On This Day

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

National Day of Chile.

1709 Samuel Johnson, poet and lexicographer, was born in England, the son of a bookseller.

1810 Chile revolted and gained independence from Spain.

1851 The New York Times was first published.

1867 The Manchester Martyrs Ambush - leading Fenians Col JJ Kelly and Capt Timothy Deasy were rescued from a prison van in Manchester.

1905 Greta Garbo, the Swedish shopgirl who became one of the most legendary film stars of all time, was born.

1914 The Irish Home Rule Bill went into effect.

1927 CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System, was inaugurated in the US.

1931 Japan seized Manchuria and set up a puppet state called Manchukuo - it was returned to China in 1945 after WWII.

1939 William Joyce, the Irishman whose upper-class accent earned him the nickname Lord Haw-Haw, made his first Nazi propaganda broadcast from Germany to the UK.

1961 UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold was killed when his plane was sabotaged and crashed in the jungle in Northern Rhodesia.

1964 Seán O’Casey, dramatist, died.

Among his works were Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars.

1970 Rock star Jimi Hendrix died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, apparently suffering from a drug overdose.

1981 France abolished execution by guillotine.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1356 The English, led by Edward, the Black Prince, defeated the French at the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years’ War.

1839 George Cadbury was born.

He expanded his father’s chocolate business and established a model village for his workers at Bourneville.

1876 The first carpet-sweeper was patented by Melville Bissell of Grand Rapids in Michigan.

1881 James Abram Garfield, 20th US president, died of wounds suffered when he was shot in July.

1888 The world’s first beauty contest took place in Spa, Belgium.

1928 The first cartoon talking picture, Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse, was shown in New York.

1945 Wartime traitor William Joyce - Lord Haw-Haw - was sentenced to be hanged after his trial at the Old Bailey.

1960 Chubby Checker’s The Twist - a cover of an original Hank Ballard song - entered the US charts and launched a dance craze.

1975 The first episode of Fawlty Towers was broadcast by the BBC.

1985 Thousands died when an earthquake devastated large areas of Mexico City.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1258 Salisbury Cathedral was consecrated.

1842 Sir James Dewar, Scottish physician and chemist, and inventor of the vacuum flask, was born in Fife.

1854 The Battle of Alma, fought by the British against the Russians in the Crimean War, produced six winners of the Victoria Cross.

1885 Jelly Roll Morton, pianist, composer and singer and one of the first jazz musicians, was born in New Orleans.

1917 The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened in Liverpool.

1931 Britain came off the gold standard to stop foreign speculation against the pound.

The devaluation brought strikes and even a near mutiny on 15 navy ships berthed in Scotland.

1944 Guy Gibson, British pilot and Victoria Cross winner for his ‘‘Dambusters’’ action against the Mohne and Eder dams, was killed when his aircraft crashed in Holland on its way back to base.

1946 The first Cannes film festival opened.

1961 The first non-stop swim across the Channel and back was started byArgentinian Antonio Albertondo; he successfully completed the feat the following day after 43 hours five minutes.

1984 A suicide bomber drove a lorry load of explosives at the US embassy in Beirut, killing 40 people.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1529 The Turkish army under Suleiman the Magnificent was defeated at Vienna.

1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Stuart) and his Jacobite army defeated the English at the Battle of Prestonpans.

1756 John McAdam, Scottish surveyor who introduced the tarmacadam system of roadmaking, was born.

1792 France was declared a Republic and the monarchy abolished.

1857 British forces retook Delhi from Indian mutineers.

1881 Eamonn Ceannt, revolutionary and signatory of the Proclamation of 1916, born in Ballymore, Glenamaddy, Co Galway.

1915 Stonehenge and the surrounding 30 acres of land was sold by Sir Edmund Antrobus to Mr C H Chubb for £6,600 at auction.

Chubb presented it to the British nation three years later.

1917 Latvia proclaimed its independence.

1938 The Anglo-French plan to cede Sudetenland to Germany was accepted by the Czech cabinet.

1949 The Republic of Ireland beat England 2-0 at Goodison Park — England’s first home defeat by a foreign football team.

1974 Over 8,000 people were killed by floods caused by hurricanes in Honduras.

1989 Hurricane Hugo struck the US coastal states of Georgia and South Carolina, causing widespread damage and loss of life.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1791 Scientist Michael Faraday born.

1792 France was declared a republic.

1827 Joseph Smith, son of an impoverished New England farmer, announced he had received golden plates from an angel.

From this he translated the Book of the Mormon which led to the founding of the Mormons.

1862 US president Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering the freeing of slaves.

1869 Wagner’s opera Das Rheingold was first performed in Munich.

1914 Three British cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats.

1955 Argentinean leader Juan Perón was deposed in a military coup.

1957 Oliver St John Gogarty (79) died.

A senator, surgeon and author, he was the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

1972 Idi Amin gave the 8,000 Asians in Uganda 48 hours to leave the country.

1980 The Solidarity movement in Poland was created, with Lech Walesa as its elected leader.

1989 An IRA bomb attack on the Royal Marines School of music killed 10 and injured 12 bandsmen.

1991 Bryan Adams made pop history when his record Everything I Do, I Do For You, stayed at number one for a 12th week.

1996 The Health and Safety Authority announced that it was to launch an investigation into a chemical leak which led to 30 people being rushed to hospital.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

480BC The Greeks defeated the Persians at Salamis, halting their advance into Europe.

1779 In the Revolutionary War, a French and American fleet commanded by John Paul Jones captured the British ship Serapis in the Battle of Flamborough Head.

1798 Humbert's supporters in the Killala area defeated by General Trench, marking the end of the rising in Connacht.

1846 The German astronomer Johann Galle discovered Neptune.

1848 Chewing gum was first commercially produced by John Curtis on a stove in his home in Bangor, Maine, and sold as State Of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

1889 Wilkie Collins, English novelist and pioneer of detective fiction (The Woman In White, The Moonstone), died in London.

