Thursday, July 19, 2012

19th of July

It is the 200th day of the year, with only 165 days remaining until the end of the year.

64 - Known as the Great Fire of Rome, a fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control.  According to a popular, but untrue legend, Nero fiddled as the city burned.

1701 - Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.

1863 - At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.

1919 - Following Peace Day celebrations, marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen riot and burn down Luton Town Hall.

1942 - German Grand Admiral Karl Donitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.

1963 - Joe Walker, flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 347,800 feet (106,010 meters).  The flight qualifies as a human spaceflight.

1981 - In a private meeting with President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister Francois Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had beenstealing American technological research and development.

1983 - The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

18th of July

It is the 199th day of the year with on;y 166 days remaining.

390 BC - A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.

362 AD - Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force of 60,000 men, and stays there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.

1863 - At the Battle of Fort Wagner, the first formal engagement of the 54th Massachusetts, an African-American military, fails in their assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.

1925 - Adolph Hitler publishes his personal manifesto, Mein Kampf.

1942 - The German test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.

1944 - Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan, due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.

1968 - The Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California.

1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

17th of July

It is the 198th day of the year and only 167 days are remaining.

1717 - King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.

1771 - Known as the Bloody Falls Massacre, Chipewyan Chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on is Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

1918 - On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

1918 - The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors of the Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55, 5 lives are lost.

1944 - Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lo, France.

1955 - Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1989 - It is the first flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

1998 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183 leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.

Monday, July 16, 2012

16th of July

It is the 197th day of the year, with only 168 days remaining.

1769 - Father Junipero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcala.  Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego.

1782 - It is the first performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.

1861 - At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862 - David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in the United States Navy to hold the rank.

1935 - The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a Major League Baseball record.

1942 - The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup occurs, as the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

1945 - The leaders of the three Allied nations, Winston Churchill (then Clement Atlee), Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of Germany.

1945 - The Heavy Cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.  This would be the last time the Indianapolis would be seen by the mainland, she would be torpedoed, two weeks later.

1945 - The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1951 - The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.

1956 - Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus closes its very last "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, due to changing economics all subsequent shows will be held in arenas.

1957 - United States Marine major John Glenn, flies a F8U Crusader supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8 seconds.  He set a new transcontinental record.

1960 - The USS George Washington, a modified Skipjack class submarine, successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged.

1969 - Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1999 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.  His wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

15th of July

It is the 196th day of the year, with only 169 days remaining.

1799 - The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard the HMS Bellerophon.

1870 - Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1910 - In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.

1916 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products.

1966 - The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the DMZ.

1997 - In Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan guns down Gianni Versace outside his home.

2002 - Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and life terms to three others suspected of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2003 - AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape Communications Corporation.  The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

14th of July

It is the 195th day of the year, with 170 days remaining.

1798 - The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false of malicious statements about the United States government.

1865 - the first ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper and party, four of whom die on the descent.

1911 - Harry Atwood, an exhibition pilot for the Wright Brothers lands his airplane at the South Lawn of the White House.  He is later awarded a Gold medal from President Taft for his feat.

1960 - Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees.

1969 - The United States $500, $1000, $5000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.

2003 - In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an article critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak reveals that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, is a CIA operative.

Billy the Kid - The American Old West outlaw, is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner.

Friday, July 13, 2012

13th of July

It is the 194th day of the year, with only 171 days remaining until the new year.

1863 - In New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting, which will later be regarded as the worst in U.S. history.

1923 - The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Los Angeles, It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.

1985 - The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London an Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow.

1990 - An earthquake with its epicentre in Afghanistan, when an avalanche kills 43 climbers in Camp I on Pik Lenina, Tajikistan.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

12th of July

It is the 193rd day of the year, with only 172 days remaining.

1804 - Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.

1862 - The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.

1962 - The Rolling Stones perform their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

2007 - U.S. Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq.  Footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

11th of July

It is the 192nd day of the year, with only 173 days remaining until the new year.

1798 - The United States Marine Corps is re-established, they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

1804 - A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr, mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

1893 - The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.

1895 - The Lumiere brothers demonstrate film technology to scientists.

1914 - Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

1921 - Former President William Taft, is sworn in as the 10th Chief Justice.

1960 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.

