On This Day

[Raistlin]

Births

1859 Victor Herbert, US composer

1895 John Ford, US film director

1901 Clark Gable, US film actor

1915 Stanley Matthews, English footballer

1922 Renata Tebaldi, Italian operatic soprano

1937 Don Everly, US rock singer

1966 Princess Stephanie of Monaco

Deaths

1650 René Descartes, French scientist and philosopher

1851 , English novelist

1908 Carlos I, King of Portugal, assassinated

1922 Aritomo Yamagata, Japanese soldier and politician

1944 Piet Mondrian, Swiss painter

1966 Buster Keaton, US silent-film comedian

Events

1793 France declared war on Britain and Holland.

1884 The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.

1893 Thomas Edison opened the first film studio to produce films for peepshow machines in New Jersey, USA.

1896 Puccini's opera La Bohème was first staged in Turin, Italy.

1930 The Times published its first crossword puzzle.

1958 The United Arab Republic was formed by a union of Egypt and Syria (it was broken 1961).

1965 Medical prescriptions on the NHS became free of charge (they remained so until June 1968).

1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 16 years of exile.

1995 Jill Phipps, an animal- rights activist, died after trying to stop a lorry containing about 180 calves from reaching a cargo plane at Coventry airport in Britain. Phipps' funeral drew international attention, in part because it was attended by French actress Brigitte Bardot, known for her involvement in animal-rights issues.

1996 Visa and Mastercard announced security measures that will make it safe to shop on the Internet.

[Raistlin]

Events

1801 The first parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland assembled.

1848 The Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-US War.

1852 Britain's first men's public flushing toilets opened on Fleet Street, London.

1878 Greece declared war on Turkey.

1943 The German army surrendered to the Soviet army at Stalingrad.

1960 In USA, sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest against segregated lunch counters.

1960 The Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded to organize civil rights campaigning.

1972 The British Embassy in Dublin was burned down by protesters angered by the 'Bloody Sunday' shootings in Londonderry.

1986 Women in Liechtenstein went to the polls for the first time.

1989 The USSR's military occupation of Afghanistan ended after nine years.

1990 President de Klerk ended the 30-year ban on the ANC in South Africa.

1991 A protest against the Gulf War was held in London's Hyde Park, attended by more than 40,000 people.

1995 The leaders of Israel, the PLO, Jordan and Egypt met at a one-day emergency summit in Cairo, Egypt where they affirmed their commitment to a Middle East peace process threatened by extremists on both sides. Israel and the PLO agreed to resume their stalled talks.

1996 President Clinton met with Gerry Adams to discuss the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Births

1650 Nell Gwyn, English actress and mistress of Charles II

1754 Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French statesman and diplomat

1882 James Joyce, Irish author

1927 Elaine Stritch, US actress

1927 Stan Getz, US jazz saxophonist

1946 Farrah Fawcett, US TV actress

Deaths

1769 Pope Clement XIII

1907 Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev, Russian chemist

1970 Bertrand Russell, English philosopher

1979 Sid Vicious, British punk singer

1987 Alistair Maclean, Scottish novelist

1995 Fred Perry, English lawn-tennis player

1995 Donald Pleasence, English character actor

[Raistlin]

Births

1809 Felix Mendelssohn, German composer

1874 Gertrude Stein, US author

1898 Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect

1907 James Michener, US novelist

1909 Simone Weil, French writer

1928 Frankie Vaughan, English singer

Deaths

1399 John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster

1762 Richard 'Beau' Nash, British dandy and gambler

1924 Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president

1959 Buddy Holly, US singer and guitarist

1969 Boris Karloff, US film actor

1989 John Cassavetes, US film actor and director

Events

1488 The Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Diaz landed at Mossal Bay in the Cape, the first European known to have landed on the southern extremity of Africa.

1913 The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution, authorizing the power to impose and collect income tax, was ratified.

1919 League of Nations held its first meeting in Paris, with US President Wilson chairing.

1959 Buddy Holly dies in plane crash.

1966 The first rocket-assisted controlled landing on the Moon was made by the Soviet space vehicle Luna IX.

1969 At the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo, Yassir Arafat was appointed leader of the PLO.

1989 South African politician P W Botha unwillingly resigned both party leadership and the presidency after suffering a stroke.

1995 British Prime Minister Major, in an attempt to unify his fractured party, promises that Britain will not back a proposed single European currency before 1997.

[Raistlin]

Births

1881 Fernand Léger, French painter

1900 Jacques Prévert, French poet and novelist

1902 Charles Lindbergh, US aviator

1918 Ida Lupino, English actress

1920 Norman Wisdom, English comedian

1948 Alice Cooper, US pop singer

Deaths

211 Lucius Septimius Severus, Roman emperor

1615 Giambattista della Porta, Italian natural philosopher

1925 Robert Koldewey, German archaeologist

1925 Oliver Heaviside, English physicist

1983 Karen Carpenter, US singer

1987 Liberace, US entertainer

1995 Patricia Highsmith, US crime novelist

Events

1861 Seven secessionist southern states formed the Confederate States of America, in Montgomery, Alabama.

1904 Russo-Japanese War began after Japan laid seige to Port Arthur.

1928 Black US entertainer Josephine Baker's provocative performance in Munich drew protests from members of the Nazi party.

