Wednesday, November 30, 2011

30th of November

It is the 334th day of the year with only 31 days remaining.

1803 - In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative.  Almost 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1864 - At the Battle of Franklin, the Army of Tennessee led by General John Bell Hood mounts a dramatically unsuccessful frontal assault on Union positions commanded by John McAllister Schofield.  Hood would lose six general and almost one-third of his troops.

1902 - Second-in-command of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang. Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labor.

1908 - A mine explosion in the mining town of Marianna, Pennsylvania kills 154 people.

1934 - The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman, becomes the first to officially exceed 100 miles per hour.

1940 - Actress Lucille Ball marries Desi Arnaz in Greenwich, Connecticut.

1942 - Battle of Tassafaronga occurs, when a smaller squadron of Japanese destroyers led by Raizo Tanaka defeats a US cruiser force under Carleton H. Wright.

2954 - In Sylacauga, Alabama, the Hodges Meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap in the only documented case of a human being hit by a rock from space.

1966 - Barbados claims its independence from the United Kingdom.

1972 - White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler tells the press that there will be no more public announcements concerning troop withdrawals from Vietnam due to the fact that troop levels are now down to 27,000.

1982 - Michael Jackson's Thriller, the best-selling album of all time, is released.

1995 - This officially marks the end of Operation Desert Storm.

1998 - Exxon and Mobil sign a $73.7 billion agreement to merge, thus creating the world's largest company, Exxon-Mobil.

2004 - Longtime Jeopardy! champion, Ken Jennings of Salt Lake City, Utah finally loses, leaving him with $2,530,700, television's biggest game show winnings.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

29th of November

It is the 333rd day of the year. with only 32 days remaining until the end of the year.

1777 - San Jose, California is founded as Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe.  It is the first civilian settlement in Alta California.

1781 - The crew of the British slave ship Zong, murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea in order to claim insurance.

1864 - Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants inside Colorado Territory.  It is known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.

1890 - At West Point, New York, the Naval Academy defeats the Military Academy by a score of 24 to 0 in the first Army-Navy football game.

1910 - The first U.S. patent for inventing the traffic light system is issued to Ernest E. Sirrine.

1922 - After a long and arduous journey, Howard Carter decides to open the tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun to the public.

1929 - U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd, becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.

1934 - The Chicago Bears defeat the Detroit Lions 19 to 16, in the first nationally broadcast game.

1961 - Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission occurs, and Enos, a chimpanzee is launched into space.  The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico.

1963 - President Lyndon B. Johnson, establishes the Warren Commission in order to investigate the assassination of JFK.

1972 - Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari, releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game, in Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.

Monday, November 28, 2011

28th of November

It is the 332nd day of the year, with only 33 days remaining until the end of the year.

1095 - On the last day of the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II decides to appoint Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse to lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land.

1582 - In Straford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a 40 pound bond for their marriage license.

1729 - Natchez Indians massacre 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.

1814 - The Times, in London, is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Keonig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.

1862 - In the Battle of Cane Hill, Union troops under General John Blunt defeat General John Marmaduke's Confederates.

1895 - The first American automobile race takes place over 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois.  Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.

1919 - Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  She is the first woman to sit on the House of Commons.

1943 - President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, meet in Tehran, Iran to discuss war strategy.

1984 - Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States.

1991 - South Ossetia declares independence from Georgia.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

27th of November

Today is the 331st day of the year, with only 34 days remaining until the new year.

176 - Emperor Marcus Aurelius grants his son Commodus, the rank of Imperator and makes him Supreme Commander of the Roman Legions.

1095 - Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1863 - Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan, and several of his men escape the Ohio Penitentiary and return safely to the South.

1868 - United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land.

1895 - At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, France, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies.

1901 - The United States Army War College is established.

1924 - In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

1934 - Bank robber Baby Face Nelson, dies in a shootout with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1954 - Alger Hiss is released from prison after serving 44 months for perjury.

1963 - President Lyndon Johnson makes his first address to Congress after the death of John F. Kennedy five days prior.

1965 - The Pentagon tells Lyndon B. Johnson, that if planned operations are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.

1978 - In San Francisco, California city mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.

2005 - The first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

26th of November

It is the 330th day of the year and there are only 35 days remaining.

1476 - Vlad III of Dracula defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.

1778 - In the Hawaiian island, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.

1789 - A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

1825 - At Union College in Schenectady, New York, a group of college students form Kappa Alpha Society, the first college social fraternity.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday.  Since 1941, on the fourth Thursday.