1977 - Martin Luther King Jr., is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1979 - America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1987 - According to the United Nations, the world population crosses the 5,000,000,000 mark.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

10th of July

It is the 191st day of the year, with only 174 days remaining.

138 - Emperor Hadrian dies after a heart failure at Baiae, he is buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina.

1821 - The United States possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.

1890 - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature recorded in the U.S.

1925 - In Dayton, Tennessee, the so called "Monkey Trial" begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1938 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.

1962 - Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1973 - John Paul Getty III, grandson of the oil magnate, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.

1992 - In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 - In London, scientists report the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which support the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Reubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents, is sold for $76.2 million to Lord Thomson.

Monday, July 9, 2012

9th of July

It is the 190th day of the year, with only 175 days remaining until the new year.

1776 - George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence to be read out loud to members of the Continental Army in New York City for the first time.

1816 - Argentina declares independence from Spain.

1850 - Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.

1968 - The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified guaranteeing African-American full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.

1900 - The Governor of Shanxi province in North China orders the execution of 45 foreign Christian missionaries and local church members, including children.

1918 - In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express killing 101 and injuring 171 people.

1943 - Allied forces perform an amphibious invasion of Sicily known as Operation Husky.

1962 - Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans exhibition opens at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, California.

1979 - A car bomb destroys a Renault motor car owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France.  A note is purportedly from ODESSA claiming responsibility.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

8th of July

It is the 189th day of the year and there are only 176 days remaining.

1099 - 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.

1899 - The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published.

1947 - Reports are UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

1948 - The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits.

1960 - Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

1994 - Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father.

2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

7th of July

It is the 188th day of the year, with only 177 days remaining.

1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy, 25 years after her death.

1534 - It is the first known exchange between Europeans and natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in New Brunswick.

1846 - American troops occupy Montery and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the U.S. acquisition of California.

1863 - United States begins its first military draft, exemptions cost $300.

1865 - Four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln are hanged.  Those included Lewis Powell, David Harold, David Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt.

1930 - Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of the Hoover Dam.

1944 - The largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan during World War II.

1946 - Howard Hughes nearly dies, when his XF-11 spy plane prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

1954 - Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right."

1981 - President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court.

1983 - Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

1985 - Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at the age of 17.

Friday, July 6, 2012

6th of July

It is the 187th day of the year, with only 178 days remaining.

1189 - Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England.

1777 - After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1785 - The dollar is unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies.  The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

1933 - The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played in Chicago's Comiskey Park.  The American League defeats the National League, 4 to 2.

1942 - Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1944 - Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of the bus, leading to a court martial.

1947 - The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.

1957 - John Lennon and Paul McCartney are introduced to each other when Lennon's band The Quarrymen performs at the St. Peter's Church Hall fete in Woolton.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

5th of July

Today is the 186th day of the year, with only 179 days remaining until the new year.

1811 - Venezuela declares its independence from Spain.

1937 - Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1947 - Larry Doby signs a contract with the Cleveland Indians baseball team, becoming the first black player in the American League.

1989 - Oliver north is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service.  His convictions are later overturned.

1996 - Dolly the Sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

2009 - Roger Federer wins a record 15th Grand Slam title in tennis, winning a five set match against Andy Roddick at Wimbledon.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

4th of July

It is the 185th day of the year, with only 180 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Aphelion, the point in the year when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, occurs around this date.

1776 - The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

1802 - At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy opens.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.

1817 - At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.

1826 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President, dies the same day as John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

1855 - In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, titled Leaves of Grass is published.

1862 - Lewis Carroll tels Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.

1863 - Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses Grant after 47 days of siege.  150 miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.

1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published.

1886 - The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

1918 - Bolsheviks kills Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

1934 - Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1939 - Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" as he announces his retirement from major league baseball.

1960 - Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania almost ten and a half months later.

1969 - One male and one female are attacked at Blue Rock Springs in California.  They are the second victims of the Zodiac Killer.  The male survives.

2004 - The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

3rd of July

Today is the 184th day of the year, with only 181 days remaining until the new year.

1608 - Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 - George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.

1775 - George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1852 - Congress establishes the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco, California.

1863 - The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, culminates with Pickett's Charge, as Confederate forces walk across open ground toward Federal lines at the Copse of Tree on Cemetery Ridge.

1884 - Dow Jones and Company publishes its first stock average.

1886 - Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile.

1886 - the New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.

