretien
1989 Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's final speech (executed 12/25)
1989 US invades Panama and ousts General Noriega
1991 95 share in Madrid Spain $1.3 billion lottery (#47996)
1991 El Sayid Nosair acquitted of killing Meir Kahane
1991 Ted Turner & Jane Fonda wed

22nd

401 St Innocent I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1772 Moravian missionary constructs 1st schoolhouse west of Allegheny
1775 Continental navy organized with 7 ships
1783 Washington resigns his military commission
1807 Congress passes Embargo Act, to force peace between Britain & France
1815 Spaniards execute Mexican revolutionary priest Jose Maria Morelos
1870 Jules Janssen, flies in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse
1877 "American Bicycling Journal" begins publishing (Boston, Mass)
1885 Pope Leo XIII proclaims extraordinary jubilee
1886 1st national accountants' society in US formed (New York NY)
1888 Heavyweight Boxing champ John L Sullivan challenges Jake Kilrain
1894 United States Golf Association formed (New York NY)
1894 French officer Alfred Dreyfus court-martialed for treason, triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus later vindicated)
1910 US postal savings stamps 1st issued
1915 Federal Baseball League dissolved
1919 US deports 250 alien radicals
1924 Babe Dye of NHL's Toronto St. Patricks' scores 5 goals beat Bruins 10-2
1934 Miss Theo Trowbridge sets female bowling record 702 pins in games
1936 1st common carrier license issued by ICC, Scranton, Pa
1937 Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic
1939 125 die in train wreck at Magdeburg Germany; 99 die in 2nd wreck at Friedrichshafen Germany
1941 Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for a wartime conference
1943 WEB Du Bois elected 1st black member, National Institute of Arts & Letters
1944 Germans demand surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium
1946 Cleveland Browns beat New York Yankees 14-9 in AAFC championship game
1947 Italian constituent assembly adopts new constitution
1950 2 self-propelled trains of Long Island RR collide, killing 77
1959 New York Ranger goalie Marcel Paille wears a customized mask
1962 Kinderman Place in the Bronx named
1963 Oakland Raider Tom Flores passes for 6 touchdowns vs Houston (52-49)
1963 Official 30-day mourning period for President John F Kennedy ends
1964 Lockheed SR-71 spy aircraft reaches 3,530 kph (record for a jet)
1965 Radio Mil (Domincan Republic) transmitter blown up
1969 Pete Marovich sets NCAA record of hitting 30 of 31 foul shots
1970 SS Commander Franz Stangl of Treblinka, sentenced to life in prison
1971 UN General Assembly ratifies Kurt Waldheim as secretary-general
1974 Phil Esposito, Boston, became 6th NHLer to score 500 goals
1974 Referenda in Comoros-3 islands for independence, 1 stays French
1976 35 Unification church couples wed in NYC
1977 36 die as grain elevator at Continental Grain Company plant explodes
1980 Pres-elect Reagan appoints Jean Kirkpatrick (UN delegate) & James Watt (Interior)
1983 Islanders score 3 shorthanded goals against Caps
1984 Bernhard Goetz shoots 4 black youths on a NYC subway train
1984 Madonna's "Like a Virgin," single goes #1 for 6 weeks
1985 STS 51-L vehicle moves to Launch Pad 39B
1987 Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx overdoses from Heroin
1988 2 robbers wearing police uniforms rob armored truck of $3 M in NJ
1988 South Africa signs accord granting independence to South-West Africa
1988 Tug hits oil barge, spreads 231,000 gal on 300 mi of WA & BC coast
1989 After 23 years of dictatorial rule, Romania ousts Nicolea Ceausescu
1989 Cold wave: -4�F in Oklahoma City, -6�F in Tulsa, -12�F in Pittsburgh PA, -18�F in Denver CO, -23�F in Kansas City MO, -42�F in Scottsbluff NB, -47�F in Hardin MT & -60�F in Black Hills SD
1990 Iraq announces it will never give up Kuwait
1990 Israeli ferry capsizes killing 21 US servicemen
1990 Lech Walesa sworn in as Poland's 1st popularly elected president
1994 Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi resigns