1917 - The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas are the first teams.

1922 - Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people the enter the tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamn in over 3000 years.

1922 - Toll of the Sea, debts as the first general release film, to use two-tone Technicolor.

1944 - A German V-2 rocket hits Woolworth's shop on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing a total of 168 shoppers.

1968 - United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming, rescues an Army Special Force unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire.  He will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

1983 - In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly 26 million pounds, are stolen from the Brinks-MAT vault at Heathrow Airport.

Friday, November 25, 2011

25th of November

Today is the 329th day of the year, with 36 days remaining until the new year.

1667 - A deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people.

1703 - The greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reaches its peak intensity.  Winds gust up to 120 mph and 9,000 people die.

1758 - British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control.  Fort Pitt is built nearby and it grows into modern day Pittsburgh.

1783 - The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

1839 - A cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa.  The storm sweeps inland taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people.  It is estimated that 300,000 deaths result from this disaster.

1864 - A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan starts fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City.

1876 - In retaliation for the Battle of Little Bighorn, Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.

1940 - Marks the first flight of the deHavilland Mosquito and the Martin B-26 Marauder.

1947 - The Hollywood Ten are blacklisted by the movie studios.  They include Herbert J. Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Thomas, and Alvah Bessie.

1963 - President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery where his eternal flame will burn and have thousands of people visit the site every year.

1975 - Suriname gains its independence from the Netherlands.

1984 - 36 top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio to record Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

1987 - Typhoon Nina pummels the Phillipines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that destroys entire villages.  At least 1,036 deaths are attributed to the storm.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

24th of November

It is the 328th day of the year, with only 37 days remaining until the new year.

1835 - The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers.

1859 - Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of what is sometimes called, Evolution Day.

1864 - Near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces under U.S. Grant capture Lookout Mountain and begin to break the Confederate siege of the city led by General Braxton Bragg.

1932 - In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory officially opens.

1943 - The USS Liscome Bay, is torpedoed near Tarawa and sinks, killing 650 men.

1944 - The first bombing raid against the Japanese capital of Tokyo, from the east and by land is carried out by 88 American aircraft.

1950 - A violent snowstorm, paralyzes the northeastern United States and the Appalachians, bringing winds up to 100 mph and sub-zero temperatures.  Pickens, West Virginia alone, records 57 inches of snow, and 323 people die as a result of this storm.

1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald is murdered by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police department headquarters.  The shooting just happens to be broadcast on live television.

1969 - The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the mission and declaring it a success.

1971 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself D. B. Cooper, parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in random money.  He has never been found.

1974 - Donald Johanson and Tom Gray, discover the 40% complete, Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed Lucy, in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

23rd of November

It is the 327th day of the year with only 38 day remaining.

1499 - Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.  He had invaded England two years earlier, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV.

1863 - The Battle of Chattanooga begins, while Union forces led by General U.S. Grant reinforce troops to counter-attack the Confederates.

1876 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader Willaim Magear "Boss" Tweed, is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.

1889 - The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Franciso, California.

1936 - The first edition of Life magazine is published.

1943 - Two important atolls, Tarawa and Makin, fall to american forces.

1963 - The BBC broadcasts the first ever episode of Doctor Who, which is the world's longest running science fiction drama.

1976 - Apneist Jacques Mayol, is the first man to reach a depth of 100 meters undersea without breathing equipment.

1980 - A series of earthquakes in South Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.

1990 - The first all woman expedition to the South Pole, consisting of 3 Americans, 1 Japanese, and 12 Russians, sets off from Antarctica on the 1st leg of a 70 day, 1287 kilometer ski trek.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

22nd of November

It is the 326th day of the year, with only 39 day remaining until the end of the year.

1718 - Off the coast of North Carolina, British pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, is killed in battle with a boarding party led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

1858 - The city of Denver, Colorado is founded.

1864 - Confederate General John Bell Hood invades Tennessee in an unsuccessful attempt to draw Union General William T. Sherman from Georgia.

1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched.  It is one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving today.

1942 - During the Battle for Stalingrad, General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is completely surrounded.

1943 - Lebanon gains its independence from France.

1963 - In Dallas, Texas, U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded.  Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is later captured and charged with the murder of police officer J.D. Tippit.  Oswald is shot two days later by Jack Ruby while in police custody.

1969 - In American football, the University of Michigan upsets Ohio State University, 24 to 12.  It is Bo Scembechler's first season as Michigan's head coach and will set off the 10-year war between he and Woody Hayes.