1911 Edward Carson addressed 50,000 Orange Order members at Craigavon, warning the Order to prepare to rule Ulster.

1912 Cohen Collects a Debt, the first of US film producer Mack Sennet's silent Keystone Cops films, was released.

1939 Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, died aged 83.

1958 Ireland voted with the Communist Bloc in favour of the admission of the People's Republic of China to the UN General Assembly.

1964 The first performance of Fiddler On The Roof took place in New York.

1973 Juan Perón was re-elected President of Argentina; he had been ousted in 1955.

1974 Ceefax, the world's first teletext service was begun in Britain by the BBC.

1992 A 2,000lb IRA bomb smashed a forensic science laboratory on the outskirts of Belfast, causing £20m in damage.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1776 The oldest of the classic horse races, the St Leger, was first run at Doncaster.

1842 Bramwell Bronte, brother of the Bronte sisters, died of drugs and drink.

He was the role model for the drunkard Hindley Earnshaw in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847).

1852 The first hydrogen-filled airship, powered by a 3hp steam engine built by Henri Giffard, made its maiden flight at Versailles.

1853 The Northern Daily Times in Liverpool became the first provincial newspaper in England.

1896 American writer F Scott Fitzgerald was born.

For most of his life he suffered from an oversecretion of insulin, and became a heavy drinker.

He wrote the definitive 1920s novel The Great Gatsby in 1925.

1930 The first performance of Private Lives by Noel Coward took place at the new Phoenix Theatre, London.

1947 A trainload of 1,200 Muslim refugees fleeing to Pakistan were massacred by Sikhs at Amritsar in the Punjab.

1953 The Robe, the first film made in CinemaScope, was premiered in Hollywood.

1960 The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Enterprise, was launched at Newport, Virginia.

1975 Everest was climbed by the south-west face for the first time by Douglas Haston and Doug Scott.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

Feast day of St Sergius of Radonezh, St Vincent Strambi, St Aunacharius or Aunaire, St Albert of Jerusalem, St Firminus of Amiens, St Ceolfirth, St Fibar or Bairre.

1660 Samuel Pepys drank his first cuppa, after reading that tea made the body active and lusty.

1818 The first blood transfusion using human blood, as opposed to earlier attempts with animal blood, took place at Guy’s Hospital in London.

1832 A Royal Comission of Enquiry into the conditions of the poor in Ireland was established.

Chaired by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, it first reported in 1835.

1885 It snowed in London, the earliest recorded winter fall despite reports that on 12 June1791 there had been snow sighted over the capital.

That was recorded as late summer, not winter, snow.

1915 The Battle of Loos, in World War I, began; it would continue into October.

1933 More than 25,000 queued to see The Shroud Of Turin when it went on show to the public for the first time in 400 years at Turin Cathedral.

1957 The National Guard was sent in to enforce desegregation in Little Rock, Alabama, US.

1962 Sonny Liston won the world heavyweight boxing title, knocking out Floyd Paterson in the first round in Chicago.

1972 Norway voted against joining the EEC in a referendum.

1982 Commdt Michael Nestor of the Irish UN Peacekeeping Force was killed, along with three other UN soldiers, by a mine near Beruit.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1900, Shooting and fighting in the streets of Victor, Colorado disrupts the Roosevelt meeting.

Governor Roosevelt hit.

1920, Belfast: Death toll reaches 28 during rioting.

1922, Death of Thomas E.

Watson, populist and Ku Klux Klan member.

1934, Geneva: Afghanistan becomes 60th member of League.

1950, A blue moon is visible from southeast England.

1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates Richard M.

Nixon and John F.

Kennedy took place in Chicago.

1961, Warner Bros.

offers $5 mil.

for film rights to My Fair Lady.

1962, Flood kills 333 in Barcelona.

1976, Five African presidents denounce plan for black rule in Rhodesia.

1990, The Motion Picture Association of America announced it had created a new rating, NC-17, designed to bar moviegoers under age 17 from certain films without the commercial stigma of the old X rating.

1991, Four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure known as Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz.

1995, The prosecution began its closing argument in the murder trial of O.

J.

Simpson.

1996, Astronaut Shannon Lucid arrives back on Earth after traveling 75 million miles in space, the longest space voyage for a woman and an American.

1998, British boxer Lennox Lewis successfully defends his WBC heavyweight world title against Croatian Zeljko Mavrovic.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1825 The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first public passenger service built by George Stephenson was inaugurated.

1888 The Central News Agency in London received a letter which began ‘‘Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me, but they won’t fix me just yet.

.

.

’’ It was signed jack the Ripper, the first time the name had been used.

1930 Bobby Jones of the US won the US National Amateur Championships to complete the first golfing grand slam.

1938 The 80,000-ton liner Queen Elizabeth was launched at John Brown’s Yard in Clydebank.

1940 Imperial Japan signed a 10-year military and economic alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

1960 Bank Underground station in London opened the first travelator, or ‘‘moving pavement’’, in Europe.

1968 The rock musical Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, the day after censorship in the theatre was lifted.

1979 Dame Gracie Fields, English comedienne, singer and music hall entertainer, died in retirement at her home on the Isle of Capri, aged 81.

1979 BBC’s Question Time was broadcast for the first time, with Robin Day in the chair.

He stayed with the show for 10 years.

1987 The Great Britain and European Ryder Cup Team defeated the US for the first time on US soil to retain the trophy.

[Bizarra]

On this day...