1945 Allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta, in the Crimea.

1968 The world's largest hovercraft was launched at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

1985 Reagan administration's defence budget called for a tripling of the expenditure on the 'Star Wars' research programme.

1987 The US Stars and Stripes won the America's Cup back from Australia.

1993 Russian scientists unfurled a giant mirror in orbit and flashed a beam of sunlight across Europe during the night; observers saw it only as an instantaneous flash.

1997 Two Israeli troop-carrying helicopters collided on their way to Lebanon, killing all 73 soldiers and airmen aboard; it was the worst disaster in Israeli air force history.

1997 President Milosevic of Serbia apparently surrendered to the will of his people, ordering his government to recognize opposition victories in local elections held in Nov 1996.

[Raistlin]

Events 1782 The Spanish captured Minorca from the British. 1885 Congo State was established under Leopold II of Belgium, as a personal possession. 1924 The BBC time signals, or 'pips', from Greenwich Observatory were heard for the first time; they are broadcast every hour. 1940 Glenn Miller recorded 'Tuxedo Junction' with his orchestra. 1961 The first issue of the Sunday Telegraph was published. 1967 Due to a Musicians' Union ban, the Rolling Stones were not allowed to play their hit 'Let's Spend the Night Together' when they appeared on an ITV show. 1974 Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of US newspaper tycoon William R Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 1982 Laker Airways collapsed with debts of $270 million. 1983 Expelled from Bolivia, Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie flew to France to be tried for crimes against humanity. 1989 Satellite station Sky TV was launched in Britain. 1994 A Serbian mortar attack on a crowded market-place in Sarajevo killed 68 people and wounded over 200. 1997 The jury in the three-month civil trial of OJ Simpson reached a verdict on the sixth day of deliberations, finding Simpson liable for the double killings, and awarding initial damages of $8.5 million/£5.3 million against him.

Births

1788 Robert Peel, British politician 1900 Adlai Stevenson, US politician and ambassador 1906 John Carradine, US film actor 1914 William Burroughs, US novelist 1945 Bob Marley, Jamaican reggae singer 1946 Charlotte Rampling, British actress

Deaths

1679 Joost van den Vondel, Dutch poet and dramatist 1881 Thomas Carlyle, English author and historian 1941 A B 'Banjo' Paterson, Australian poet and journalist 1946 George Aliss, English actor 1972 Marianne Moore, US poet 1993 Joseph Mankiewicz, US director and author

[Raistlin]

Events

1191 Richard I 'the Lion Heart' conquered Cyprus from its independent Greek ruler, then joined the Crusaders at Acre in N W Israel.

1449 Afonso V of Portugal defeated a rebellion by his brother, Peter, who was killed, at Alfarrobeira.

1631 Flemish commander Count Tilly's imperialist army sacked Magdeburg; terrible carnage ensued and the city caught fire, leaving only the cathedral standing.

1927 By the treaty of Jeddah Britain recognized the independence of Saudi Arabia.

1941 German forces invaded Crete.

1946 A bill for nationalization of British coal mines passed the Commons stage.

1950 The US Senate committee denied Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of Communist infiltration of the State Department.

1990 Romania held its first free elections since 1937; the National Salvation Front won two-thirds of seats and Ion Iliescu was elected president.

1995 Italy's anti-corruption magistrates in Milan requested the indictment of former Premier Berlusconi on bribery charges.

1996 Iraqi and UN officials signed an agreement providing for the limited sale by Iraq of oil worth up to £2 billion, to provide funds for humanitarian supplies.

Births

1444 Donato d'Agnolo Bramante de Urbino, Italian architect

1444 Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter

1799 Honoré de Balzac, French novelist

1803 Thomas Lovell Beddoes, English poet and physiologist

1806 John Stuart Mill, English philosopher

1851Emil Berliner, German telephone and recording pioneer

1908 James Stewart, US film actor

1915 Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader

Deaths

1444 St Bernardino of Siena

1506 Christopher Columbus, Genoese navigator

1509 Caterina Sforza, Countess of Forli

1726 Nicholas Brady, Anglican clergyman

1864 John Clare, English poet

1896 Clara Schumann, German pianist

1956 Max Beerbohm, English writer and caricaturist

1975 Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor

[Raistlin]

Events

1301 Edward Caernarvon (later King Edward II) became the first Prince of Wales.

1792 Austria and Prussia formed an alliance against France.

1800 Napoleon Bonaparte is elected as First Consul by the French republic.

1845 The Portland Vase, a Roman cameo glass vase dating to the 1st century BC, was smashed by a drunken visitor to the British Museum.

