Event of Interest
1492 Christopher Columbus notes 1st recorded reference to tobacco
Christopher Columbus
Event of Interest
1533 Francisco Pizarro arrives at Cuzco
Francisco Pizarro
Event of Interest
1577 Sir Francis Drake aboard Pelican travels from Chile to Washington
Francis Drake
- 1583 Gelders Earl Willem of the Bergh flees
Event of Interest
1620 Myles Standish leads 16 men in a foot exploration of the northern portion of Cape Cod
Myles Standish
Pirate Attack
1720 Pirates Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and John Rackham are captured by Capt. Jonathan Barnet and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, for trial
Articles of Confederation
1777 Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, is approved by the Continental Congress
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- 1791 1st Catholic college in US, Georgetown, opens
- 1806 1st US college magazine, Yale Literary Government, publishes 1st issue
- 1806 Explorer Zebulon Pike sights Pikes Peak in Colorado
- 1813 Allied troops occupies Groningen
- 1813 Tax revolt in Amsterdam
- 1824 Series of fires kills 10 in Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1826 Dutch Business Me gets monopoly on opium trade in Java/Madura
- 1827 Creek-indians lose all their property in US
Event of Interest
1835 Charles Darwin reaches Tahiti on board HMS Beagle, the location where he would formulate his ideas later written in The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
Charles Darwin
Pitman Shorthand: An Invention of Note
1837 Isaac Pitman introduces his shorthand system of writing
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Event of Interest
1864 Union Major General Sherman leaves Atlanta on his "March to the Sea"
William Tecumseh Sherman
- 1869 Free postal delivery formally inaugurated
- 1870 Bathe becomes member of Noordduitse Union
- 1881 American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded (Pittsburgh)
- 1882 British HMS Flirt destroys village of Asaba, Niger
- 1884 European Colonization and trade in Africa is officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing European powers "Scramble for Africa"
- 1887 British SS Wah Yeung catches fire on Canton River off Hong Kong
- 1889 Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, deposed; republic proclaimed
Event of Interest
1898 David Beatty is promoted to commander
David Beatty
Event of Interest
1899 Morning Post reporter Winston Churchill captured by Boers in Natal
Winston Churchill
- 1902 Leopold II, King of Belgium almost assassinated by Italian anarchist
Historic Invention
1904 King C. Gillette patents the Gillette razor blade
King C. Gillette
Event of Interest
1916 Canadian pilot William George Barker flying over Ancre River, spots concentration of German troops massing for counter-attack on Beaumont Hamel, sends emergency Zone Call to break up German infantry apart. Barker later receives Military Cross
William George Barker
- 1919 US Senate 1st invokes cloture to end a filibuster (Versailles Treaty)
- 1920 Ernst Toller's "Massen und Menschen" premieres in Nuremberg
- 1920 Free City of Danzig forms under League of Nations protection
- 1920 League of Nations holds first meeting in Geneva
- 1921 KYW-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
- 1924 Dutch Christian Radio Society (NCRV) forms
- 1926 AT&T sells WEAF radio to RCA (NYC)
- 1934 Nobel for chemistry awarded to Harold C Urey (deuterium)
- 1935 Commonwealth of Philippines inaugurated
- 1936 Nazi-Germany & Japan sign Anti-Komintern pact
- 1937 First US congressional session in air-conditioned chambers
- 1938 First telecast of an unscheduled event (fire), W2XBT, NY
- 1938 Farewell Parade of International Brigades in Barcelona
- 1939 Anti-German demonstrations in Czechoslovakia
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1939 Nazis begin mass murder of Warsaw Jews
- 1939 The first unemployment compensation law, under the Social Security Act, that of the District of Columbia, was approved for grants by the Social Security Board
- 1940 1st 75,000 men called to armed forces duty during peacetime
- 1940 NY Midtown tunnel linking Manhattan and Queens opens to traffic
- 1941 Cow Palace opens in San Francisco
- 1941 Yugoslav government in exile names Draza Mihailovic premier
- 1942 World War II: First flight of the Heinkel He 219.
- 1944 Surprise attack on office of Nethche Bank
- 1945 The rules are revised for election of modern players to the Hall of Fame
- 1946 House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) interrogates astronomer Harlow Shapley
Event of Interest
1948 Mackenzie King retires after 22 years as Prime Minister of Canada
Mackenzie King
Event of Interest
1948 Louis St. Laurent is sworn in as the 12th Prime Minister of Canada
Louis St. Laurent
- 1950 Arthur Dorrington, 1st black man in organized hockey is signed, by Atlantic City Seagulls of Eastern Amateur Hockey League
- 1954 1st regularly scheduled commercial flights over North Pole begins
- 1955 Poland & Yugoslavia sign trade agreement
- 1957 US sentences Soviet spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel to 30 years & $3,000
Murder of Interest
1959 Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith murder four members of the Clutter Family at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas (subject of Truman Capote book In Cold Blood)
Truman Capote
- 1960 USS G Washington, 1st sub with nuclear ballistic missiles, launched
- 1961 Comet C/1961 T1 (Seki) approaches within 0.1019 AUs of Earth
- 1961 UN bans nuclear arms
- 1962 Don Drysdale wins Cy Young Award
- 1964 Sudan Premier Ibrahim Abbud resigns
- 1965 Craig Breedlove sets land speed record (600.601 mph-966.57 kph)
- 1966 Gemini XII (Lovell & Aldrin) returns to Earth
- 1967 The only fatality of the X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft descending from 81km, causing its mid air destruction over the Mojave Desert
- 1969 1st Jackson Five record to enter top 100 (I Want You Back)
Vietnam War Moratorium Demonstration
1969 An estimated 2 million people take part in the Vietnam War Moratorium demonstration across the United States
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- 1969 Wendy's Hamburgers, American fast food restaurant chains founded by Dave Thomas opens in Columbus, Ohio
Andrew Grove
Event of Interest
1974 Ringo Starr releases "Goodnight Vienna" & "Only You" in UK
Ringo Starr
Event of Interest
1977 US President Jimmy Carter welcomes Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Jimmy Carter
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
- 1978 183 die as Icelandic Airlines DC-8 crashes in Colombo, Sri Lanka
- 1978 Harold Pinter's play "Betrayal" premieres in London
- 1979 In Parliament Sir Anthony Blunt, art advisor to the Queen, exposed as 4th man in Soviet spy ring. He was then stripped of his knighthood and fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge
Event of Interest
1979 A package from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing
Ted Kaczynski
- 1979 Iran cancels all contracts with U.S. oil companies
Papal Visit
1980 Pope John Paul II began 5 day visit to West Germany
John Paul II
Event of Interest
1982 Funeral service held in Moscow's Red Square for Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
- 1982 4th ACE Cable Awards: "Bernstein/Beethoven" by Horant H. Hohlfeld and Harry J. Kraut
- 1983 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus proclaimed
- 1985 A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes
- 1987 28 of 82 aboard Continental Airlines DC-9, die in crash at Denver
- 1987 Leile McBridge (Denver), crowned Miss Black America
- 1987 NY Giant Raul Allegre kicks 2, 50 or more yard field goals in a game
- 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1988 91 m radio telescope dish at Green Bank, WV, collapses
- 1988 Soviet space shuttle makes unmanned maiden flight (2 orbits)
- 1988 The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.