1066 William the Conqueror lands in England

1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo discovers California, at San Diego Bay

1781 Siege of Yorktown begins, last battle of the Revolutionary War

1787 Congress sends Constitution to state legislatures for their approval

1829 Walker's Appeal, racial antislavery pamphlet, published in Boston

1850 Flogging in US Navy & on merchant vessels abolished

1858 Donati's comet becomes the 1st to be photographed

1867 Toronto becomes the capital of Ontario

1868 Battle of Alcolea, causes Queen Isabella 2 of Spain to flee to France

1868 Opelousas Massacre at St Landry Parish Louisiana (200 blacks killed)

1879 Sydney Australia innaugurates steam motor tram route

1906 US troops reoccupy Cuba, stay until 1909

1912 "Kiche Maru" sinks off Japan, killing 1,000

1914 German forces move into Antwerp Belgium (WW I)

1922 Mussolini marches on Rome

1924 2 US Army planes end around-world flight, Seattle to Seattle, 57 stops

1928 Juan de la Cierva makes 1st helicopter flight over English Channel

1937 FDR dedicates Bonneville Dam on Columbia River (Oregon)

1939 Soviet-German treaty agree on 4th partition of Poland (WW II) & gives Lithuania to the US

1944 1st TV Musical comedy (The Boys from Boise)

1944 Battle of Arnhem, Germans defeat British airborne in Netherlands

1948 WBAP-TV, (NBC affiliate) Fort Worth Texas, begins broadcasting

1958 Guinea votes for independence from France

1959 Explorer VI reveals an intense radiation belt around the Earth

1961 "Purlie Victorious," a farce by Ossie Davis, opens on Broadway

1961 Syria withdraws from United Arab Republic

1961 USN Comdr Forrest S Petersen takes X-15 to 30,720 m

1963 Giuseppe Cantarella roller-skates a record 41.5 kph for 440 yds

1963 Italy's Giuseppe Camtarella skates a record 25.78 MPH

1964 Australia beats US in 1st clay court Davis Cup

1965 jack McKay in X-15 reaches 90 km

1965 Lava flows kill at least 350 (Taal Phillipines)

1967 Walter Washington elected 1st mayor of Washington, DC

1968 Alberto Giolani of Italy roller skates record 23.133 miles in 1 hr

1968 Beatles' "Hey Jude," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks

1968 Chuck Hixson (Southern Methodist) completes 37 of record 69 passes

1970 Intrepid (US) beats Gretel II (Aust) in 22nd America's Cup

1972 Japan & Communist China agree to re-establish diplomatic relations

1974 1st lady Betty Ford undergoes a radical mastectomy

1974 John Lennon appears as guest dj on WNEW-FM (NYC)

1976 Muhammad Ali retains heavyweight boxing championship in a close 15-round decision over Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium

1978 Israeli Knesset endorses Camp David accord

1979 Larry Holmes (retain championship) KOs Earnie Shavers in 11 rounds

1980 Jaromir Wagner is 1st to fly the Atlantic standing on the wing

1981 Joseph Paul Franklin, avowed racist, sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 2 black joggers in Salt Lake City

1982 1st reports appear of death from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules

1982 NASA launches Intelsat V

1983 STS-9 vehicle moves to launch pad

1985 NASA launches Intelsat VA

1986 Record 23,000 start in a marathon (Mexico City)

1988 Bronx Museum for the Arts opens

1990 Marvin Gaye gets a star on Hollywood's walk of fame

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On this day...

235 St Pontianus ends his reign as Catholic Pope

855 Benedict III begins his reign as Catholic Pope

1349 People of Krems Austria accuse Jews of poisoning the wells

1364 Battle of Auray, English forces defeat French at Brittany

1650 Henry Robinson opens 1st marriage bureau (England)

1785 Chaidic sect is excommunicated in Cracow Poland

1789 1st congress adjourns

1789 US War Dept established a regular army

1793 Tennis is 1st mentioned in an English sporting magazine

1829 London's Metropolitan Police Force goes on duty

1829 Scotland Yard formed in London

1849 1st passenger train service to Peekskill NY (New Haven Railroad)

1853 Emigrant ship "Annie Jane" sinks off Scotland, drowning 348

1859 Great auroral display in US

1863 The opera "Pescatori di Perle", more properly known as "Les Pêcheurs de Perles", is produced (Paris

1902 Impresario David Belasco opened his 1st Broadway theater

1907 Construction begins on Washington National Cathedral

1913 Wash Senator Walter Johnson wins his 36th game

1915 A hurricane claims 275 in the Mississippi Delta

1918 Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line

1923 Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park opens to public

1927 Tornado strikes St Louis Missouri

1930 Boquer¢n battle ends Paraguay border dispute

1936 Radio used for 1st time for a presidential campaign

1940 1st US merchant ship "Booker T Washington" commanded by a black captain (Hugh Mulzac), launched at Wilmington Delaware

1941 Heavyweight Champ Joe Louis KOs Lou Nova in 6

1943 Eisenhower & Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice

1944 Soviet troops invade Yugoslavia

1946 Al Couture knockouts Ralph Walton in Lewiston Maine in 10« secs

1951 1st color telecast of football game on network, Phila (CBS)

1951 S B Nicholson discovers 12th satellite of Jupite

1953 Milton Berle Show premier

1957 300 die as express train hits stalled train (Montgomery W Pakistan)

1959 Sultan of Brunei promulgates a constitution

1962 Launch of Alouette 1, 1st Canadian satellite (on US Delta rocket)

1963 2nd session of Ecumenical council, `Vatican II,' opens in Rome

1963 Rolling Stones 1st tour (opening act for Bo Diddley & Everly Bros)

1965 Ralph Boston of the US, sets then long jump record at 27' 4 3/

1969 "Love American Style," premiers on ABC

1973 Insurance ind announces auto racers get into more highway accidents

1973 Soyuz 12 returns to Earth

1977 Muhammad Ali won a unanimous, 15-round decision over Earnie Shavers

1977 Soviet space station Salyut 6 launched into Earth orbit

1979 Gold hits record $400.20 an ounce in Hong Kong

1979 Pope John Paul II becomes 1st pope to visit Ireland

1982 Cyanide laced Tylenol capsules kills 7 in Chicago

1983 1st time Congress invokes War Powers Act

1985 First of 5 cyanide-laced Tylenol victims dies

1986 Cubs Greg Maddux defeats Phillies Mike Maddux (1st rookie brothers)

1986 USSR releases US journalist Nicholas Daniloff confined on spy charges

1988 26th Space Shuttle mission, Discovery 7 launched

1988 Florence Griffith Joyner of USA sets the 200m woman's record (21.34)

1988 UN peacekeeping forces win Nobel Peace prize

1990 Washington National Cathedral construction is completed after 83 years

1991 US beats Europeans 14« to 13« to capture the Ryder's cup

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1791 The first performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute took place in Vienna.