1863 HMS Orpheus was wrecked off the New Zealand coast, with the loss of 185 lives.

1947 The main group of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to about 150 BC-AD 68, was found in caves on the W side of the Jordan River.

1965 US aircraft bombed North Vietnam, following attacks on US areas in South Vietnam; the attack lead to the regular US bombing of North Vietnam.

1971 A referendum in Switzerland approved the introduction of female suffrage.

1974 Grenada became a fully independent state within the Commonwealth.

1990 The Central Committee of Communist Party in USSR voted to end the Party's monopoly on political power.

1991 British prime minister John Major and his senior cabinet ministers escaped an apparent assassination attempt when the IRA fired three mortar shells at 10 Downing Street from a parked van.

1995 Prime Minister Major, answering MPs' questions in the British House of Commons, called Labour Party leader Tony Blair a 'dimwit'. Blair was seeking clarification on Major's statement that before joining the single currency, he would require 'other criteria' than those outlined in the Maastricht treaty. Major responded, 'Frankly, only a dimwit would ask me that'.

1995 A Turkish pilot was forced to eject from his crashing F-16 fighter plane after being pursued by two Greek Mirage F1 jets over the Aegean Sea. The incident threatened to aggravate the already tense relations between Greece and Turkey.

1996 189 were feared dead as a Boeing 757 crashed in the Bermuda Triangle.

1997 The IRA declared that it was highly unlikely to announce a new cease-fire in advance of the British general election.

1997 Swiss banks were ordered to hand over records of deposits made in New York City during World War II. New York officials suspected that some of the assets deposited by Jews in the Nazi era might have been channelled to New York.

Births

1478 Thomas More, English politician

1700 Philippe Buache, French cartographer

1812 Charles Dickens, English novelist

1870 Alfred Adler, Austrian psychoanalyst

1885 Sinclair Lewis, US novelist

1906 Pu Yi, last Emperor of China from 1908-1912 under the name of Xuantong

1937 Peter Jay, British writer and broadcaster

Deaths

1779 William Boyce, English organist and composer

1873 Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer

1894 Adolphe Sax, Belgian inventor of the saxophone

1959 Daniel Malan, South African statesman

1960 Igor Vasilevich Kuchatov, Russian nuclear physicist

1990 Jimmy Van Heusen, US composer

1994 Witold Lutoslawski, Polish composer and conductor

[Raistlin]

Births

1819 John Ruskin, English writer, artist, and art critic

1820 William Sherman, US general

1828 Jules Verne, French novelist

1920 Lana Turner, US film actress

1925 jack Lemmon, US film actor

1931 James Dean, US film actor

Deaths

1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded

1894 R B Ballantyne, Scottish writer

1921 Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin, Russian anarchist

1926 William Bateson, English biologist

1935 Max Liebermann, German painter and etcher

1990 Del Shannon, US pop singer

Events

1725 Catherine I succeeded her husband, Peter the Great, to become empress of Russia.

1740 The 'Great Frost' of London ended (began 25 Dec 1739).

1920 Odessa was taken by Bolshevik forces.

1924 The gas chamber was used in the USA for the first time, in the Nevada State Prison.

1955 Khrushchev.

1969 The Boeing 747, the world's largest commercial plane, made its first flight.

1972 A concert by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention was cancelled at the Albert Hall, London, because some of their lyrics were considered obscene.

1974 After 85 days in space, the US Skylab station returned to earth.

1993 All 132 persons aboard an Iran Air passenger jet were killed minutes after take-off when the plane collided with a military aircraft.

1995 A Turkish pilot was forced to eject from his crashing F-16 fighter plane after being pursued by two Greek Mirage F1 jets over the Aegean Sea. The incident threatened to aggravate the already tense relations between Greece and Turkey.

1997 At the Las Vegas Hilton, the WBC heavyweight championship contest between Oliver McCall and Lennox Lewis was stopped after McCall burst into tears and refused to either fight or return to his corner.

1997 A gunman went on the rampage in a rural new Zealand hamlet, killing six people and seriously wounding five others; it was the fifth mass slaughter in the 1990s to shock New Zealand.

[Raistlin]

Births

1700 Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician

1865 Mrs Patrick Campbell, English actress

1885 Alban Berg, Austrian composer

1891 Ronald Colman, English film actor

1941 Carole King, US singer and songwriter

1945 Mia Farrow, US film actress

Deaths

1555 John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester

1811 Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal

1881 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Russian novelist

1977 Sergei Vladimirovich Ilyushin, Russian aircraft designer

1981 Bill Haley, US rock musician

1984 Yuri Andropov, Russian leader

1994 Howard Temin, US virologist

1995 William Fulbright, US Democratic politician

Events

1801 Holy Roman Empire came to an end with the signing of the Peace of Luneville between Austria and France.

1830 Explorer Charles Sturt discovered the source of the Murray river in Australia.

1872 Dr Livingstone began.

1921 In India, the central parliament established under the Government of India Act of 1919 was opened.

1942 Soap rationing began in Britain.

1949 US film actor Robert Mitchum was sentenced to two months in prison for smoking marijuana.

1972 The British government declared a state of emergency due to the miners' strike, which was in its third month.

1991 The republic of Lithuania held a plebiscite on independence which showed overwhelming support for secession from the USSR.