- 1989 Bret Saberhagen wins AL Cy Young Award
- 1989 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Event of Interest
1990 US President George H. W. Bush signs Clear Air Act of 1990
George H. W. Bush
- 1990 Producers confirm that Milli Vanilli didn't sing on their album
- 1990 US 68th manned space mission STS 38 (Atlantis 7) launches into orbit
- 1991 Dow Jones avg drops 120.31 points (5th largest dive)
- 1992 Cuban Ilyushin IL-18 flight to Puerto Plata crashes, 34 die
- 1993 Howard Stern radio show premieres in Myrtle Beach SC on WYAV 104.1 FM
- 1993 Joe Buttafuoco sentence to 6 months for statutory rape of Amy Fisher
- 1993 13 Cuban refugees land in Florida after stealing a crop-duster in Cuba.
- 1994 6.7-8.1 earthquake strikes Philippines, killing 45
Election of Interest
1994 German Bundestag officially elects Helmut Kohl as Chancellor by a single vote (341-340)
Helmut Kohl
- 1994 Nepal Communist party Dutch Communist Party-UML wins election
- 1995 Space shuttle Atlantis docks with orbiting Russian space station Mir
- 1997 19th ACE Cable Awards: Nickelodeon wins the Golden CableACE for "The Big Help"
- 1999 Next transit of Mercury visible in North America
- 2000 A chartered Antonov AN-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola killing more than 40 people
- 2000 New state of Jharkhand comes into existence in India
- 2003 First day of the Istanbul Bombings takes place, followed by additional bombings on November 20th
- 2005 Boeing formally launches the stretched Boeing 747-8 variant with orders from Cargolux and Nippon Cargo Airlines
- 2007 A devastating Cyclone named Sidr hit Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5000 people and destroyed the world's largest mangrove forest, Sundarbans.
- 2012 At least 95 people are killed in Syrian conflicts
- 2012 Deep Horizon Oil Spill: BP settles for $4.5 Billion
- 2012 The Eurozone economy returns to recession with a fall of 0.1% in GDP in the third quarter of 2012 following a fall of 0.2% in the previous quarter
- 2013 5 people are killed and 10 are injured after a train derails in Nashik, India
- 2013 Sony launches the Playstation Four, selling one million units on the first day
Summit of Interest
2014 Vladimir Putin's press secretary says media reports that the Russian president plans to leave the G20 Summit in Brisbane early are nonsense
Vladimir Putin
- 2014 World leaders gather in Brisbane for G20 Summit, which will focus on economic growth
- 2014 The parents of 43 Mexican students who disappeared start a nationwide bus tour in protest at the government's handling of the case
- 2014 A 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes under the Molucca Sea in eastern Indonesia, triggering a tsunami warning
- 2015 France launches air strikes on Isis stronghold Raqqa in Syria in wake of terror attack on Paris
- 2017 Australian postal vote on same-sex marriage revealed - 61% vote yes
- 2017 Argentine submarine San Juan goes missing in the Atlantic after reporting mechanical failure
Robert Mugabe Ousted
2017 The Zimbabwean Army detains Robert Mugabe and the first family and appoints sacked Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa as interim president
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- 2017 Isabel Dos Santos, Africa's richest woman, fired as head of Angola state oil company Sonangol
World Record
2017 Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Salvator Mundi" sells for $450.3 million at auction in New York, world record price for any artwork
Leonardo da Vinci
- 2017 Pakistan unveils remains of 1,700 year-old sleeping Buddha in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
Event of Interest
2018 Africa's fastest train between Casablanca and Tangier in Morocco at 320km (198 miles) inaugurated by King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron
Event of Interest
2018 David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" sells for $90.3 million in New York, record for a living artist
David Hockney
- 2018 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirms more than 28,000 of the country's military and police have been killed since 2015
Event of Interest
2018 Art experts in England authenticate two bronzes of men riding panthers as Michelangelo's only surviving bronze works
Michelangelo
- 2019 Iran shuts down its internet for five days to suppress news of national protests against higher gas prices - beginning of the worst unrest for 40 years in the country
- 2019 Pakistan becomes the 1st country to introduce a vaccine against typhoid, targeting 10 million children