23rd

619 Boniface V begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1569 St Philip of Moscow martyred by Ivan the Terrible
1672 Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn
1690 John Flamsteed observes Uranus without realizing it's undiscovered
1776 Continental Congress negotiates a war loan of $181,500 from France
1776 Thomas Paine writes "These are the times that try men's souls"
1779 Benedict Arnold court-martialed for improper conduct
1783 Washington resigns as US Army's commander-in-chief
1788 Maryland votes to cede a 10 mile area for District of Columbia
1823 "Visit from St Nicholas" by C Moore published in Troy (New York) Sentinel
1834 Joseph Hansom of London receives patent for Hansom cabs
1852 1st Chinese theater in US, Celestial John, opens in San Francisco
1862 Union General Ben "Beast" Butler is proclaimed a "felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind" by Jefferson Davis
1867 1st self-made millionairess (Sarah Breedlove-hair straightener)
1893 The opera "Hansel und Gretel" is produced (Weimar)
1907 1st all-steel passenger railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa
1909 Albert becomes king of Belgium
1911 The opera "I Giojelli Della Madonna" is produced (Berlin)
1913 President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Reserve Act into law
1919 1st hospital ship built to move wounded naval personnel launched
1920 Ireland divided into 2 parts, each with its own parliament
1926 KEX-AM in Portland OR begins radio transmissions
1928 NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast network
1930 Police Bureau of Criminal Alien Investigation started in New York NY
1933 Howie Morenz takes over NHL career goal lead at 251
1941 American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese
1943 1st telecast of a complete opera (Hansel & Gretel), Schenectady NY
1946 University of Tennessee refuses to play Duquesne University, because they may use a black player in their basketball game
1947 Transistor invented by Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley in Bell Labs
1951 1st coast-to-coast televised football game (Dumont paid $75,000); Los Angeles Rams beat Cleveland Browns 24-17 in NFL championship game
1962 Cuba starts returning US prisoners from the Bay of Pigs invasion
1962 Dallas Texans beat Houston Oilers 20-17 in AFL championship game
1966 Britain's rock TV show, "Ready Steady Go," last program
1968 1st US case of space motion sickness
1968 82 members of US intelligence ship `Pueblo' released by North Korea
1968 Borman, Lovell & Anders become 1st men to orbit Moon
1972 16 plane crash survivors rescued after 70d, survived by cannibalism
1972 Earthquake destroys central Managua, Nicaragua
1972 Islanders end 15 games winless streak
1972 "Immaculate Reception" Steelers turns around a 7-6 defeat with a last second touchdown reception against the Raiders to win 13-7
1973 "The Young and the Restless" premiers on TV
1973 6 Persian Gulf nations double their oil prices
1975 Congress passes Metric Conversion Act
1978 Islanders scored 7 goals in 1 period against the Rangers, Trottier scores 8 points vs Rangers, 5 goals-NHL record 6 pts in 1 period
1979 New York Islanders greatest shutout lose (8-0) vs Chicago Black Hawks
1983 Journal Science publishes 1st report on nuclear winter
1986 Rutan & Yeager make 1st around-the-world flight without refueling
1987 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of President Gerald R Ford escapes from Alderson Prison
1990 Slovenians vote to secede from Yugoslavia
1991 New York Daily News publisher Kevin Maxwell resigns

24th

640 John IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1814 Treaty of Ghent (end of the War of 1812) signed
1818 "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; 1st sung next day
1832 1st US Negro hospital founded by whites chartered, Savannah GA
1851 Fire devastates Library of Congress in Washington destroys 35,000 volumes
1865 Several Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tn
1871 Giusseppi Verdi's "Aida" premieres in Cairo, at Suez canal opening
1874 Pope Pius IX proclaims a jubilee for 1875
1889 Bicycle with a back-pedal brake patented
1889 Daniel Stover & William Hance patent bicycle with back pedal brake
1906 Reginald A Fessenden became 1st to broadcast music over radio (Mass)
1910 Luisa Tetrazzini sings to 250,000 people at Lotta's Fountain
1920 Enrico Caruso gives his last public performance (New York NY)
1924 Albania becomes a republic
1933 Paris express train derails & kills 160, injures 300 (France)
1936 1st radioactive isotope medicine administered, Berkeley, Ca
1942 1st powered flight of V-1 buzz bomb, Peenemonde, Germany
1943 FDR appoints General Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces
1946 4th French republic established
1948 1st US house completely sunheated is occupied, Dover, Mass
1951 1st televised opera (Amahl & the Night Visitor)
1951 United Kingdom of Libya gains independence from Italy via the UN
1953 2 fast express trains crash head-on killing 103 (Czechoslovakia)
1953 Wellington-Auckland (NZ) express train swept away in flood kills 166
1954 Laos gains its independence
1956 "I Love Lucy" Christmas show airs, never put in syndication
1961 Houston Oilers beat San Diego Chargers 10-3 in AFL championship game
1964 Shooting begins on "The Cage" the pilot for Star Trek
1966 Luna 13 lands on Moon
1966 USAF C144 military charter crashes near Binh Thai Vietnam kills 129
1967 Pirate Radio Pegasus starts broadcasting off New Zealand
1968 Apollo 8 astronauts read passages from Book of Genesis
1970 9 Jews are convicted in Lenningrad of hijacking a plane
1970 Walt Disney's "The Aristocats" is released
1971 Peruvian Airlines Electra crashes at headwaters of Amazon, killing all except Juliane Margaret Koepcke found 10 days later
1973 Ferryboat capsized off coast of Equador, drowning 200
1980 Americans remembered Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds
1982 Chaminade, with a student body of only 850 students, beats #1 ranked Virginia 77-72 in a Honolulu holiday basketball classic
1986 French hostage Aurel Cornea, held in Lebanon for 9 months, released
1989 Panama's dictator, Manual Noriega seeks asylum at the Vatican embassy
1990 Saddam says Israel will be Iraq's 1st target
1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Soviet Union