1995 Prime Minister Major's cabinet approved public-sector pay increases for the 1995-96 fiscal year, limiting annual pay rises among most of Britain's 1.3 million civil servants to between 1.5% and 3.2%, while allowing the salaries of senior civil servants to increase by as much as 27%.

1996 The IRA detonated an enormous bomb in London's Docklands, effectively bringing an end to the cease-fire and signalling the start of a new bombing campaign on mainland Britain.

[Raistlin]

Births

1894 Harold Macmillan, British politician and publisher

1898 Bertolt Brecht, German dramatist and poet

1930 Robert Wagner, US actor

1890 Boris Pasternak, Russian novelist

1950 Mark Spitz, US swimmer

1955 Greg Norman, Australian golfer

Deaths

1482 Luca della Robbia, Italian sculptor

1837 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, Russian author

1923 Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen, German physicist

1932 Edgar Wallace, English thriller writer

1966 Billy Rose, US producer and lyricist

1966 Sophie Tucker, US singer

Events

1258 The Mongols took and destroyed Baghdad.

1763 Canada was ceded to Britain by the Peace of Paris.

1774 Andrew Becker demonstrated his practical diving suit in the River Thames.

1840 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, both aged 20, were married in St James' Palace, London.

1905 Assassination of Grand Duke Sergei by a bomb in Moscow.

1931 New Delhi became the capital of India.

1942 The first gold disc was presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo by the record company RCA Victor.

1989 Jamaican-born Tony Robinson became Nottingham's first black sheriff.

1993 In Italy, the first of a series of ministerial resignations occurred as a corruption scandal shook the government.

[Raistlin]

Births

1800 Henry Fox Talbot, British photographic pioneer

1847 Thomas Edison, US inventor

1908 Vivian Fuchs, British Antarctic explorer

1909 Joseph Mankiewicz, US film writer and director

1934 Mary Quant, English fashion designer

1936 Burt Reynolds, US film actor

Deaths

1799 Lazaro Spallanzani, Italian physiologist and chemist

1879 Honoré Daumier, French caricaturist

1940 John Buchan, Canadian statesman and novelist

1948 Fergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Russian film director

1963 Silvia Plath, US poet

1976 Lee J Cobb, US actor

Events

1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a peasant girl, allegedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary in a grotto in Lourdes, France.

1878 The first weekly weather report was published by the Meteorological Office.

1945 The Yalta Conference ended, at which the Allied leaders planned the final defeat of Germany and agreed on the establishment of the United Nations.

1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party.

1990 After more than 27 years in prison, ANC president Nelson Mandela walked to freedom from a prison near Cape Town, South Africa.

1992 President Bush announced that the USA will phase out CFCs by 1995.

1993 Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and the Prince of Wales both volunteer to pay income tax and capital gains tax on their private income; the Queen also took over civil list payments to junior members of the royal family.

1997 The UK's National Lottery handed out a bonanza of £137 million to 23 major museums and galleries ranging from the Tate Gallery in London to a new National Museum of Football in Preston.

[Raistlin]

1541 - The city of Santiago, Chile was founded.

1554 - Lady Jane Grey was beheaded after being charged with treason. She had claimed the throne of England for only nine days.

1733 - Savannah, GA, was founded by English colonist James Oglethorpe.

1870 - In the Utah Territory, women gained the right to vote.

1878 - Frederick W. Thayer patented the baseball catcher’s mask.

1879 - The first artificial ice rink opened in North America. It was at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY.

1880 - The National Croquet League was organized in Philadelphia, PA.

1892 - In the U.S., President Lincoln's birthday was declared to be a national holiday.

1907 - A collision of the steamer Larchmont and a schooler resulted in the death of more than 300 people. The incident occurred off New England's Block Island.

1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

1912 - China's boy emperor Hsuan T'ung announced that he was abdicating, ending the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty. Subsequently, the Republic of China was established.

1915 - The cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, DC.

1918 - All theatres in New York City were shut down in an effort to conserve coal.

1924 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge made the first presidential political speech on radio.

1924 - "The Eveready Hour" became radio’s first sponsored network program. The National Carbon Company was the first sponsor of a network show.

1934 - The Export-Import Bank was incorporated.

1940 - Mutual Radio presented the first broadcast of the radio play "The Adventures of Superman."