1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

1913 - Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion, reenact Pickett's Charge, upon reaching the high-water mark, they are met by outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

1938 - President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.

1969 - The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys the launchpad.

1988 - United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

Monday, July 2, 2012

2nd of July

It is the 183rd day of the year, with only 182 days remaining until the end of the year.

This day is the midpoint of the common year.  The exact time is at noon, or 12:00 PM for countries that use "Summer Time."  The actual exact time is at 1:00 PM, this is when 182 days 12 hours have elapsed and 182 days 12 hours are remaining.

1698 - Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.

1777 - Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from infection.

1897 - Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London, England.

1990 - The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1934 - The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Rohm.

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

1976 - It is the fall of the Republic of Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

1st of July

It is the 182nd day of the year, with only 183 days remaining until the end of the year.

1862 - The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place.  It is the final battle in the Seven Days Campaign, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.

1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg begins, with Union General John Buford engaging enemy forces.  The Union was collapsing, sending the defenders retreating through the city streets, taking up positions on the high ground outside Gettysburg.

1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.

1874 - The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale.

1898 - The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.

1908 - SOS is adopted as the international distress signal.

1915 - Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized gun-equipped fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.

1916 - On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.

1963 - ZIP codes are introduced for the United States mail.

1968 - Formal sepation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.

1979 - Sony introduces the Walkman.

1984 - The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA.

2002 - The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crimes of aggression.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

30th of June

It is the 181st day of the year, with only 184 days remaining until the end of the year.

1520 - Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.

1794 - Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.

1805 - Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.

1859 - French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1864 - President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort, and recreation."

1882 - Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of President James Garfield.

1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity.

1906 - Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.

1921 - President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the U.S.

1953 - The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls of the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

1960 - Congo gains its independence from Belgium.

1971 - Ohio ratifies the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect.

Friday, June 29, 2012

29th of June

It is the 180th day of the year, with only 185 days remaining.

1534 - Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island.

1889 - Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest United States city in area and second largest in population.

1914 - Jina Guseva attempts to assassinate Grigori Rasputin at his home town in Siberia.

1995 - The Sampoong Department store collapses in the Seochu-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937 people.

2006 - In Hamdan VS. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

28th of June

It is the 179th day of the year, with only 186 days remaining.

This date is the only date each year where both the month and day are different perfect numbers, June 6, being the only date where the month and day are the same perfect number.

1776 - Fort Moultrie is attacked during the Battle of Sullivan's Island, this event is commemorated in Carolina Day.

1776 - Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.

1846 - The saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax in Paris, France.

1865 - The Army of the Potomac is disbanded.

1894 - Labor Day becomes a US holiday.

1902 - Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.

1914 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by young Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the casus belli of World War I.

1919 = The Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending World War I, between Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, and allies on the one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other.

1942 - Nazi Germany started its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union codenamed Case Blue.

1948 - Boxer Dick Turpin beats Vince Hawkins at Villa Park in Birmingham to become the first black British boxing champion in the modern era.

1964 - Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

1989 - The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.  Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle, which is later interpreted as foreshadowing the Yugolav Wars.

1994 - Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin gas in Matsumoto, Japan, 7 persons are killed and 660 are injured.

1997 - Mike Tyson fights Evander Holyfield II, and Tyson is disqualified in the 3rd round for biting a piece of Holyfield's ear.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

27th of June

It is the 178th day of the year, with only 187 days remaining until the end of the year.

1844 - Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother, are murdered by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.

1898 - The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.

1923 - Captain Lowell H. Smith and Lieutenant John P, Richter perform the first ever aerial refueling in a DH-4B biplane.

1941 - Romanian governmental forces, launch one of the most violent pogroms in the city of Iasi, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.

1950 - The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.

1967 - The world's first ATM is installed in Enfield Town, England, United Kingdom.

1977 - France grants independence to Djibouti.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

26th of June

It is the 177th day of the year, with only 188 days remaining until the new year.

1541 - Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima, by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego Almagro.  Almagro is later both caught and executed.

1718 - Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him.

1917 - The first U.S. troops arrive in France to fight alongside Britain and France against Germany during World War I.

1918 - At the Battle for Belleau Wood - Allied forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

1927 - The famous Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island.

1936 - It is the initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.

1942 - It is the first flight of the American Grumman F6F Hellcat.

1960 - Madagascar gains its independence from France.