1888 jack the Ripper butchered two more women - Liz Stride, found behind 40 Berber Street, and Kate Eddowes, in Mitre Square, both in the Whitechapel area of London.

1902 Rayon, or artificial silk, was patented.

1928 Alexander Fleming announced his discovery of penicillin.

1932 Northern Ireland’s Parliament sat for the last time, in Belfast City Hall.

1933 Franklin D Roosevelt announced his $700 million New Deal to help America’s poor.

1935 George Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess was premiered in Boston.

1936 Seán Lester, the Free State’s Representative to the League of Nations, was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of that Organisation.

1938 On his return from Germany, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told a crowd: "I believe it is peace in our time," and waved the agreement he had signed with German Archchancellor Adolph Hitler.

1939 The USSR and Germany agreed on the partition of Poland.

1952 Cinerama, invented by Fred Waller, was first exhibited in New York.

1955 James Dean, eccentric young star of Rebel Without A Cause, Giant and East Of Eden, died in a car crash, aged 24.

1959 Mise Éire, a film documentary on Irish history, premiered.

It was the first feature-length film in the Irish language, and featured music by Seán O´ Riada.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

331 BC Alexander the Great defeated Darius III.

1542 Con Bacach O’Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, and his illegitimate son Matthew was created Baron of Dungannon.

1795 Belgium became part of French Republic.

Here, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, opened.

It was set up for the "betterment of the persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion".

1843 The News of the World was first published.

1870 The first British halfpenny postage stamp, in lilac, was issued for the introduction of pre-paid postcards.

1877 David Moriarty, vehement anti-Fenian Bishop of Kerry from 1856, died.

Hell was not hot enough for the Fenians, he claimed.

1880 The Edison Lamp Works began operations in New Jersey to manufacture the first electric light bulbs.

1890 Master of the monologue Stanley Holloway was born in London.

1908 Henry Ford introduced the model T car at a price of $850 ö within 18 years production techniques reduced that to $310.

His slogan was ‘‘you can have any colour you want, as long as it’s black’’.

1918 Arab forces under Emir Faisal, and including British officer TE Lawrence, captured Damascus from the Turks.

1936 The BBC began regular television broadcasts from Alexandra Palace, north London.

1969 Concorde 001 broke the sound barrier for the first time during a test flight in France.

1974 The first McDonald’s opened in London to speed up the fast food revolution.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1187 Saladin, the Muslim sultan, captured Jerusalem after its 88-year occupation by the Franks.

1608 The first telescope was demonstrated by the Dutch lens maker, Hans Lipperschey.

1741 The Charitable Musical Society opened its New music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin 1836 Charles Darwin returned from his five-year survey of South American waters aboard the HMS Beagle.

1847 Paul von Hindenburg, German field marshal and politician, born.

1869 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian leader, born.

1870 Rome became the capital of the newly unified Italy.

1901 The British Royal Navy’s first submarine, built by Vickers, was launched at Barrow.

1935 Italian forces invaded Abyssinia after Mussolini’s bombers pounded border towns.

1942 The British cruiser Curacao sank with the loss of 338 lives, after colliding with the liner Queen Mary off the coast of Donegal.

1958 Marie Stopes, Scottish birth-control campaigner, died.

1975 12 died and 47 were injured in a series of UVF gun attacks in Northern Ireland.

1979 The Provisional IRA rejected the Pope’s call for peace during his visit to Ireland.

1983 Neil Kinnock was elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party.

1985 Hollywood heart-throb Rock Hudson died of Aids.

1993 CIS President Boris Yeltsin declared a State of Emergency in Moscow as pro-parliamentary rebels seized the White House.

[Bizarra]

Home » Today in History » Historical Events

Historical Events on this Day in History

Events in History for Saturday 3rd October 2009

2333 BC - The state of Gojoseon (Modern-day Korea) founded by Dangun Wanggeom during the reign of the Chinese Emperor Yao.

52 BC - Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia.

42 BC - First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight an indecisive battle with Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius.

1143 - Cardinal Guido elected Pope Coelestinus II

1247 - Willem II of Holland elected Roman Catholic German emperor

1264 - Comet said to predict death of Pope Urban IV is last seen

1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered.

1430 - Jews are expelled from Eger Bohemia

1569 - Battle of Montcontour: Duke of Anjou beats Huguenots

1574 - Fleet under admiral Boisot seize Spanish

1574 - The Siege of Leiden is lifted by the Watergeuzen.

1605 - Chinese uprising on Philippines, Tondo/Quiapo massacre

1657 - French troops occupy Mardyke

1683 - The Qing Dynasty naval commander Shi Lang reaches Taiwan (under the Kingdom of Tungning) to receive the formal surrender of Zheng Keshuang and Liu Guoxuan after the Battle of Penghu.

1691 - English & Dutch army occupies Limerick Ireland

1712 - The Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor.

1735 - France & Emperor Karel VI sign peace accord

1739 - The Treaty of Nissa is signed by the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the Russian-Turkish War, 1736-1739.

1778 - Capt Cook anchors at Alaska

1789 - Washington proclaims 1st national Thanksgiving Day on Nov 26

1833 - Composer Hector Berlioz marries actress Harriet Smithson

1835 - Staedtler Company was founded by J.S. Staedtler in Nuremburg, Germany.

1849 - American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.

1862 - -10] Battle of Corinth, Mississippi

1862 - Skirmish at Bardstown, Kentucky

1863 - Lincoln designates last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day

1872 - Bloomingdale's department store in NY opens

1873 - Captain jack and companions are hanged for their part in the Modoc War.