1968 - "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver was published for the first time.

1971 - James Cash (J.C.) Penney died at the age of 95. The company closed for business for one-half day as a memorial to the company's founder.

1973 - The State of Ohio went metric, becoming the first in the U.S. to post metric distance signs.

1973 - American prisoners of war were released for the first time during the Vietnam conflict.

1985 - Johnny Carson surprised his audience by shaving the beard he had been wearing on "The Tonight Show."

1993 - In Liverpool, England, a 2-year-old boy, James Bulger, was lured away from his mother at a shopping mall and beaten to death. Two ten-year-old boys were responsible.

1998 - A U.S. federal judge declared that the presidential line-item veto was unconstitutional.

1999 - U.S. President Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate on two impeachment articles. The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice.

2001 - The space probe NEAR landed on the asteroid Eros. It was the first time that any craft had landed on a small space rock.

2002 - Kenneth Lay, former Enron CEO, exercised his constitutional rights and refused to testify to the U.S. Congress about the collapse of Enron.

2002 - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. Milosevic was accused of war crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

2002 - Pakistan charged three men in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi.

2002 - Princess Stephanie of Monaco and Franco Knie won a defamation-of-character lawsuit against the Swiss magazine "Facts." The case involved a photomontage created by the magazine.

2003 - The U.N. nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties. The complaint was sent to the Security Council.

2004 - Mattel announced that "Barbie" and "Ken" were breaking up. The dolls had met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961.

[Bizarra]

Births

1800 Henry Fox Talbot, British photographic pioneer

1847 Thomas Edison, US inventor

1908 Vivian Fuchs, British Antarctic explorer

1909 Joseph Mankiewicz, US film writer and director

1934 Mary Quant, English fashion designer

1936 Burt Reynolds, US film actor

Deaths

1799 Lazaro Spallanzani, Italian physiologist and chemist

1879 Honoré Daumier, French caricaturist

1940 John Buchan, Canadian statesman and novelist

1948 Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Russian film director

1963 Silvia Plath, US poet

1976 Lee J Cobb, US actor

Events

1858 Bernadette Soubirous, a peasant girl, allegedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary in a grotto in Lourdes, France.

1878 The first weekly weather report was published by the Meteorological Office.

1945 The Yalta Conference ended, at which the Allied leaders planned the final defeat of Germany and agreed on the establishment of the United Nations.

1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party.

1990 After more than 27 years in prison, ANC president Nelson Mandela walked to freedom from a prison near Cape Town, South Africa.

1992 President Bush announced that the USA will phase out CFCs by 1995.

1993 Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and the Prince of Wales both volunteer to pay income tax and capital gains tax on their private income; the Queen also took over civil list payments to junior members of the royal family.

1997 The UK's National Lottery handed out a bonanza of £137 million to 23 major museums and galleries ranging from the Tate Gallery in London to a new National Museum of Football in Preston.

Deja vu strikes again......or is today groundhog day?

Pay attention, there at the back, one member is reading this topic, again

[Raistlin]

1542 - Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII.

1633 - Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.

1635 - The Boston Public Latin School was established. It was the first public school building in the United States.

1741 - "The American Magazine," the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1875 - Mrs. Edna Kanouse gave birth to America’s first quintuplets. All five of the baby boys died within two weeks.

1880 - Thomas Edison observed what became known as the Edison Effect for the first time.

1889 - Norman Coleman became the first U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

1900 - The Anglo-German accord of 1899 was ratified by Reichstag, in which Britain renounced rights in Samoa in favor of Germany and the U.S.

1914 - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP) was formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1920 - The League of Nations recognized the continued neutrality of Switzerland.

1920 - The National Negro Baseball League was organized.

1935 - In Flemington, New Jersey, a jury found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed for the crimes.

1937 - The comic strip "Prince Valiant" appeared for the first time.

1939 - Virginia Payne became a new character in NBC’s soap opera, "The Carter’s of Elm Street". She played the part of Mrs. Carter.

1945 - During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the German army.

1945 - During World War II, Allied aircraft began bombing the German city of Dresden.

1947 - "Family Theatre" was heard for the first time on Mutual radio.

1955 - Israel acquired 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

1960 - France detonated its first atomic bomb.

1965 - Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, NY.

1971 - South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos. They were backed by U.S. air and artillery support.

1984 - Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.

1985 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 1297.92 after it topped the 1300 mark earlier in the trading session.

1990 - In Ottawa, the United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.

1991 - Hundreds of Iraqis were killed by two laser-guided bombs that destroyed an underground facility in Baghdad. U.S. officials identified the facility as a military installation, but Iraqi officials said it was a bomb shelter. 1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery brought the Hubble Space Telescope aboard for a tune up. The tune up allowed the telescope to see further into the universe.

1997 - The Dow Jones industrial average passed the 7,000 mark for the first time. The day ended at 7,022.44.