1974 - The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

Monday, June 25, 2012

25th of June

It is the 176th day of the year, with only 189 days remaining until the end of the year.

1788 - Virginia becomes the 10th state to ratify the Constitution.

1876 - Battle of the Little Bighorn, occurs.

1910 - Congress passes the Mann Act, which prohibits interstate transport of females for "immoral purposes," the ambiguous language would be used to selectively prosecute people for years to come.

1947 - The diary of Anne Frank is first published.

1948 - The Berlin airlift begins, by flying in and dropping much needed supplies to the residents of East Germany.

1949 - Long-Haired Hare, starring Bugs bunny, is released in theaters.

1960 - Two cryptographers working for the United States National Security Agency, left for vacation to Mexico, and from there defected to the Soviet Union.

1981 - Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

24th of June

Today is the 175th day of the year, with only 190 days remaining until the end of the year.

109 - Roman Emperor Trajan inaugurates the Aqua Traiana, an aqueduct that channels water from Lake Bracciano, 25 miles north-west of Rome.

1314 - The Battle of Bannockburn concludes with a decisive victory by Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce, though England did not recognize the Scottish independence until 14 years later, with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton.

1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.

1497 - John Cabot lands in North America at Newfoundland, leading the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.

1916 - Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million dollar contract.

1916 - The Battle of the Somme begins with a week-long artillery bombardment on the German Lines.

1938 - Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weight 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

1947 - Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.

1957 - In Roth VS. United States, the Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.

1982 - Known as the Jakarta Incident, British Airways Flight 9 flies into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines.

1985 - STS-51-G Space Shuttle Discovery completes its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and Muslim in space, as Payload Specialist.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

23rd of June

Today is the 174th day of the year, with only 191 days remaining.

1683 - William Penn signs a friendship treaty with the Leni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

1757 - 3,000 British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at the Battle of Plassey.

1810 - John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.

1865 - At Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army.

1894 - The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

1914 - Pancho Villa takes Zacatecas from Victoriano Huerta in the Mexican Revolution.

1917 - In a game against the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox pitcher Ernie Shore retires 26 batters in a row after replacing Babe Ruth, who had been ejected for punching the umpire.

1926 - The College Board administers the first SAT exam.

1942 - The first selections of gas chamber victims are made at Auschwitz.  Sadly, the take place on a train full of Jews from Paris.

1942 - Germany's latest fighter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.

1959 - Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.

1972 - President Richard Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.

Friday, June 22, 2012

22nd of June

It is the 173rd day of the year, with only 192 days remaining.

1633 - The Holy Office in Rome, forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe.

1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

1942 - Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the capture of Tobruk.

1944 - President Franklin Roosevelt signs into law the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, commonly known as the G.I. Bill.

1969 - The Cuyahoga River catches fire, triggering a crack-down on pollution in the river.

1990 - The famous Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

21st of June

It is the 172nd day of the year with only 193 days remaining until the end of the year.

On non-leap years, this day marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere.  It is the day of the year with the most hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere, and the least hours of daylight in the southern hemisphere.

1788 - New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution and is admitted as the 9th state in the United States.

1854 - The first Victoria Cross is awarded during the bombardment of Bomarsund in the Aland Islands.

1877 - The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants convicted of murder, are hanged at the Schuylkill County and Carbon County, Pennsylvania prisons.

1900 - China formally declared war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and Japan, as an edict issued from the Dowager Empress Cixi.

1919 - Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney.  The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of the War to End All Wars.

1948 - Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, New York.

1982 - John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

2004 - SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

20th of June

It is the 171st day of the year, with only 194 days remaining.

451 - At the Battle of Chalons, Flavius Aetius battles Attila the Hun.  After the battle, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as victory.

1605 - After only 3-months as tsar, 16-year-old Feodor II of Russia is assassinated.

1840 - Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.

1863 - West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.

1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

1893 - Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.

1900 - The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.

1942 - Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of SS-Totenkopfverbande, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1944 - The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory.  The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

1972 - An 18.5 minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversation between President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

19th of June

Today is the 170th day of the year, with only 195 days remaining.

1269 - King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

1586 - English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in North America.

1846 - The first officially recorded, organized baseball match is played under Alexander Cartwright's rules on Hoboken, New Jersey's Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club, defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1.  Cartwright was the umpire.

1862 - Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott VS. Sandford.