1986 - Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Bercik, to become the youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history.

1988 - In Palmdale, California, the first prototype B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is revealed.

1995 - Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

2005 - Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany.

Monday, November 21, 2011

21st of November

It is the 325th day of the year, with only 40 days remaining.

164 BC - Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem.  This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.

1620 - Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact.

1789 - North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.

1861 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis, appoints Judah Benjamin his Secretary of War.

1877 - Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can play and record sound.

1905 - Albert Einstein's paper is finally published by the Annalen der Physik.   It reveals the relationship between energy and mass, leading to the equivalence formula E=mc².

1920 - In Dublin, 31 people are killed in what became known as "Bloody Sunday."  This included fourteen British informants, fourteen Irish civilians, and three Irish Republican Army prisoners.

1922 - Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.

1970 - A joint Air Force and Army team raids the Son Tay prison camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there, in what is known a Operation Ivory Coast.

1980 - A deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada, now Bally's Las Vegas.  87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.

1985 - United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations.  He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

1986 - National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents implicating them in the sale of weapon to Iran an channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

20th of November

It is the 324th day of the year, with only 41 days remaining until the end of the year.

1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, two thousand miles from the western coast of South America.  This event partially inspired the novel Moby Dick.

1943 - The Battle of Tarawa begins, when United States Marines, land on the atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore and machine guns.

1945 - Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg, Germany.

1962 - In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean antion.

1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

1992 - In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, damaging the structure and causing over 50 million pounds worth of damage.

1998 - The first module of the International Space Station, known as Zarya, is launched.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

19th of November

Today is the 323rd day of the year with only 42 days remaining.

1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land begins.

1794 - The United States and kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty.  This attempts to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the military cemetery
ceremony in Pennylvania.

1916 - Samuel Goldwyn and Edger Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.

1930 - Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow commit their first robbery, the first in a long series of criminal acts.

1943 - Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration cap in Lemberg, western Ukraine.  They murder at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.

1944 - Franklin Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling $14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.

1950 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe.

1959 - The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel automobile.

1969 - Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the moon.

1969 - Soccer player Pele, scores his 1,000th goal.

1985 - In Geneva, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

1985 - Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion judgment against Texaco, in the largest verdict in history, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.

1990 - Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing on the Girl You Know It's True album.  Sessions musicians had provided all the vocals.

1998 - The United States Hose of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton.

1998 - Vincent van Gogh's, Potrait of the Artist Without Beard, sells at auction for $71.5 million.

Friday, November 18, 2011

18th of November

It is the 322nd day of the year, with only 43 days remaining until the new year.

1307 - It is estimated that William Tell shoots an apple off of his son's head.

1421 - A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding nearly 72 village and killing about 10,000 people.  This event will become known as the Sint-Elisabethsvloed.

1493 - Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico.

1730 - Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, is granted a royal pardon and released from confinement.

1865 - Mark Twain's short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, is published in the New York Saturday Post.

1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.

1928 - It is the release of animated short, Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sounds cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.  It features the third appearance of cartoon characters Mickey and Minne Mouse.  It is the former's official birthday.

1943 - During the Battle of Berlin, 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb the city, causing only light damage and killing 131.  The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 crew.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy decides to send 18,000 military advisers to South Vietnam.

1963 - The first push button telephone goes into service.

1987 - U.S. Congress issues its final report on the Iran-Contra affair.

1988 - President Ronald Reagan, signs a bill into legislation allowing the death penalty for drug traffickers.

1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 people are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University.  The 59-foot-tall Aggie Bonfire, under construction for the annual football game against the University of Texas, collapses at 2:42 AM.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

17th of November

Today is the 321st day of the year and there are only 44 days remaining.

284 - Diocletian is proclaimed Emperor by his troops, and would rule Rome for over 20 years.

1603 - English explorer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.

1777 - The Articles of Confederation are submitted to the states for ratification.

1800 - The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.

1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctia, a nearby Peninsula will later be named after him.

1856 - On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired by the Gadsdan Purchase.

1863 - Confederate forces led by General James Longstreet place the city of Knoxville, Tennessee under siege.

1869 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal is inaugurated, and now links the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.

1871 - The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.

1911 - The Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the first African-American fraternity at an historically black ocollege or university, is founded at Howard University.

1947 - The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.

1962 - President Kennedy dedicates the Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.

1970 - Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.

1970 - Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.

1973 - In Orlando, Florida, President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors, "I am not a crook."