1999 - A bomb exploded just outside a government-owned bank in southern Kosovo. Nine people were killed.

2000 - Charles M. Schulz's last original Sunday "Peanuts" comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before.

2001 - El Savador was hit with an earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter Scale. At least 400 people were killed.

2002 - In Alexandria, VA, John Walker Lindh pled innocent to a 10-count federal indictment. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

2002 - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

2008 - Roger Clemens denied having taken performance-enhancing drugs in testimony before Congress.

2008 - Hollywood writers ended a 100-day strike.

[Raistlin]

1778 - The Stars and Stripes was carried to a foreign port, in France, for the first time. It was aboard the American ship Ranger.

1803 - Moses Coats received a patent on the Apple parer.

1849 - The first photograph of a U.S. President, while in office, was taken by Matthew Brady in New York City. President James Polk was the subject of the picture.

1859 - Oregon became the 33rd member of the Union.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell filed an application for a patent for the telephone. It was officially issued on March 7, 1876.

1889 - In Los Angeles, CA, oranges began their first trip to the east.

1895 - Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James' Theatre in London.

1899 - The U.S. Congress approved voting machines for use in federal elections.

1900 - Russia imposed tighter imperial control over Finland in response to an international petition for Finland's freedom.

1900 - In South Africa, British Gen. Roberts invaded Orange Free State with 20,000 troops.

1903 - The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was established.

1912 - The first diesel engine submarine was commissioned in Groton, CT.

1912 - Arizona was admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

1918 - The motion picture "Tarzan of the Apes" was released.

1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago. The first president of the organization was Maude Wood Park.

1929 - The "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in Chicago, IL. Seven gangsters who were rivals of Al Capone were killed.

1932 - The U.S. won the first bobsled competition at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY.

1940 - The first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida.

1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.

1946 - ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled. The device, built at the University of Pennsylvania, was the world's first general purpose electronic computer.

1954 - The TV show "Letter to Loretta" changed its name to "The Loretta Young Show." The show premiered on September 20, 1953.

1957 - Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, "King David," made its debut at New York’s Town Hall.

1961 - Lawrencium, element 103, was first produced in Berkely, CA.

1962 - U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave a tour of the White House on television.

1966 - Rick Mount of Lebanon, IN, became the first high school, male athlete to be pictured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated".

1966 - Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association (NBA) record as he reached a career high of 20,884 points after seven seasons.

1968 - The fourth Madison Square Gardens opened.

1979 - Twenty-year-old rookie, Don Maloney, of the New York Rangers, scored his first goal in the National Hockey League. It came on his first NHL shot.

1979 - Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists. He was killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1980 - Walter Cronkite announced his retirement from the "CBS Evening News."

1983 - A 6-year-old boy became the first person to receive a heart and liver transplants in the same operation.

1985 - Cable News Network (CNN) reporter Jeremy Levin was freed. He had been being held in Lebanon by extremists.

1989 - Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his novel "The Satanic Verses."

1989 - The first satellite of the Global Positioning System was placed into orbit around Earth.

1989 - Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India. The court-ordered settlement was a result of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.

1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery began a series of spacewalks that were required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

1998 - U.S. authorities officially announced that Eric Rudolph was a suspect in a bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama.

2002 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Shays-Meehan bill. The bill, if passed by the U.S. Senate, would ban millions of unregulated money that goes to the national political parties.

2002 - Sylvester Stallone filed a lawsuit against Kenneth Starr. The suit alleged that Starr had given bad advice about selling Planet Hollywood stock.

2003 - In Madrid, Spain, a ceramic plate with a bullfighting motif painted by Pablo Picasso in 1949 was stolen from an art show. The plate was on sale for $12,400.

[Raistlin]

Events

1882 The first shipment of frozen meat left New Zealand for England.

1898 The USS Maine, sent to Cuba on a goodwill tour, was struck by a mine and sank in Havana harbour, with the loss of 260 lives.

1922 The first session of the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague was held.

1942 Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces.

1969 G Edwards of the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge, England, made the first in vitro fertilization of human egg cells.

1971 Britain adopted the decimal currency system.

1974 The battle for the strategic Golan Heights between Israeli and Syrian forces began.

1978 Mohammad Ali lost his world heavyweight boxing title to Leon Spinks in Las Vegas.

1978 In cricket, New Zealand beat England in a Test match for the first time, after 48 years of matches.

1981 For the first time, English Football League matches were played on a Sunday.

1995 A football match between the English and Irish national teams in Dublin, Ireland was cancelled midway through the first half after English fans began rioting.

Births

1519 Pedro Menendez de Avilés, Spanish navigator

1564 Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer

1929 Graham Hill, British racing driver

1931 Claire Bloom, English actress

1951 Jane Seymour, English actress

Deaths

1781 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German author

1857 Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, Russian composer

1928 Herbert Henry Asquith, British statesman

1965 Nat King Cole, US singer and musician

1984 Ethel Merman, US singer and actress

[Raistlin]

Events

1659 The first British cheque was written.

1887 25,000 prisoners in India were released to celebrate Queen Victoria's jubilee.