1865 - Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 13 other contiguous states as Juneteenth.

1870 - After all the southern states are formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist.

1910 - The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1953 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

1961 - Kuwait declares its independence from the United Kingdom.

1978 - Garfield, holder of the Guinness World Record for the world's most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.

Monday, June 18, 2012

18th of June

Today is the 169th day of the year, with only 196 days remaining until the new year.

1429 - French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay.  This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1778 - British troops abandon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1812 - The U.S. Congress declares war on the United Kingdom.

1815 - The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.

1873 - Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1923 - Checker Taxi, puts its first taxi on the streets.

1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, she is a passenger, Wilmer Stultz is the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic.

1945 - William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw, is charged with treason for his pro-German propaganda broadcasting during the Second World War.

1965 - The United States uses B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.

1983 - Astronaut Sally ride, becomes the first American woman in space on the STS-7 mission.

1996 - Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

17th of June

It is the 168th day of the year, with only 197 days remaining.

1462 - Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1631 - Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth.  Her husband, Mughal emperor Sha Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

1673 - French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the firs Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.

1775 - The Battle of Bunker Hill is fought during the War of American Independence.

1876 - 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse, beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor, as a gift from France.

1901 - The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.

1930 - President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.

1932 - Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol, as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them benefits.

1939 - Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is the last public guillotining in France, outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

1944 - Iceland declares its independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.

1948 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

1960 - The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres of land undervalued at 4 cents/acre in the 1863 treaty.

1963 - The Supreme Court rules 8 to 1 in Abington School District VS. Schempp, against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.

1972 - Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1991 - The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

1994 - Following a televised low-speed highway chase in a white Ford Bronco, O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

16th of June

It is the 167th day of the year, with only 198 days remaining.

363 - Emperor Julian marches back up the Tigris River and burns his fleet of supply ships.  During the withdrawal, Roman forces suffer several attacks from the Persians.

1858 - Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.

1903 - The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.

1911 - IBM is founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Compan in Endicott, New York.


Friday, June 15, 2012

15th of June

It is the 166th day of the year, with only 199 days remaining until the end of the year.

1667 - The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.

1752 - Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity.

1775 - George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

1785 - Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Pierre Roman, become the first-ever casualties of an air crash when their hot air balloon explodes during their attempt to cross the English Channel.

1836 - Arkansas is admitted as the 25th state of the Union.

1844 - Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.

1864 - Arlington National Cemetry is established when 200 acres around Arlington Mansion, formerly owned by Robert E. Lee, is officially set aside as a military cemetery by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

1877 - Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African-American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

1888 - Crown Prince Wilhelm becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II, he will be the last Emperor of the German Empire.

1896 - The deadliest tsunami in Japan's history kills more than 22,000 people.

1916 - President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter.

1934 - The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

1954 - UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, is formed in Basel, Switzerland.

1985 - Rembrandt's painting Danae, is attacked by a man who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

14th of June

Today is the165th day of the year, with only 200 days remaining.

1648 - Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution in the Massachusetts colony.

1775 - The Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the US Army.

1777 - The Stars and Stripes is adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States.

1789 - HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 4,000 mile journey in an open boat.

1789 - Whiskey distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Reverend Elijah Craig.  It is aptly named Bourbon because he lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1846 - Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.

1900 - Hawaii becomes a United States territory.

1937 - Pennsylvania becomes the first and only state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.

1940 - A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnow become the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1954 - President Dwight Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

1994 - A riot occurs after the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup for Vancouver, causing an estimated C$ 1.1 million, thus forcing 200 arrests and injuries.  One person is left with permanent brain damage.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

13th of June

Today is the 164th day of the year, with only 201 days remaining until the new year.

1777 - Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.

1805 - Scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

1893 - Grover Cleveland undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw.  The operation is not revealed until nine years after his death.

1917 - The deadliest German air rad on London during the First World War, is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.

1927 - Aviator Charles Linbergh receives a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.

1934 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet in Venice, Italy.  Mussolini later describes the German dictator as "a silly little monkey."

1955 - Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR is discovered.

1967 - President Lyndon Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1970 - "The Long and Winding Road" becomes the Beatles' last number 1 song.

1977 - Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray, is recaptured after escaping from prison three days earlier.

1997 - A jury sentenced Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing, two years earlier.

2005 - A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at Neverland Ranch.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

12th of June

It is the 163rd day of the year, with only 202 days remaining until the end of the year.