25th

1 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus
336 1st recorded celebration of Christmas on Dec 25 occurs in Rome
597 England adopts Julian calendar
795 Adrian I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1066 William the Conqueror, crowned king of England
1223 St Francis of Assisi assembles 1st Nativity scene (Greccio, Italy)
1621 Gov William Bradford forbids game playing on this day
1745 Treaty of Dresden gives much of Silesia to the Prussians
1758 Halley's comet 1st sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch during return
1760 Juptier Hammon, New York slave, publishes poetry in "An Evening Thought"
1775 Pope Pius VI encyclical on the problems of the pontificate
1776 Washington crosses Delaware & surprises & defeats 1,400 Hessians
1818 "Silent Night," by Franz Joseph Gruber & Joseph Mohr sung for 1st time
1818 1st US performance of Handel's Messiah, Boston
1837 Battle of Okeechobee-US forces defeat Seminole Indians
1843 1st theatre matinee (Olympic Theatre, NYC)
1848 New Haven Railroad opens
1862 40,000 watch the Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, SC
1868 Despite bitter opposition, President A Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion (the Civil War)
1875 The Lambs Club in New York founded
1888 1st indoor baseball game played at fairgrounds in Philadelphia
1894 1st midwestern football team to play on west coast, University of Chicago
1926 Hirohito became emperor of Japan (1926-1989)
1930 1st US bobsled run open to the public (Lake Placid NY)
1931 New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcasts an entire opera over radio
1939 Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th reindeer
1941 Japan announces surrender of British-Canadian garrison at Hong Kong
1946 Constitution accepted in Taiwan
1950 Cleveland Browns beat Los Angeles Rams 30-28 in NFL championship game
1953 Avalanche of lava kills 150 (Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand)
1957 Ed Gein found insane of murder
1959 A synagogue in Cologne Germany desecrated with swastikas
1963 Walt Disney's "The Sword In The Stone" is released
1967 Paul McCartney & Jane Asher get engaged
1968 Frank Borman's Christmas reading while orbiting Moon
1971 Longest NFL game (82m40s) as Dolphins beat Chiefs 27-24
1971 Worst hotel fire in history kills 163 at Taeyokale Hotel in Seoul
1973 Tommy Chambers (Scotland) finishes 51 yr cycle tour (799,405 miles)
1974 Cyclone Tracy virtually destroys Darwin Australia
1977 Israeli PM Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with Egyptian President Sadat
1983 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade
1984 NBA's Bernard King scores 60 points
1987 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who escaped 2 days earlier, recaptured
1989 Japanese scientist achieve -271.8�C, coldest temp ever recorded
1990 "Godfather III" premiers