1982 - Duk Koo Kim, dies unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, Nevada, prompting reforms for the sport of boxing.

2004 - Kmart Corporation, announces that it is buying Sears, Roebuck, and Company for an estimated $11 billion and naming the newly merged company Sears Holding Corporation.

2007 - Brian May, guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Queen, is appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.  He is also an avid astrophysicist.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

16th of November

It is the 319th day of the year, with only 45 days remaining.

1821 - Missuori trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Sante Fe Trail.

1863 - During the Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee, Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.

1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory are joined together to become the 46th U.S. state, Oklahoma.

1938 - LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.

1940 - In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1943 - American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.

1945 - In operation Papercilip, the United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.

1973 - President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.

2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

15th of November

It is the 318th day of the year, with only 46 days remaining until the new year.

1532 - Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Inca leader Atahualpa for the first time, arranging a meeting on the city plaza the following day.

1533 - Francisco Pizzaro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Incan Empire.

1791 - The first U.S. Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.

1859 - The first modern revival of the Olympic Games takes place in Athens, Greece.

1864 - Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, burns Atlanta, Georgia and begins his famous March to the Sea.

1920 - First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva, Switzerland.

1939 - In Washington, D.C., Franklin Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

1942 - This marks the first flight of the Heinkel He 219, German aircraft.

1943 - German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put on the same level as Jews and sent to concentration camps.

1949 - Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Ghandi.

1968 - The U.S. Air Force launches Operation Commando Hunt, a large-scale bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail.

1969 - In Columbus, Ohio, Dave Thomas opens the first Wendy's restaurant.

1971 - Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

2007 - Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroyed the world's largest mangrove forest, Sundarbans.

Monday, November 14, 2011

14th of November

Today is the 318th day of the year, with only 47 days remaining.

1533 - Conquistadors from Spain, under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro arrive in Cajamarca, Inca Empire.

1770 - James Bruce discovers what he believes to the source of the Nile.

1862 - President Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.  It leads to the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1910 - Aviator Eugene Ely performs the first take off from a ship in Hampton Roads, Virginia.  He took of from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.

1965 - The Battle of Ia Drang begins, it is the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.

1969 - NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface off the moon.

1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

13th of November

Today is the 317th day of the year with 48 days remaining.

It has often been observed as the "Day of Love" as it is regarded as the day soulmates come together.

1841 - James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject of hypnotism.

1927 - The Holland Tunnel opens to traffic as the first Hudson River vehicle tunnel linking New Jersey to New York City.

1947 - Russia completes, its now famous, AK-47, one of the first proper assault rifles.

1956 - The United States Supreme Court declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1982 - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.

1985 - The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts and melts a glaciar, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that birues Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

12th of November

It is the 316th day of the year with only 49 days remaining.

1439 - Plymouth, England becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

1847 - Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic.

1892 - William Pudge Heffelfinger, becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for the Allegheny Athletic Association.

1927 - Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1933 - Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster.

1944 - The Royal Air Force launches 29 Avro Lancaster bombers and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz, with 12,000 pounds of Tallboy bombs off of Tromsa, Norway.

1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal, sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including Hideki Tojo, to death.

1969 - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.

1980 - The NASA space probe Voyager I, makes its closest approach to Saturn and takes the first images of its rings.

1998 - U.S. Vice President Al Gore, signs the Kyoto Protocol, aimed to fight global warming.

2003 - Shanghai Transrapid sets up a new world speed record of 311 mph for commercial railway systems.

Friday, November 11, 2011

11th of November

Today is the 315th day of te year, with 50 days remaining until the end of the year.

1675 - Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus, for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f (x).

1831 - Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent uprising of slaves.

1839 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.

1864 - General William T. Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.

1889 - Washington is admitted to the United States as the 42nd state.

1918 - Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiegne, France.  The fighting ends at 11:00 AM and this is honored with a two-minute silence.  The war officially ends when the Treaty of Versailles is signed the next year.

1926 - U.S. Route 66 is established.

1930 - Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.

1968 - Operation Commando Hunt is initiated.  The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.

1972 - The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

10th of November

It is the 314th day of the year with only 51 days remaining.

1619 - Rene Descartes has the dreams that eventually inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy.

1775 - The United States Marine Corp is founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, by Samuel Nicholas.

1865 - Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged.  He becomes the only American Civil War solider executed for war crimes.

1871 - Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika.  He famously greets him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1944 - The ammunition ship USS Mount Hood, explodes at Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands, killing at least 432 and wounding 371 individuals.