1665 - England installs a municipal government in New York City, the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam.

1775 - British General Thomas Gage declares martial law in Massachusetts.  The British offer a pardon to all colonists who lay down their arms.  Samuel Adams and John Hancock, if captured, were to be hanged.

1939 - The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.

1942 - Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

1978 - David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam in New York City, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings.

1987 - At the Brandenburg Gate, President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1994 - Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California.  O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in wrongful death civil suit.

Monday, June 11, 2012

11th of June

It is the 162nd day of the year, with only 203 days remaining until the new year.

173 - The Roman army in Moravia is encircled by the Quadi, who have broken the peace treaty of two years prior.  In a violent thunderstorm emperor Marcus Aurelius defeats and subdues them in the so-called miracle of the rain.

631 - Emperor Taizong of Tang, the Emperor of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk in order to seek the release of enslaved Chinese prisoners captured during the transition from Sui to Tang from the northern frontier.  This embassy succeeded in freeing 80,000 Chinese men and women who were then returned to China.

1770 - Captain James cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1776 - The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

1919 - Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, and becomes the first racehorse to win the Triple Crown.

1944 - USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship built by the United States Navy and future site of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, is commissioned.

1962 - Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from Alcatraz Island.

1963 - Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

1964 - World War II veteran Walter Seifert, runs amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany.  He kills at least 8 children and 2 teachers, seriously injuring several more, with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.

1970 - After being appointed almost one month earlier, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington, officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1998 - Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.

2001 - Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 - Congress recognizes Antonio Meucci as the first inventor of the telephone.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

10th of June

It is the 161s day of the year, with only 204 days remaining.

1190 - During the Third Crusade, Frederick I Barbarossa, drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to the holy land.

1692 0 Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries."

1786 - A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake ten days earlier collapses, killing 100,000 people in the Sichuan province of China.

1829 - The first famous Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place.

1854 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduate.

1861 - At the Battle of Big Bethel, Confederate troops under John B. Magruder defeat a much larger Union force led by General Ebenezer W. Pierce.

1944 - 642 men, women, and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre in France.

1944 - In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major league game.

1947 - Saab produces its first automobile.

1967 - Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire, ending the Six-Day War.

1977 - James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee, but is recaptured three days later.

1977 - Apple ships its first Apple II personal computer.

1997 - Before fleeing his northern stronghold, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief Son Sen and 11 of Sen's family members.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

9th of June

It is the 160th day of the year, with only 205 days remaining.

68 - Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer's Iliad.

1732 - James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future state of Georgia.

1856 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.

1900 - Birsa Munda, an important figure in the Indian independence movement, dies in British prison under mysterious circumstances.

1930 - Chicago Tribute reporter Jake Lingle, is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by Leo Vincent Brothers.  It is allegedly over a $100,000 gambling debt owed to Al Capone.

1934 - Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1959 - The USS George Washington is launched.  It is the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.

1968 - President Lyndon Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy.

1973 - American racing horse, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.

Friday, June 8, 2012

8th of June

Today is the 159th day of the year, with only 206 days remaining.

793 - Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.

1191 - Richard I of England, arrives in Acre, thus beginning his crusade.

1783 - The volcano Laki, in Iceland, begins and eighth-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.

1856 - A group of 194 Pitcaim Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of the HMS Bounty, arrive at Norfolk Island commencing its third settlement.

1861 - Tennessee secedes from the Union.

1887 - Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,791 for the "Art of Applying Statistics," his punched card calculator.

1912 - Carl Leaemmle decides to incroporate Universal Pictures.

1949 - Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.

1949 - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.

1972 - Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down a road after being burned by napalm.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

7th of June

It is the 158th day of the year, with only 207 days remaining.

1494 - Spain and Portugal signs the Treaty of Tordesillas which divides the New World between the two countries.

1692 - In Port Royal, Jamiaca, is hit by a catastrophic earthquake in just three minutes, 1,600 people are killing and 3,000 are seriously injured.

1832 - Asian cholera reaches Quebec, brought by Irish immigrants, and kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada.

1892 - Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.

1892 - Homer Plessy is arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train, he would lost the resulting court case, Plessy VS. Ferguson.

1893 - Mohandas Gandhi's first act of civil disobedience.