26th

268 St Dionysius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
418 St Zosimus ends his reign as Catholic Pope
795 St Leo III begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1492 1st Spanish settlement in New World founded, by Columbus
1620 Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, MA
1773 Expulsion of tea ships from Philadelphia
1776 Battle of Trenton-major British defeat
1799 George Washington is eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as "1st in war, 1st in peace & 1st in the hearts of his countrymen"
1805 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts established, Philadelphia
1825 Erie Canal opens
1831 The opera "Norma" is produced (Milan)
1848 1st gold seekers arrive in Panama en route to San Francisco
1848 William & Ellen Craft escape from slavery in Georgia
1854 Wood-pulp paper 1st exhibited, Buffalo
1860 Maiden voyage of 1st steamship owned by 1 man (C Vanderbilt)
1862 1st US navy hospital ship enters service
1865 James H Mason (Mass) patents 1st US coffee percolator
1872 4th largest snowfall in NYC history (18")
1877 Socialist Labor Party of North America holds 1st national convention
1878 1st US store to install electric lights, Philadelphia
1892 The opera "Cristoforo Colombo" is produced (La Scala)
1902 Most knock downs in a fight, Oscar Nelson (5) & Christy Williams (42)
1908 Jackson Johnson defeats Tommy Burns at Sydney, Australia for boxing title
1917 Fed government took over operation of American RR for duration of WW I
1919 Yanks & Red Sox reach agreement on transfer of Babe Ruth
1925 1st East-West football game at Ewing Park before 25,000 fans
1925 NHL record 141 shots as New York Americans (73) beat Pittsburgh Pirates (68) 3-1
1925 Turkey adopts Gregorian calendar
1931 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical play "Of Thee I Sing" opens on Broadway
1932 Earthquake kills 70,000 in Kansu China
1933 US forswears armed intervention in the Western Hemisphere
1941 Winston Churchill becomes 1st British PM to address a joint meeting of Congress, warning that the Axis would "stop at nothing"
1943 British sink German battle cruiser Scharnhorst
1944 Battle of Bastogne-US troops repulse the Germans
1946 Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas opens (start of an era)
1947 British transfer Heard & McDonald Is (Indian Ocean) to Australia
1947 Heavy snow blankets Northeast, buries NYC under 25.8" of snow in 16 hrs. That same day, Los Angeles set a record high of 84� F
1950 Gillette & Mutual buy All Star & World Series rights ($6M for 6 yrs)
1954 Cleveland Browns beat Detroit Lions 56-10 in NFL championship game
1955 Cleveland Browns beat Los Angeles Rams 38-14 in NFL championship game
1960 Philadelphia Eagles beat Green Bay Packers 17-13 in NFL championship game
1964 Beatles' "I Feel Fine," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
1964 Buffalo Bills beat San Diego Chargers 20-7 in AFL championship game
1964 Moors Murderers claim last victim
1965 "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand closes on Broadway
1965 Buffalo Bills beat San Diego Chargers 23-0 in AFL championship game
1965 Paul McCartney is interviewed on pirate radio station Radio Caroline
1966 Maulana Karenga establishes Kwanzaa (1st fruits of harvest) holiday
1967 The BBC broadcasts "The Magical Mystery Tour"
1968 Bruin Ted Green sets NHL penalty record of 3 minors, 2 majors & 2 game misconducts in a game against the New York Rangers in New York's MSG
1973 2 Skylab 3 astronauts walk in space for a record 7 hours
1973 Soyuz 13 returns to Earth
1974 Washington Capitals 1st NHL sellout
1975 1st supersonic transport service (USSR-Tupolev-144)
1978 India's former PM, Indira Gandhi, released from jail
1986 TV soap "Search for Tomorrow" ends 35 year run
1988 "Legs Diamond" starring Peter Allen opens on Broadway
1990 Garry Kasparov beats Antatoly Karpov to retain chess championship
1990 Reggie Williams becomes 1st GM of WLAF's NY-NJ Knights
1991 Chuck Knolls retires as NFL coach after 23 years
1991 Jack Ruby's gun sells for $220,000 in auction
1991 Militant Sikhs kill 55 & wound 70 in India
1991 New York Islander Derek King ties NJ Devils 5-5 with � second left