1890 - Capt Guillaume of Kerckhoven marches into Boma Congo

1899 - J S Thurman patents motor-driven vacuum cleaner

1900 - Edward Elgar/Cardinal Newmans oratorium premieres in Birmingham

1904 - France & Spain sign treaty for Morocco Independence

1904 - Mary McLeod Bethune opens Daytona Normal & Industrial School

1906 - SOS adopted as warning signal by 1st conference on wireless telegraphy

1906 - US regime names Charles Magoon, governor of Cuba

1908 - The Pravda newspaper founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles in Vienna.

1913 - Federal Income Tax signed into law (at 1%)

1915 - 7.8 earthquake shakes Pleasant Valley Nevada

1918 - Boris becomes king of Bulgaria

1918 - Czar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria does distance of throne

1919 - Serbian, Croatian & Slavic parliment accord for 8 hr work day

1922 - 1st facsimile photo send over city telephone lines, Washington, DC

1922 - Rebecca Felton of Georgia becomes 1st woman in Senate

1923 - Germany's Stresemann resigns

1924 - King Hussein of Hedzjaz abdicts throne

1926 - 1st congress of Paneuropabeweging opens in Vienna

1926 - Violet Percy runs female record marathon (3:40:22)

1928 - French sun "Ondine" sinks returning to Toulon, drowning 42

1929 - British Labour govt recovers diplomatic relations with USSR

1929 - Julius Curtius succeeds Stresemann as German foreign minister

1929 - Kingdom of Serbs, Croats & Slovenes changes name to Yugoslavia

1932 - Iraq gains full independence from Britain, joins League of Nations

1933 - Gustave "Staf" de Clerq forms Flemish National Covenant

1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia

1939 - Lemmer-Urk Dike closes

1940 - France Vichy govt proclaims end to Jewish status

1940 - US forms parachute troops

1941 - Adolf Hitler says Russia is "broken" & would "never rise again"

1941 - All elderly Jewish men of Kerenchug Ukraine, are killed by SS

1941 - Nazi's blow up 6 synagoges in Paris

1942 - FDR forms Office of Economic Stabilization

1942 - Launch of 1st A-4/V-2 rocket to altitude of 53 miles (85 km)

1943 - British 8th army lands at Termoli, East Italy

1943 - Operations begin at PETA Java, defending (Japanese) fatherland

1944 - 1st broadcast of Radio Herrijzend Netherland

1944 - RAF bombs West Kapelse

1945 - Elvis Presley's 1st public appearance, he is 10

1945 - World Federation of Trade Unions forms; CIO a member

1947 - 1st telescope lens 200" (508 cm) in diameter completed

1948 - Columbia U reports discovery of uranium in Belgian Congo

1950 - 1st black lead (Ethel Waters) on TV (Beulah)

1950 - Indonesian army opens assault on Ambon, South Molucca

1952 - 1st British nuclear test at Monte Bello Is Australia

1952 - 1st video recording on magnetic tape, LA, Ca

1952 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Monte Bello Is Australia

1953 - 10th Ryder Cup: US wins 6½-5½ at Wentworth, England

1955 - "Mickey Mouse Club" premieres

1955 - Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira becomes pres of Brazil

1955 - Soviet battleship "Novorossiisk" strikes WW II mine in Baltic Sea

1957 - Willy Brandt elected mayor of West Berlin

1957 - Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems is ruled not obscene.

1960 - Janio Quadros elected president of Brazil

1960 - SF's White House dept store 1st to accept BankAmericard

1961 - "***** Van Dyke Show" premieres on CBS-TV

1961 - "Mr Ed" premieres

1962 - Wally Schirra in Sigma 7 launched into Earth orbit

1963 - Hurricane hits Haiti; about 5,000 die & 100,000 injured

1965 - Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Mickey Wright Golf Invitational

1965 - Whitey Ford notches #232 to become Yankees winningest pitcher

1966 - Marshal Arturo da Costa e Silva elected president

1967 - King Boudouin inaugurates world's biggest floodgate (Antwerp)

1967 - William Knight sets X-15 speed rec of 7,297 KPH/4,534 MPH/Mach 6.72

1968 - Military coup overthrows Pres Fernando Belaúnde Terry in Peru

1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1971 - Billie Jean King became 1st female athlete to win $100,000

1972 - Spaceflight 71-2 launched; 1st flexible substrate photovoltaic flown

1972 - USSR performs nuclear test

1973 - Willi Stoph succeeds Walter Ulbricht as East German party leader

1974 - Ted Bundy victim Nancy Wilcox disappears in Salt Lake City, Utah

1974 - Pele retires as soccer player

1974 - Watergate trial begins

1975 - George Harrison releases "Extra Texture" album in UK

1975 - Ireland AKZO director Tiede Herrema kidnap

1976 - Helmuth Kohl's CDU wins German parliament election

1977 - "Comedy with music (Victor Borge)" opens at Imperial NYC for 66 perfs

1977 - Indira Gandhi arrested

1978 - Gold hits record $223.50 an ounce in London

1980 - 4 dies in attack on synagogue in Paris

1981 - Brewers (since 1970) & Expos (1969) clinch their 1st-ever postseason

1981 - Irish Nationalist at Maze Prison near Belfast end 7-mo hunger strike

1981 - Mike Weaver beats Quick Tillis in 15 for heavyweight boxing title

1982 - Cox 4 rowing record set at 12:52 for 99 miles (Geneva, Switzerland

1982 - Record 11,763 start a 186 mile cross-country race near Stockholm

1982 - Scott Weiland runs Detroit marathon backwards in less than 5 hours

1983 - Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson release "Say, Say, Say" in UK

1985 - 21st Shuttle Mission (51J)-Atlantis 1-all-military flight launched

1985 - Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) adopts constitution

1985 - Pope John Paul II declares Titus Brandsma divine

1985 - South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands adopts constitution

1986 - Soviet Yankee-class sub sinks off NC, 3 die

1986 - TASCC, a superconducting cyclotron at the Chalk River Laboratories, was officially opened.