1917 - Allied ammonal mines underneath German trenches at Messines Ridge are detonated, killing 10,000 German troops at the Battle of Messines.

1938 - The Douglas DC-4E aircraft, makes its first test flight.

1944 - At Abbey Ardennes members of the SS Division Hitlerjugend massacre 23 Canadian prisoners of war.

1965 - The Supreme Court hands down its decision in Griswold VS. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

1975 - Sony introduces the Betamax videocasette recorder for sale to the public.

1982 - Priscilla Presely opens Graceland to the public, the bathroom where Elvis died five years earlier is off-limits.

2006 - Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, is killed in an airstrike by the United States Air Force.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

6th of June

It is the 157th day of the year, with only 208 days remaining until the end of the year.

1813 - A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeats an American force two times it size under William Winder and John Chandler at the Battle of Stoney Creek during the War of 1812.

1833 - President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride on a train.

1882 - More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed as a cylcone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbor.

1933 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.

1934 - President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1944 - The Battle of Normandy begins.  D-Day, codenamed Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France.  The soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious operation in history.

1946 - The National Basketball Association is created, with eleven original teams.

1984 - Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all-time, is released.

1985 - The grave of Wolfgang Gerhard is exhumed in Embu, Brazil.  The remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Aushwitz's "Angel of Death."  Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February of 1979.

2002 - A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya.  The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

5th of June

It is the 156th day of the year, with only 209 days remaining until the end of the year.

70 - Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem during the siege of the city.

1837 - Houston, Texas is incorporated by the Republic of Texas.

1851 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

1864 - Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners.

1917 - Concription begins in the United States, as "Army registration day."

1944 - More than 1000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.

1947 - In a speech at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall, calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.

1956 - Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog," on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.

1967 - The Israeli air force launches simultaneous pre-emptive attacks on the air forces of Egypt and Syria.

1968 - U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan.

1977 - The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.

1981 - The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five people in Los Angeles, California have a rare for of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.

1989 - The Unknown Rebel halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Monday, June 4, 2012

4th of June

It is the 155th day of the year, with only 210 days remaining until the end of the year.

1876 - An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

1896 - Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

1912 - Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.

1939 - The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, after already being turned away from Cuba.  It is forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1940 - British forces complete evacuation of 300,000 troops from Dunkirk in France.  To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

1944 - A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505, the first time a U.S. navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.

1973 - A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes, and George Chastain.

1974 - During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.

1986 - Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.

1998 - Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

3rd of June

Today is the 154th day of the year, with only 211 days remaining.

350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman Emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators.

1539 - Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

1839 - In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsu, destroys 1.2 million kilograms of opium confiscated from British merchants.  This provides Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

1864 - At the Battle of Cold Harbor, Union forces attack Confederate troops in Hanover County, Virginia.

1888 - The poem "Casey at the Bat," by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner.

1916 - The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

1932 - Lou Gehrig and teammate Tony Lazzeri hit four home runs in one game, and hit for the natural cycle, respectively.  These two feats are both less common than a perfect game, which has occurred 21 times in one hundred-twenty years.

1943 - In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.

1979 - A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

2nd of June

It is the 153rd day of the year, with only 212 days remaining until the new year.

455 - Vandals enter the city of Rome, and plunder for almost two weeks, taking anything and everything.

1692 - Bridget Bishop is the first person to go on trial in the Salem with trials in Massachusetts.  Found guilty, she is hanged eight days later.

1763 - At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture For Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1774 - The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.

1835 - P.T. Barnum and his circus star their first tour of the United States.

1896 - Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his newest invention, the radio.

1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

1995 - United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16, is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.

1997 - In Denver, Colorado, Timothy McVeigh is convicted of 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

2004 - Ken Jennings, begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!

Friday, June 1, 2012

1st of June

It is the 152nd day of the year, with only 213 days remaining until the new year.

1495 - Friar John Cor records the first known batch of scotch whisky.

1660 - Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1779 - Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, is court-martialed for malfeasance.

1792 - Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.

1796 - Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the Union.

1861 - Battle of Fairfax Court House, is the first land battle of the Civil War after Fort Sumter, with the first Confederate combat casualty.

1890 - The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to count census returns.

1916 - Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1918 - At the Battle for Belleau Wood, Allied forces under John J. Pershing and Jams Harbord engage Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

1943 - British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation the downing was an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Churchill.