27th

418 [Etalius] begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1741 Prussian forces took Olmutz, Czechoslovakia
1825 1st public railroad using steam locomotive completed in England
1831 Darwin begins his voyage on board the HMS Beagle
1836 Worst English avalanche kills 8 of 15 buried (Lewes Sussex)
1845 Ether 1st used in childbirth in US, Jefferson GA
1850 Hawaiian Fire Department established
1867 Ontario & Quebec legislatures hold 1st meeting
1871 World's 1st cat show (Crystal Palace, London)
1887 Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of The Blue Carbuncle" (BG)
1892 Foundation Stone of the Cathedral of St John laid (New York NY)
1892 N.C. Biddle beats Livingston 4-0 in 1st black college football game
1897 Montreal Victorias beat Ottawa Capitals 15-2 for the Stanley Cup
1900 Carrie Nation's 1st public smashing of a bar (Carey Hotel, Wichita KS)
1903 "Sweet Adeline," a barbershop quartet favorite, is 1st sung
1906 1st annual meeting of American Sociological Society, Providence, RI
1926 Depot Square in the Bronx renamed Botanical Square
1926 Latkin Square in Bronx named for 1st US Jewish soldier to die in WW I
1927 "Show Boat" opens at the Ziegfeld Theater (New York NY)
1927 Stalin's faction wins All-Union Congress in USSR, Trotsky expelled
1932 Radio City Music Hall opens (New York NY)
1934 1st youth hostel in US opens (Northfield, Mass)
1937 German immigration officials with no explanation bar Juan Carlos Zabala (Arg), 1932 Olympic marathon champion, from entering Germany
1939 1st American skimobiles (North Conway, NH)
1939 Between 20,000 & 40,000 die in magnitude 8 quake (Erzincam Turkey)
1941 Japan bombs Manila even though it was declared an "open city"
1943 France transfers most of her powers in Lebanon to Lebanese government
1945 International Monetary Fund established-World Bank founded
1946 US wins 1st Davis Cup since 1938
1947 1st "Howdy Doody Show," (Puppet Playhouse), telecast on NBC
1949 Queen Juliana (Netherlands) grants sovereignty to Indonesia
1949 United States of Indonesia gains independence from Netherlands
1953 Detroit Lions beat Cleveland Browns 17-16 in NFL championship game
1956 Bill Sharman (Boston) ends NBA free throw streak of 55 games
1959 Baltimore Colts beat New York Giants 31-16 in NFL championship game
1964 Cleveland Browns beat Baltimore Colts 27-0 in NFL championship game
1968 Apollo 8 returns to Earth
1970 "Hello, Dolly!" closes on Broadway after a record 2,844 performances
1972 Los Angeles Kings start Islanders on 12 game losing streak
1972 New North Korean constitution comes into effect
1973 Los Angeles Dodgers announce night games will start at 7:30 instead of 8
1974 FSLN seizes government hostages at a private Managua party
1975 Explosion at Chasnala Colliery collapses drowning 350 (Dhanbad India)
1979 "Knots Landing," premieres on CBS-TV
1979 Red Army beats New York Rangers 5-2 at MSG
1979 Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, President Hafizullah Amin overthrown
1980 Calvin Murphy (Rockets) begins longest NBA free throw streak of 78
1981 Oiler Wayne Gretsky becomes fastest NHL to get 100 pts (38th game)
1983 Propane gas fire devastated 16 blocks of Buffalo
1985 Terrorists kill 20 & wound 110 attacking El Al at Rome & Vienna airports. President Reagan blamed Libyan leader Momar Qadhafi
1987 Steve Largent sets all-time NFL record for career catches when he catches his 752nd pass
1988 Bulgaria stops jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades
1989 Oregon begins taking bids on NBA games
1991 Bengals hire Dave Shula as youngest NFL coach (32)
1991 Chuck Knox retires as Seattle Seahawk coach