1951 - Direct dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicates the Iwo Jima memorial or the USMC War Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

1958 - The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by merchant Harry Winston from New York.

1970 - For the first time in five years, an entire week ends with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia.

1971 - In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city of Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine aircraft.

1997 - WorldCom and MCI Communication announce a $37 billion merger, the largest in U.S. history at the time.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

9th of November

It is the 313th day of the year with only 52 days remaining until the end of the year.

694 - Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims, sentencing all Jews to slavery.

1494 - The famous Family de Medici, are expelled from the city of Florence, Italy.

1620 - Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, sight land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

1862 - Union General Ambrose Burnside assumes command of the Army of the Potomac.

1888 - Jack the Ripper kills Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

1906 - Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President to make an official trip outside the country.  He went to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.

1938 - Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, dies from the fatal gunshot wounds of Jewish resistance fighter Herschel Grynszpan, an act which the Nazis used as an excuse to instigate the national pogrom, known as Kristallnacht.

1960 - Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Company, he leaves a month later to become Secretary of Defense.

1963 - At Miike coal mine in Japan, an explosion kills 458, and hospitalizes 839 with carbon monoxide poison.

1967 - The first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published.

1998 - Capital punishment in the United Kingdom is completely abolished for all crimes.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

8th of November

Today is the 312th day of the year, with only 53 days remaining until the new year.

1519 - Hernan Cortez enter Tenochtitlan and Aztec ruler Moctezuma, welcomes him with a great celebration.

1793 - In Paris, the French Revolutionary government opens the Louvre, to the public as a museum.

1861 - The USS San Jacinto, stops the United Kingdom mail ship Trent, and arrests two Confederate envoys, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the two nations.

1889 - Montana is admitted as the 41st state to the United States.

1895 - While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Rontgen discovers the x-ray.

1917 - The People's Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin.

1923 - In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government, known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

1933 - Franklin Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

1939 - In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.

1950 - United States Air force Lt. Russell J. Brown while piloting an F-80 Shooting Star, shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.

1960 - John F. Kennedy defeats Richard M. Nixon, in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century to become the 35th President of the United States.

1965 - The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War.

1966 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke, becomes the first African-American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.

1966 - President Lyndon Johnson signs into law, an antitrust exemption, allowing the National Football League to merge with the American Football league.

1973 - The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay $2.9 million.

2004 - More than 10,000 United States troops and a small number of Iraqi army units, participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

Monday, November 7, 2011

7th of November

Today is the 311th day of the year, with only 54 days remaining until the new year.

1665 - The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published.

1775 - John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters in order to fight with him and the British government.

1811 - The Battle of Tippecanoe is fought, near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana.

1874 - A cartoon by Tomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, is considered the first important use of an elephant as a symbol for the United States Republican Party.

1908 - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia.

1910 - The first air freight shipment from Dayton, Ohio to Columbus, Ohio, is undertaken by the Wright Brothers and department store owner Max Moorehouse.

1916 - Jeannette Rankin is the first woman elected to the United States Congress.

1918 - An influenza epidemic, spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7,542 people by the end of the year, almost 20% of the population.

1933 - Fiorello H. La Guardia is elected the 99th mayor of New York City.

1941 - The Soviet hospital ship Armenia is sunk by German planes while evacuating refugees and wounded military and staff of several Crimean hospitals.  It is estimated that over 5,000 people perish.

1944 - President Franklin Roosevelt is elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States.

1967 - Carl B. Stokes, is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.  He becomes the first African-American major of a major American city.

1991 - Basketball player Magic Johnson, announces that he is infected with HIV and retires from the National Basketball Association.

2000 - The Drug Enforcement Administration, discovers one of the country's largest LSD labs, inside a converted military missile silo in Wamego, Kansas.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

6th of November

It is the 310th day of the year, with 55 days remaining until the end of the year.

1528 - Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, becomes the first known European to set foot in Texas.

1860 - Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th President of the United States.

1861 - Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.

1913 - Mohandas Gandhi, is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

1935 - Parker Brothers, acquire the forerunner patents for the Monopoly board game, from Elizabeth Magie.

1944 - Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility, and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

1963 - After the coup, General Duong Van Minh, takes over leadership of South Vietnam.

1971 - The United States Atomic Energy Commission, tests the largest underground hydrogen bomb, codenamed Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

5th of November

It is the 309th day of the year and there are only 56 days remaining.

1138 - Ly Anh Tong is enthroned as emperor of Vietnam at the age of two, starting a 37-year reign.