1932 Irish general election won by Fianna Fáil party, led by Éamon de Valera.

1937 US scientist W H Carothers obtained a patent for nylon.

1940 The British navy rescued about 300 British seamen who were held on board the German ship Altmark, in a Norwegian fjord.

1959 Fidel Castro became president of Cuba.

1960 The US nuclear submarine Triton set off to circumnavigate the world underwater.

Births

1740 Giambattistsa Bodoni, Italian typographer

1822 Francis Galton, English scientist and founder of eugenics

1834 Ernst Haeckel, German naturalist and philosopher

1922 Geraint Evans, Welsh operatic baritone

1926 John Schlesinger, US film director

1959 John McEnroe, US tennis player

Deaths

1279 Alfonso III, King of Portugal

1823 Pierre-Paul Prudhon, French painter

1834 Lionel Lukin, English inventor of the lifeboat

1892 Henry Walter Bates, English naturalist and explorer

1957 Leslie Hore-Belisha, British politician who introduced driving tests and the Highway Code

[Raistlin]

Births

1653 Arcangelo Corelli, Italian composer

1766 Thomas Malthus, English economist

1902 Marian Anderson, US operatic contralto

1929 Yassir Arafat, Palestinian leader

1934 Barry Humphries, Australian actor and creator of 'Dame Edna Everidge'

1934 Alan Bates, English actor

Deaths

1405 Tamerlane the Great, Mongol leader

1673 Molière, French dramatist

1856 Heinrich Heine, German poet

1909 Geronimo, Apache leader

1980 Graham Sutherland, English painter

1982 Lee Strasburg, US actor

1982 Thelonious Monk, US jazz pianist

Events

1461 Battle of St Albans.

1859 First production of Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera, in Rome.

1864 The first successful submarine torpedo attack took place when the USS Housatonic was sunk by the Confederate submarine Hunley in Charleston harbour; however, the force of the explosion was so great that the submarine itself was also blown up, killing all on board.

1880 An attempt was made to assassinate the Russian tsar Alexander II with a bomb at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg.

1904 First production of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, in Milan.

1958 The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was formed in London.

1968 French skier Jean-Claude Killy won three gold medals at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

1972 The House of Commons voted in favour of Britain joining the Common Market.

1989 Leaders of Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania formed a new economic bloc called Arab Maghreb Union.

1995 Peru and Ecuador signed a pact ending three weeks of armed clashes over a remote stretch of their long-disputed border, but the two parties both continued to claim sovereignty over the contested territory.

[Bizarra]

Correction?

"1864 The first successful submarine torpedo attack took place when the USS Housatonic was sunk by the Confederate submarine Hunley in Charleston harbour; however, the force of the explosion was so great that the submarine itself was also blown up, killing all on board."

History

The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was developed as a working device. The earliest description is found in the works of Syrian engineer Hassan al-Rammah in 1275. He described various kinds of incendiary arrows and lances, and illustrated what has been supposed to be a torpedo, which al-Rammah called "the egg which moves itself and burns", with the text suggesting that it was intended to move on the surface of water.[1]

Before the invention of the self-propelled torpedo the term was applied to any number of different types of explosive devices, generally having the property of being secret or hidden, including devices which today would include booby traps, land mines and naval mines.

[Raistlin]

Correction?

"1864 The first successful submarine torpedo attack took place when the USS Housatonic was sunk by the Confederate submarine Hunley in Charleston harbour; however, the force of the explosion was so great that the submarine itself was also blown up, killing all on board."

History

The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was developed as a working device. The earliest description is found in the works of Syrian engineer Hassan al-Rammah in 1275. He described various kinds of incendiary arrows and lances, and illustrated what has been supposed to be a torpedo, which al-Rammah called "the egg which moves itself and burns", with the text suggesting that it was intended to move on the surface of water.[1]

Before the invention of the self-propelled torpedo the term was applied to any number of different types of explosive devices, generally having the property of being secret or hidden, including devices which today would include booby traps, land mines and naval mines.

The key word was successful...

[Bizarra]

Correction?

"1864 The first successful submarine torpedo attack took place when the USS Housatonic was sunk by the Confederate submarine Hunley in Charleston harbour; however, the force of the explosion was so great that the submarine itself was also blown up, killing all on board."

History

The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was developed as a working device. The earliest description is found in the works of Syrian engineer Hassan al-Rammah in 1275. He described various kinds of incendiary arrows and lances, and illustrated what has been supposed to be a torpedo, which al-Rammah called "the egg which moves itself and burns", with the text suggesting that it was intended to move on the surface of water.[1]

Before the invention of the self-propelled torpedo the term was applied to any number of different types of explosive devices, generally having the property of being secret or hidden, including devices which today would include booby traps, land mines and naval mines.