28th

418 St Boniface I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1816 American Colonization Society organizes
1832 John Calhoun becomes 1st VP to resign (differences with President Jackson)
1846 Iowa becomes 29th state
1849 M Jolly-Bellin discovers dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset lamp containing turpentine & oil on his clothing & sees cleaning effect
1850 Rangoon, Burma, destroyed by fire
1869 William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon OH, patents chewing gum
1877 John Stevens, WI, applies for patent on flour rolling mill
1878 Pope Leo XIII encyclical on socialism
1879 North British Railway's train falls as Firth bridge collapses (Scot)
1887 Sir John Layton Jarvis, 1st British race horse trainer knighted
1902 1st indoor pro football game, Syracuse beats Philadelphia 6-0 (MSG, NYC)
1902 Trans-Pacific cable links Hawaii to US
1905 Intercollegiate Athletic Association of US founded (becomes NCAA in 1910)
1906 Ecuador adopts its constitution
1908 Earthquake strikes Messina, Italy; 80,000 die
1910 The opera "Konigskinder" is produced (New York NY)
1912 San Francisco Municipal Railway starts operation at Geary St (MUNI)
1915 San Francisco City Hall dedicated by Mayor James Rolph
1926 Imperial Airways begins England-India mail & passenger service
1935 W.P.A. Federal Art Project Gallery opens in NYC
1942 Robert Sullivan becomes 1st pilot to fly the Atlantic 100 times
1945 Congress officially recognizes "Pledge of Allegiance"
1947 Chicago Cards beat Philadelphia Eagles 28-21 in NFL championship game
1948 The IDF crosses the Egyptian border
1950 Chinese troops cross 38th Parallel, into South Korea
1952 Detroit Lions beat Cleveland Browns 17-7 in NFL championship game
1958 What might be called greatest NFL game, Colts beat Giants 23-17
1966 13 die in a train crash in Everett Mass
1968 100,000 attend Miami Pop Festival
1968 Beatles' "Beatles-The White Album," goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks
1973 Alexander Solzhenitsyn publishes "Gulag Archipelag"
1974 More than 5,200 people killed in Pakistan earthquake
1975 "Hail Mary Pass"-Cowboys beat Vikings 17-14 on last second pass
1975 Red Army beats New York Rangers 7-3 at MSG
1978 30th hat trick in Islander history (Mike Bossy)
1984 TV soap "The Edge of Night" ends 28 year run
1985 Warring Lebanese Moslem & Christian leaders sign peace agreement
1987 In Arkansas R Gene Simmons kills 16
1988 US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirms Yonkers is guilty of racism
1990 2 die in a NYC subway accident
1991 8 are crushed to death at a RAP basketball game at City College, NYC
1991 Irene the Icon of the Greek Orthodox church returns after being stolen
1991 Ted Turner is named Time Magazine Man of the Year

29th

1782 1st nautical almanac in US published by Samuel Stearns, Boston
1813 British burn Buffalo, New York during the War of 1812
1837 Canadian militia destroy Caroline, a US steamboat docked at Buffalo
1837 Steam-powered threshing machine patented, Winthrop, Maine
1845 Texas admitted as the 28th state
1848 Gas lights 1st installed at White House (Polk's administration)
1851 1st Young Men's Christian Association chapter opened (Boston)
1852 Emma Snodgrass arrested in Boston for wearing pants
1864 Fire Department celebrates 1st annual ball
1867 1st telegraph ticker used by a brokerage house, Groesbeck & Co, New York
1876 11 passenger cars crash in a ravine near Ashtabula OH
1890 Federal troops massacre 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, SD; Indian "war" in the west
1891 Edison patents "transmission of signals electrically" (radio)
1906 Montreal Wanderers beat New Glasgow (NS) for Stanley Cup (2nd of 1906)
1908 patent granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville WI
1911 San Francisco Symphony formed
1913 1st movie serial, "Adventures of Kathlyn," premieres in Chicago
1921 William Lyon Mackenzie King succeeded Arthur Meighen as Canadian PM
1931 Identification of heavy water publicly announced, HC Urey
1934 1st collegiate basketball doubleheader (MSG)
1934 Japan renounces Wash Naval Treaty of 1922 & London Treaty of 1930
1937 2nd Irish constitution goes into effect; Irish Free State renamed Erie
1937 Pan Am starts San Francisco-to-Auckland, New Zealand service
1938 Construction on Lake Washington Floating Bridge, Seattle, begins
1940 Germany begins dropping incendiary bombs on London (WW II)
1948 US State Department announces work on placing objects into Earth orbit
1949 1st UHF television station operating regular basis (Bridgeport Ct)
1949 Hungary nationalized its industries
1952 1st transistorized hearing aid offered for sale (Elmsford NY)
1954 Kingdom of the Netherlands, with Netherlands & Netherlands Antilles as autonomous parts, comes into being
1955 Barbra Streisand's 1st recording "You'll Never Know" at age 13
1957 Detroit Lions beat Cleveland Browns 50-14 in NFL championship game
1957 Singers Steve Lawrence & Edie Gorme wed in Las Vegas
1958 Baltimore Colts beat New York Giants 23-17 in NFL championship game
1958 TV soap "Young Dr Malone" debuts
1965 CBS purchases NFL TV rights for 1966-68 at $18.8 million per year
1965 Supremes release "My World is Empty Without You"
1966 Pirate Radio Phoenix, 1st transmission (Worcester, Mass)
1967 Star Trek's "The Trouble With Tribbles" 1st airs
1968 Baltimore Colts beat Cleveland Browns 34-0 in NFL championship game
1968 New York Jets beat Oakland Raiders 27-23 in AFL championship game
1972 Eastern Tristar Jumbo Jet crashes near Everglades killing 101
1975 11 killed, 75 hurt by terrorist bomb at LaGuardia Airport in NYC
1978 Shah of Iran, asks Shapour Bahktiar to form a civilian government
1979 Red Army beats New York Islanders 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
1980 Shuttle STS-1 moves from Vandenberg AFB to Launch Complex 39A
1983 US announced withdrawal from UNESCO
1984 Blues took 27 shots against Islanders in 1 period
1984 Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parliamentary elections
1988 Soviet Red Army Team edges New York Islanders, 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
1988 Victorian Post Office Museum in Australia closes
1989 Vaclav Havel becomes president of Czechoslovakia
1989 Wayne Gretzky & Martina Navratilova are named athletes of the decade by the Associated Press
1990 Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton weds Shannon Kelley