1605 - A conspiracy led by Robert Catesby to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is thwarted when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a just of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the House of Lords.

1831 - Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.

1862 - Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Union Army for the second and final time.

1862 - In Minnesota, 303 Dakota warriors are found guilty of rape and murder of whites, and are sentenced to hang.  38 are executed and the rest are reprieved.

1872 - In defiance of the law, Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is fined $100.

1895 - George B. Seldon is granted the first patent for an automobile.

1937 - Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "lebensraum" for the German people.

1970 - The United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years.  A total of twenty-four men.

2006 - Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti , and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for the role in the massacre of 148 Shi'as in 1982.

Friday, November 4, 2011

4th of November

It is the 308th day of the year, with only 57 days remaining until the new year.

1864 - Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material at the Battle of Johnsonville.

1921 - the Sturmabteilung or the SA a paramilitary group is formed by Adolf Hitler.

1922 - In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1942 - Disobeying a direct order from Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, leads his forces on a five-month retreat.

1952 - The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.

1960 - At the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania, Dr. Jane Goodall, observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first ever observation in non-human animals.

1970 - The United States turns control o the Binh Thu Ar Base in the Mekong Delta, over to South Vietnam.

1994 - First conference that focuses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.

2008 - Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

3rd of November

It is the 307th day of the year, with 58 days remaining.

1783 - The American Continental Army is disbanded.

1883 - Self-described Black Bart the poet, gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves a clue that eventually leads to his capture.

1911 - Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with Ford.

1913 - The United States introduces an income tax.

1918 - Austria-Hungary enters into an armistice with the Allies, and the Habsburg-ruled empire dissolves.

1943 - A total of 500 aircraft of the United States Air Force, devastate Wilhelmshafen harbor in Germany.

1957 - The Russians launch Sputnik 2, and on board is the first animal to enter orbit, a dog named Laika.

1964 - Washington, D.C. residents are allowed to vote in a presidential election for the first time.

1967 - The Battle of Dak To begins, during the conflict in Vietnam.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

2nd of November

Today is the 306th day of the year, with 59 days remaining until the new year.

1783 - In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, General George Washington gives his "Farewell Address to the Army."

1889 - North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th states in the United States.

1920 - KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station, stating the results of the presidential election.

1947 - In California, designer Howard Hughes, performs the only flight of the Spruce Goose of H-4 The Hercules, the largest fixed wing aircraft ever built.

1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup.

1965 - Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon, to protect the use o napalm in the Vietnam war.

1984 - Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

1st of November

Today is the 305th day of the year and there are only 60 days remaining.

1512 - The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

1520 - The Strait of Magellan is discovered, the passage immediately south of mainland South America, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, is first navigated by Ferdinand Magellan during the first global circumnavigation voyage.

1604 - William Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello, is presented for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London.

1755 - Lisbon, Portugal is destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty and ninety thousand people.

1765 - The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the thirteen colonies, in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.

1800 - John Adams, becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion.

1859 - The current Cape lookout, North Carolina lighthouse, is lit for the first time.  Its first order Fresnel lens cane be seen for about 19 miles in good conditions.

1861 - Abraham Lincoln replaces General Winfield Scott, with George B. McClellan as the commander of the Union Army.

1870 - The Weather Bureau, later renamed the National Weather Service, makes its first official meteorological forecast.

1897 - The first Library of Congress building opened its doors to the public.

1911 - The first dropping of a bomb from an airplane in combat, during the Italo-Turkish War.

1915 - Parris Island is officially designated a United States Marine Corp Recruit Depot.

1943 - In support of the landings on Bougainville by the 3rd Marine Division, United States carrier forces attack the huge Japanese base on Rabaul.

1951 - Operation Buster-Jangle occurs.  6,500 American soldiers are exposed to "desert rock" atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada.  Participation is not voluntary.

1952 - The U.S. successfully detonates the first large hydrogen bomb, codenamed Mike in the Eniwetok atoll, located in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean.  The explosion had a yield of 10 megatons.  It is called Operation Ivy.

1959 - Montreal Canadiens goaltender, Jacques Plante, wears a protective mask for the first time in NHL history.

1968 - The Motion Picture Association of America's film rating system is officially introduced, and originating with the ratings of G, M, R, and X.

1981 - Antigua and Barbuda, gain independence from the United Kingdom.

1982 - Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of their factory in Marysville, Ohio.  The Honda Accord is the first car produced there.

1993 - The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.