1987 - Michael Pruffer of France skis 135.26 MPH at Portillo, Chile

1987 - USSR performs underground nuclear test

1988 - 26th Space Shuttle Mission, Discovery 7 returns to Earth after 4-days

1988 - Lebanese kidnappers release Mithileshwar Singh (held for 30 months)

1988 - WBMW-FM, Wash DC changes calls to WJFK & begins airing Howard Stern

1989 - Panamanian Defense Force attempted coup of Manuel Noriega fails

1990 - East Germany & West Germany merge to become Germany

1990 - Florida record store owner Charles Freeman is found guilty of obsenity, for selling 2 Live Crew rap records

1991 - 25th Country music Assn Award:

1992 - Madonna premieres her "Erotica" video on MTV

1992 - Sinead O'Connor rips up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL

1993 - Battle at TV station Ostankino/Moscow townhall, about 25 killed

1993 - Boris Yeltsin declares state of emergency in Moscow

1993 - Evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (52) weds Roe Messner (58)

1993 - Harry Belafonte performs in Tivoli Copenhagen

1993 - Somali General Aidids arm forces kill 18 US Rangers

1993 - Battle of Mogadishu: In an attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US Soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting.

1994 - Fernando Henrique Cardoso elected president of Brazil

1994 - Gary Larson, announces he is retiring from doing "Far Side" cartoon

1995 - OJ Simpson found not guilty in murder of Nicole Simpson & Ron Goldm

1997 - Japan's maglev train breaks world speed record at 280.3 mph

2003 - Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy is attacked by one of the shows tigers, canceling the show for good.

2008 - The $700 billion bailout bill for the US financial system is signed by President Bush.

<< 2nd October

4th October >>

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

National Day of Lesotho.

Feast day of St Petronius of Bologna, St Francis of Assisi, and St Ammon.

1535 Miles Coverdale’s translation of the Bible was published.

1883 The Boys’ Brigade was founded in Glasgow by Sir William Alexander Smith.

1895 Deadpan hero of the silent screen Buster Keaton was born in Kansas.

His parents were acrobats in vaudeville, and by the time he was three, Buster was in on the act.

1911 Britain’s first escalators were introduced, connecting the District and Piccadilly platforms at Earl’s Court underground station in London.

1952 The first external pacemaker, developed by Dr Paul Zoll of the Harvard Medical School, was fitted to David Schwartz to control his heartbeats.

The first internal pacemaker was not fitted until 1958.

1957 Russia launched Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite.

1958 The first transatlantic passenger jet service began operating.

1970 The American rock singer Janis Joplin died.

She left 2,500 dollars in her will ‘‘so that my friends can get blasted after I’m gone’’.

1988 Bavarian environment minister Alfred ***** asked people not to yodel in the Bavarian Alps as it was harmful to the environment.

The noise scared the chamois and drove off golden eagles and other rare birds.

1989 Millions of fleas were taken to Norfolk Broads to eat algae clogging up the waterways.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1901, Donations topping $19,000 flood in to Boston, Massachusetts to help raise the ransom for missionary, Miss Ellen Stone, kidnapped in the Balkan Mountains.

1926, 250,000 striking miners in the UK returned to work, following their defeat in the general strike.

1947, in the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe.

1957, Britain defeats U.

S.

to win the Ryder Cup for golf for the first time since 1933.

1962, The Beatles' first hit, ''Love Me Do,'' was released in the United Kingdom.

1963, London: 1,000 hurl eggs at British Nazi leader Colin Jordan and bride after wedding.

1969, ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' made its debut on BBC Television.

1974, Five die and sixty-five injured by IRA bombs in two Guildford pubs, in the UK.

1976, The drought in Australia ends as heavy rains cause flooding in Victoria and New South Wales.

1995, Pres.

Clinton tells Good Housekeeping in an interview how his political career was shaped by an unhappy childhood.

1998, Michael Carneal pleaded guilty but mentally ill to fatally shooting three fellow students and wounding five other people at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky.

(He was later sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for 25 years.

) 1999, Two packed commuter trains collided near London's Paddington Station, killing 31 people.

[Bizarra]

* 891 Formosus begins his reign as Catholic Pope

* 1111 Boudouin VII becomes earl of Flanders

* 1499 French king Louis XII occupies Milan

* 1567 Duke of Alva becomes land guardian of Netherlands

* 1683 13 Mennonite families from Germany found Germantown Pa (Phila)

* 1689 Pietro Ottoboni replaces Pope Innocent XI as Alexander VIII

* 1762 English troops occupy Manila Philippines

* 1777 Battle of Germantown; Washington defeated by British [OS=Sept 27]

* 1781 Americans & French begin siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown; last battle of Revolutionary War

* 1783 Benjamin Hanks patents self-winding clock

* 1799 Battle at Castricum: French & Bataafs army beats English/Russian army

* 1811 French emperor Napoleon visits Utrecht

* 1857 American Chess Assn organized; 1st major US chess tournament (NYC)

* 1861 Naval Engagement at Charleston, SC USS Flag vs BR Alert

* 1861 Revolt of Russian student shuts down university of Petersburg

* 1863 Battle at Baxter Springs Kansas

* 1863 Dr Charles H Sheppard opens 1st public bath, in Brooklyn

* 1866 1st train robbery in US (Reno Brothers take $13,000)

* 1869 John Brahms' "Liebeslieder Walzer," premiere

* 1884 Naval War College forms in Newport RI

* 1886 Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Resident Patient" (BG)