30th

274 St Felix I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1809 Wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston
1817 1st coffee planted in Hawaii
1835 After gold discovery in GA, Cherokees forced to move across Miss R
1844 The opera "Stradella" after being rewritten is produced (Hamburg)
1853 Gadsden Purchase 45,000 mi (120,000 km) by Gila River from Mexico for $10 million. Area is now southern Arizona & New Mexico
1854 Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co, 1st in US, incorporated in NYC
1875 Andrassy Note calls for Christian-Muslim religious freedoms
1896 Montreal Victorias beat Winn Victorias 6-5 for the Stanley Cup
1897 Province of Zululand annexed to Natal colony
1903 602 die as flames swept through Iroquois Theater in Chicago
1903 American Political Science Association founded at New Orleans
1903 Fire at Chicago's Iriquois Theater kills 602
1906 Iran becomes a constitutional monarchy
1907 Abraham Mills' commission declares Abner Doubleday invented baseball
1908 Montreal Wanderers loses to Edmonton but retain Stanley Cup (4th of 1908). Cup is won by total points in a 2 game series
1911 Sun Yat-sen elected 1st President of Republic of China
1917 Lowest temperature recorded at a mountain city (-32�F-Tennessee)
1922 Soviet Union organized as a federation of RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR & Transcaucasian SSR
1924 Edwin Hubble announces existence of other galactic systems
1927 Japan dedicates 1st subway in the Orient (route under 2 miles long)
1929 Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority incorporates
1935 Italian bombers destroy Swedish Red Cross unit in Ethiopia
1936 United Auto Workers stage 1st sit-down strike, at Fisher Body Plant
1938 Electronic television system patented, VK Zworykin
1944 King George II of Greece, renounces his throne
1947 King Michael of Romania, forced by communists abdicates his throne
1952 Tuskegee Institute reports 1952 as 1st yr in 71 with no lynchings in US
1956 New York Giants beat Chicago Bears 47-7 in NFL championship game
1959 The George Washington, 1st ballistic missile sub commissioned
1962 Green Bay Packers beat New York Giants 16-7 in NFL championship game
1963 Congress authorizes the Kennedy half dollar
1967 Beatles' "Hello Goodbye," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
1968 -48� F (-44� C), Mazama & Winthrop, Washington (state record)
1971 Long Island NHL franchise purchased (New York Islanders)
1972 President Nixon halts bombing of North Vietnam & announces peace talks
1973 1st picture of a comet from space (Comet Kohoutek-Skylab)
1973 Miami Dolphins beat Oakland Raiders 27-10 in AFC championship game
1973 Minnesota Vikings beat Dallas Cowboys 27-10 in NFC championship game
1975 Constitution of Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes into force
1977 Carter holds 1st news conference by US President in Eastern Europe (Warsaw)
1978 Ohio State dismisses Woody Hayes as its football coach
1979 Rock group, Emerson, Lake & Palmer break up
1981 Wayne Gretzky sets NHL record of 50 goals by 39th game of season
1982 US Assay Office in New York City NY closes
1984 Miss Elizabeth (Hulette) & Macho Man Randy Savage (Poffo) wed
1985 IBM-PC DOS Version 3.2 released
1985 President Zia of Pakistan ends martial law
1986 US begins Military exercises in Honduras
1988 Canadian Senate OK's free trade pact; with US
1988 Former Soviet President Brezhnev's son-in-law sentenced to 12-yr (bribery)
1988 Mercedes-Benz pays $20.2-M fine failed to meet '86 government fuel standard
1988 Yugoslav government resigns
1988 North subpoenas Reagan & Bush as defense witnesses for upcoming trial