The key word was successful...

True!

But the text didn't say that the more ancient ones weren't

Nothing new under the Sun

[Raistlin]

1564 - The artist Michelanglelo died in Rome.

1685 - Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, and thus formed the basis for France's claim to Texas.

1735 - The first opera performed in America. The work was "Flora" (or "Hob in the Well") was presented in Charleston, SC.

1841 - The first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11th.

1861 - In Montgomery, AL, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States.

1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published in the U.S. for the first time.

1913 - The famous French painting "Nude Descending a Staircase", by the French artist, Marcel Duchamp, was displayed at an "Armory Show" in New York City.

1930 - Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane.

1930 - The planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. The discovery was made as a result of photographs taken in January 1930.

1932 - Sonja Henie won her 6th world women’s figure skating title in Montreal, Canada.

1938 - "The Big Broadcast of 1938" was released.

1949 - "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" debuted on CBS radio.

1952 - Greece and Turkey became members of NATO.

1953 - "Bwana Devil" opened. It was the first three-dimensional feature.

1953 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the "I Love Lucy" TV show through 1955.

1964 - "Any Wednesday" opened at the music Box Theatre in New York City. The play established Gene Hackman as an actor.

1970 - The Chicago Seven defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention.

1972 - The California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty.

1977 - The space shuttle Enterprise went on its maiden "flight" sitting on top of a Boeing 747.

1984 - Reed Larson (Detroit Red Wings) got two assists to become the highest scoring, American-born player in the history of the National Hockey League. Larson broke the record by scoring his 432nd point.

1987 - The executives of the Girl Scout movement decided to change the color of the scout uniform from the traditional Girl Scout green to the newer Girl Scout blue.

1998 - In Russia, money shortages resulted in the shutting down of three plants that produced nuclear weapons.

1998 - In Nevada, two white separatists were arrested and accused of plotting a bacterial attack on subways in New York City.

2000 - The U.S. Commerce Department reported a deficit in trade goods and services of $271.3 billion for 1999. It was the largest calender-year trade gap in U.S. history.

2001 - NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the Daytona 500 race.

2001 - FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

2003 - In South Korea, at least 120 people were killed when a man lit a fire on a subway train.

2006 - American Shani Davis won the men's 1,000-meter speedskating in Turin. He was the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history.

[Raistlin]

1807 - Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was later tried and acquitted on charges of treason.

1846 - The formal transfer of government between Texas and the United States took place. Texas had officially become a state on December 29, 1845.

1856 - The tintype camera was patented by Professor Hamilton L. Smith.

1864 - The Knights of Pythias was founded in Washington, DC. A dozen members formed what became Lodge No. 1.

1878 - Thomas Alva Edison patented a music player (the phonograph).

1881 - Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1922 - Ed Wynn became the first big-name, vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent.

1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans.

1942 - The New York Yankees announced that they would admit 5,000 uniformed servicemen free to each of their home ball games during the coming season.

1942 - Approximately 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the Australian city of Darwin.

1945 - During World War II, about 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima.

1949 - Bollingen Foundation and Yale University awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry ($5,000) to Ezra Pound.

1953 - The State of Georgia approved the first literature censorship board in the U.S. Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation.

1959 - Cyprus was granted its independence with the signing of an agreement with Britain, Turkey and Greece.

1963 - The Soviet Union informed U.S. President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of its troops in Cuba.

1981 - The U.S. State Department call El Savador a "textbook case" of a Communist plot.

1981 - Ford Motor Company announced its loss of $1.5 billion.

1985 - Mickey Mouse was welcomed to China as part of the 30th anniversary of Disneyland. The touring mouse played 30 cities in 30 days.

1985 - William Schroeder became the first artificial-heart patient to leave the confines of the hospital.

1985 - Cherry Coke was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company.

1986 - The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification.

1986 - The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.

1987 - A controversial, anti-smoking publice service announcement aired for the first time on television. Yul Brynner filmed the ad shortly before dying of lung cancer. Brynner made it clear in the ad that he would have died from cigarette smoking before ad aired.

1997 - Deng Xiaoping of China died at the age of 92. He was the last of China's major revolutionaries.

1999 - Dennis Franz received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 - The museum at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center was dedicated.

2002 - NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft began using its thermal emission imaging system to map Mars.

2004 - Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader's collapse. Skilling was later convicted and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

2005 - The USS Jimmy Carter was commissioned at Groton, CT. It was the last of the Seawolf class of attack submarines.

2008 - Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency. His brother Raul was later named as his successor.

[Bizarra]

1986 - The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification.

Hah! Do they intend activating it any day soon?

[Raistlin]

1986 - The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification.

Hah! Do they intend activating it any day soon?

Whats the rush....