* 1889 Moulin Rogue opens in Paris

* 1889 Thomas Edison shows his 1st motion picture

* 1890 Mormon Church outlaws polygamy

* 1893 Nabisco Foods invents Cream of Wheat

* 1898 Gustav Mahler conducts 1st Wiener Philharmonic

* 1908 Austria annexes Bosnia & Herzegovina

* 1911 Beatrix van Rijk becomes 1st licensed Dutch woman pilot

* 1918 US ship Otranto sinks between Scotland & Ireland, 425 die

* 1919 Stambuliski becomes premier of Bulgaria

* 1922 Schwebla replaces Benes govt in Czechoslavakia

* 1923 2nd govt of Stresemann in Germany forms

* 1923 US lt Al Williams fly 392.2 KPH (record)

* 1923 USSR adopts experimental calendar

* 1925 Greek premier Papanastasiou orders gen P ngulos arrested

* 1928 Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek becomes president of China

* 1928 Josip Broz (Tito) sentenced to 5 years in jail

* 1931 Js Van Severen forms Verdinaso (Union of Flemish Natl Solidarists)

* 1935 Italian army occupies Adua Abyssinia

* 1935 Market Street Railway starts using trackless trolley coaches

* 1939 Adolf Hitler denies he intends to go to war against France & Britain

* 1939 Hitler announces plans to regulate Jewish problem

* 1940 Zoological Gardens opens on Sloat & Skyline in SF

* 1941 German army occupies Briansk, USSR

* 1942 Allied assault on oil installations of Bula Ceram

* 1943 Battle at Vella Lavella, Solomon Island

* 1943 Himmler wants acceleration of "Final Solution"

* 1944 Allied aircrafts bombard per accident Fishing, Overijssel

* 1944 Canadians free Austria

* 1944 HM Zwaardvis sinks U168 at Java

* 1944 Soviets march into Hungary & Czechoslovakia

* 1945 Gen Eisenhower welcomed in Hague (on Hitler's train)

* 1945 Memorial for executed unveiled in Terbregge

* 1946 90°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in Oct

* 1946 Pres Truman questions Great Britain Jews about Palestine

* 1949 Iva Toguri D'Aquino (Tokyo Rose) sentenced to 10 years & $10,000 fine

* 1949 Pres Truman signs Mutual Defense Assistance Act (for NATO)

* 1951 Stalin proclaims Russia has atom bomb

* 1955 LSD made illegal in US

* 1956 Dmitri Shostakovitch's 6th Iron quartet premieres in Leningrad

* 1956 Dr Albert Sabin discovers oral polio vaccine

* 1957 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

* 1958 US nuclear sub USS Seawolfe remains record 60 days under pole

* 1959 Soviet Luna 3, 1st successful photographic spacecraft, impacts Moon

* 1961 JFK advises Americans to build fallout shelters

* 1961 USSR performs nuclear tests at Kapustin Yar & Novaya Zemlya USSR

* 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston Island

* 1965 Supremes release "I Hear a Symphony"

* 1966 Partial meltdown at Detroits's Fermi 1 nuclear reactor

* 1967 Haight-Ashbury hippies throw a funneral to mark end of hippies

* 1967 USSR performs nuclear test

* 1972 22-car train carrying 2,000 pilgrims derails, kills 208 in Mexico

* 1973 Yom Kippur War begins as Syria & Egypt attack Israel

* 1976 "Gang of Four" arrested in Beijing

* 1976 Cubans DC-8 crashes after bomb attack

* 1976 John Hathaway completes 50,600 mile bicycle tour of every continent

* 1976 Pres Ford says there is "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe"

* 1978 Iraq declares Ayatollah Khomeini an undesirable person

* 1978 Mick Jagger apologizes for racist lyrics in "Some Girls"

* 1979 Harry Drake set long distance footbow shot record of 2,006 yds 1'9"

* 1979 Pope John Paul II is 1st Pope to visit White House

* 1980 Guyana adopts constitution

* 1982 Fokker's Fellowship crashes at Moerdijk Neth, 17-22 die

* 1983 China PR performs nuclear test at Lop Nor PRC

* 1983 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

* 1986 Russian nuclear sub sinks in Atlantic Ocean

* 1987 Milt coup leader Maj-Gen Sitiveni Rabuka declares Fiji a republic

* 1990 Spacecraft Ulysses launched towards pole of Sun

* 1990 US 67th manned space mission STS 41 (Discovery 11) launches into orbit

* 1990 Ulysses launched (Solar Polar Orbiter)

* 1991 Elizabeth Taylor weds for 8th time (Larry Fortensky)

* 1993 Sydney Australia Stock Market index above 2000, for 1st time

* 1994 -9] European Campaign against Racism confers in Austria

* 1994 Ben Mokoena becomes 1st black mayor of Middelburg South Africa

* 1996 Lois & Clark (fictional characters) wed

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1571 The Battle of Lepanto, between Christian allied naval forces and the Ottoman Turks attempting to capture Cyprus from the Venetians, took place.

1806 The first carbon paper was patented by its English inventor, Ralph Wedgwood.

1849 Edgar Allan Poe, US novelist and poet, died.

1891 Charles Stuart Parnell dies in Brighton.

1919 The Dutch airline KLM, the oldest existing airline, was established.

1920 Oxford University admitted its first 100 women for full degrees.

1922 The first royal broadcast was made by the Prince of Wales, on 2LO, 11 days before it changed its named to the British Broadcasting Company.

1928 Pádraig O´ Conaire, author, dies.

1949 The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was formed.

1958 The first photograph of the far side of the Moon was transmitted from the USSR's Lunik I.

1967 Clarence Birdseye, US deep-freezing inventor, died.

On the same day, Minister for Education Donagh O'Malley abolished the Primary Certificate Examination.

1985 The Italian liner Achille Lauro was seized by Palestinian terrorists; they surrendered two days later, having killed one US passenger.

1986 A new British newspaper, The Independent, was published.

1988 Grey whales trapped under ice in Alaska became the focus of an international rescue effort.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

1085 St Mark's Cathedral in Venice was consecrated.

1598 James Fitzthomas Fitzgerald assumed the title of Earl of Desmond and began a rebellion against the plantation of Munster.

In the course of the campaign he became known as Iarla an tSúgáin, or the Straw Rope Earl.