31th

335 St. Sylvester I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1492 Jews are expelled from Sicily
1600 British East India Company chartered
1744 James Bradley announces discovery of Earth's motion of rotation
1775 Battle of Quebec; Americans unable to take British stronghold
1776 Rhode Island establishes wage & price controls to curb inflation: Limit is $0.70 a day for carpenters, $0.42 for tailors
1781 Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens
1805 End of French Republican calendar; France returns to Gregorianism
1841 Alabama becomes 1st state to license dental surgeons
1852 Future president & Mrs. Rutherford B Hayes marry
1857 Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capitol of Canada
1862 Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee
1862 President Lincoln signs act admitting West Virginia to the Union
1862 Union ironclad ship "Monitor" sank at Cape Hatteras, NC
1870 J D Schneiter patents rocket mail in France, (not done)
1879 Cornerstone laid for Iolani Palace (only royal palace in US)
1879 Edison gives 1st public demonstration of his incandescent lamp
1879 The opera "The Pirates of Penzance" is produced (New York NY)
1890 Ellis Island (New York NY) opens as a US immigration depot
1897 Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898)
1907 For the 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal the new year
1921 Last San Francisco firehorses retired
1923 1st transatlantic radio broadcast of a voice, Pittsburgh-Manchester
1924 Hubble announces existence of distant galaxies.
1934 Helen Richey becomes 1st woman to pilot an airmail transport
1941 Young Park (2) in the Bronx named in honor of Samuel Young
1943 NYC's Times Square greets Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater
1944 48 people die in a train accident in Ogden, Utah
1945 Ratification of UN Charter completed
1946 French troops leave Lebanon
1946 President Truman officially proclaims end of WW-II
1950 Jockeys W Shoemaker & Joe Culmone set record of 388 wins in a year
1951 1st battery to convert radioactive energy to electrical announced
1953 Hulan Jack sworn in as Manhattan Borough president
1953 Willie Shoemaker shatters record, riding 485 winners in a year
1957 AAU awards Bobby Morrow, James Sullivan Memorial Trophy
1958 International Geophyscial Year ends
1958 Willie Shoemaker 1st jockey to win national riding championship 4X
1961 1st performance of the Beach Boys
1961 Green Bay Packers shutout New York Giants 37-0 in NFL championship game
1961 Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $12 billion
1962 American Basketball League announces suspension of operation
1962 Katanga becomes part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
1964 Donald Campbell (UK) sets world water speed record (276.33 mph)
1966 Monkee's "I'm a Believer" hits #1 & stays there for 7 weeks
1966 Pirate Radio 390 (Radio Invicata) off England, resumes transmitting
1967 Oakland Raiders beat Houston Oilers 40-7 in AFL championship game
1967 Packers beat Cowboys 21-17 in NFL championship game (-13� F)
1968 1st supersonic airliner flown (Russian TU-144)
1970 Congress authorizes the Eisenhower dollar coin
1970 Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles
1972 Leap second day; also in 1973-79, 1987
1972 Miami Dolphins beat Pittsburgh Steelers 21-7 in AFC championship game
1972 Washington Redskins beat Dallas Cowboys 26-3 in NFC championship game
1974 Free agent pitcher Catfish Hunter signs $3 million Yank contract
1974 Gold legal in US, Franklin Mint strikes Panama's Gold 100 balboa coin
1976 TV soap "Somerset" ends 6 year run
1977 Donald Woods, a banned white editor flees South Africa
1977 Ted Bundy escapes from jail in Colorado
1977 WFAT (Brooklyn NY pirate radio station) begins broadcasting on 1620 AM
1978 Taiwan's final day of diplomatic relations with the US
1979 Winterland Rock Concert Hall in San Francisco closes after 556 concerts
1980 A Jewish owned hotel in Nairobi Kenya is bombed killing 18
1980 New York Islanders greatest shutout margin (9-0) vs Chicago Black Hawks
1981 Lt Rawlings stages coup in Ghana
1982 TV soap "The Doctors" ends 19 year run
1983 Brunei gains complete independence from Britain
1984 NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrenders to police in NH
1984 Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India's 6th PM succeeds his mom, Indira
1985 King Hussein of Jordan and President Assid hold talks
1986 Dupont Plaza Hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 97
1986 WIS-AM in Columbia SC changes call letters to WVOC (now WOMG)
1990 Iraq begins a military draft of 17 year olds
1990 The Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV begins transmitting
1991 Dow Jones closes at record high 3168.83
1992 Target date for Europe's single market
1999 Control of Panama Canal reverts to Panama

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