1754 Henry Fielding died, aged 47.

Famous for his novel Tom Jones, it is not widely known that as a justice of the peace he organised the detective force that became Scotland Yard.

1871 The Great Fire of Chicago started, according to popular belief, in Mrs O'Leary's barn in DeKoven Street, when a cow upset a lantern.

The fire burned until October 11, killing more than 250 people and making 95,000 homeless.

1895 Juan Perón, Argentine dictator, born.

1905 Charles Nessler first used a permanent waving machine on a woman's hair.

The cost for the seven-hour treatment was 10 guineas.

1908 The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame's children's book, was published.

It has never been out of print.

1915 The Battle of Loos, in World War I, ended.

1939 Western Poland was incorporated in the Third Reich.

1949 Edith Oenone Somerville, co-creator of the Irish RM, died.

1952 A rail crash in England left 112 dead and more than 200 injured.

1968 Ireland's first traffic wardens started work in Dublin.

1974 Seán McBride became the first Irish citizen to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He shared the award with former Japanese president Sato.

1976 Minister for Finance Richie Ryan was appointed chairman of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

1992 Willy Brandt, former German federal chancellor, died.

[Bizarra]

On This Day Over The Years

NATIONAL Day of Uganda.

1470 Henry VI was restored to the English throne, having been deposed nine years earlier.

1701 Yale College in the US received its charter.

1835 Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer, born.

1875 The Universal Postal Union was established.

1888 The 555ft white marble Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, was opened.

1934 Alexander, King of Yugoslavia, and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou were assassinated by Croatian terrorists in Mubikilles.

1940 Beatle John Winston Lennon was born during an air raid in Liverpool.

1958 Some Protestants were angered at the Union Flag being flown at half mast on Belfast City Hall to mark the death of Pius XII.

1967 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Argentinean-born guerrilla leader and revolutionary, murdered in Bolivia.

1974 Padraic Fallon, poet and playwright, died.

1990 Hundreds of Chinese citizens queued to buy Big Macs when McDonalds opened its first restaurant in Shenzhen.

[Bizarra]

This started on 2nd Sept 08. I checked a while ago & thought it was Nov 08. I doubt if World History has changed much in a year, so it has over run :(

If anyone read it, thanks for reading, & I'm sure thanks from Raistlin too who used post much better ones than I.

Band plays & Curtains draw slowly across :lol2: :lol2:

[Raistlin]

Were Back....

Events

1531 An earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, killed 20,000 people.

1797 The first £ note was issued by the Bank of England.

1815 Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba.

1839 The first Grand National Steeplechase was run at Aintree.

1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles published 'The Communist Manifesto'.

1935 Robert Watson-Watt gave the first demonstration of Radar at Daventry, England.

1936 Adolf Hitler launched the Volkswagen ('people's car'), intended to compete with Ford's Model T and boost the German economy.

1980 Israel and Egypt exchanged ambassadors for the first time.

1987 The report of the Tower Commission, which investigated the management of the White House during the period of the Iran-Contra affair, criticized White House Chief of Staff, Donald Regan (on the 27th, Regan was replaced by former Senator Howard Baker).

1995 Barings PLC, the country's oldest merchant bank, declared bankruptcy after discovering that Nicholas Leeson, the firm's chief trader in Singapore, had lost approximately £625 million/$1 billion of the bank's assets on unauthorized futures and options transactions.

1995 Boxer Gerald McClellan was listed in critical condition after a blood clot was removed from his brain. McClellan, 27, had been knocked out 25 Feb by WBC supermiddleweight champion Nigel Benn of Great Britain during a bout in London. The brutality of the fight, and McClellan's subsequent hospitalization, led some British politicians and medical groups to call for a ban on boxing.

1996 Haing Ngor, the Academy Award-winning actor who starred in The Killing Fields, was shot dead in Chinatown, Los Angeles.

1997 Britain's Armed Forces Minister, Nicholas Soames, fought off Labour demands for his resignation over the Ministry of Defence's suppression of information about the still unexplained Gulf War syndrome affecting 1,200 of the 40,000 British service personnel who fought in the Gulf.

Births

1802 Victor Hugo, French novelist and playwright

1846 William Cody ('Buffalo Bill'), US showman

1879 Frank Bridge, English composer and conductor

1928 Fats Domino, US singer

1932 Johnny Cash, US country singer

Deaths

1154 Roger II, King of Sicily

1823 John Philip Kemble, English actor

1903 Richard Gatling, US inventor of the Gatling gun

1950 Harry Lauder, Scottish music-hall comedian

1991 Slim Gaillard, US jazz musician

[Raistlin]

Events

1557 The first Russian Embassy opened in London; exactly one year later, the first trade mission arrived.

1879 US chemists Ira Remsen and Constantine Fahlberg announced their discovery of saccharin.

1881 British troops were defeated by the Boers at Majuba Hill, Transvaal.

1933 The German Reichstag (parliament building) in Berlin was destroyed by fire; it is believed that the Nazis were responsible, though they blamed the Communists.

1948 The Communist Party seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1973 British civil servants went on strike for the first time.

1991 The First Gulf War came to an end with the liberation of Kuwait and the retreat of Iraqi forces.

1997 An amendment ending the Irish constitution's divorce ban went into effect, making divorce universally available for the first time in the history of the Irish Republic. Ireland had been the only nation in Europe in which divorce was illegal.

Births

AD 274 Constantine, Roman emperor

1807 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, US poet

1861 Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher

1902 John Steinbeck US novelist

1912 Lawrence Durrell, English poet and novelist

1932 Elizabeth Taylor, English-born US film actress

Deaths

1706 John Evelyn, English diarist

1887 Alexander Borodin, Russian composer and chemist

1936 Ivan Pavlov, Russian psychologist

1940 Peter Behrens, German architect

1985 Henry Cabot Lodge, US politician and diplomat

1993 Lilian Gish, US film actress

1994 Harold Acton, Italian-born English writer and aesthete