1974 - In the journal Emergency Medicine, the Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims, is published.

1988 - The Cable News Network, CNN, begins broadcasting.

2009 - General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

31st of May

Today is the 151st day of the year, with only 214 days remaining until the end of the year.

1279 BC - Rameses II becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

526 AD - A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch, Turkey, killing 250,000 people.

1578 - Martin Frobisher sails from Harwich, England to Frobisher Bay, Canada, eventually to mine fool's gold, used to pave streets in London, England.

1859 - The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.

1862 - Battle of Seven Pines or the Battle of Fair oaks, Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engage Union forces under George B. McClellan outside Richmond, Virginia.

1889 - Over 2,200 people die after a dam break sends a 60-foot wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

1927 - The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly lne after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.

1929 - The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse, "The Karnival Kid" is released.

1962 - Adolph Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, is hanged in Israel.

1970 - The Ancash earthquake causes a landslide that buries the town of Yungay, Peru, more than 47,000 people are killed.

2005 - Vanity Fair magazine, reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

30th of May

It is the 150th day of the year and there are only 215 days remaining.

70 - Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem.  The Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall.  The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all tree within fifteen kilometers.

1431 - In Rouen, France, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal.

1539 - In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.

1806 - Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.

1842 - John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill, London with Prince Albert.

1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, establishing the United States territories of both Nebraska and Kansas.

1859 - Westminster's Big Ben rang for the first time in London, England.

1868 - Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time.

1879 - The Gilmores Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

1899 - Female old West outlaw Pearl Hart robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.

1941 - Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb on the Athenian Acropolis, and tear down the Nazi swastika.

1958 - The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1971 - Mariner 9 is launched by NASA to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

29th of May

It is the 149th day of the year with only 216 days remaining.

1780 - At the Battle of Waxhaws, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton massacres Colonel Abraham Buford's continentals allegedly after the surrender.  110 Americans die.

1790 - Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.

1848 - Wisconsin is admitted to the 30th U.S. state.

1886 - Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, the ad appearing in the Atlanta Journal.

1919 - Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceara, Brazil.

1932 - Veterans begin to assemble in Washington, D.C. in the Bonus Army to request cash bonuses promised to them to be paid in 1945.

1940 - It is the first flight of the American F4U Corsair plane.

1942 - Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recording Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," the best-selling Christmas single in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles.

1953 - Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1973 - Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.

1988 - President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union, when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

1999 - Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

2001 - U.S Supreme Court rules that disabled golfer Casy Martin, can use a cart to ride in tournaments.

2004 - The World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

Monday, May 28, 2012

28th of May

It is the 148th day of the year, with only 217 days remaining until the end of the year.

1588 - The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.  It will take two day for all ships to leave.

1754 - In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1863 - The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first African-American regiment, leaves Boston, Massachusetts, to fight for the Union.

1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially open when President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic.

1942 - In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis kills over 1,800 people in Czechoslovakia.

1987 - 19-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in the Red Square in Moscow.  He is immediately detained and will not be release for one year and six days.

1999 - In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper, is put back on display.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

27th of May

It is the 147th day of the year, with only 218 days remaining until the end of the year.

1703 - Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.

1863 - First assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson.

1927 - The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

1930 - The 1,046 foot Chrysler Building in New York City, opens to the public.

1933 - The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song " Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.

1941 - The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.

1942 - In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated in Prague.

1962 - An underground mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania begins.

1967 - The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and hre daughter Caroline.

1995 - In Culpeper, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is in office.

1998 - Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot/

Saturday, May 26, 2012

26th of May

It is the 146th day of the year, with only 219 days remaining.

1293 - An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan killing about 30,000 people.

1637 - A combined Protestant and Mohegan force under English Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, massacring approximately 500 Native Americans.

1647 - Alse Young, hanged in Hartford, Connecticut, becomes the first person executed as a witch in the British American colonies.

1828 - Feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg.

1857 - Dred Scott is emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners.

1864 - Montana is organized a a United States territory.

1865 - Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, Texas.

1868 - The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends with him being found not guilty by one vote.

1896 - Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia.

1897 - Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker is published.

1940 - In France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk, France because of the ensuing Battle of Dunkirk.

1948 - Congress passes Public Law 557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.

1998 - The Supreme Court rules that Ellis island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.

2004 - The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.

Friday, May 25, 2012

25th of May

It is the 145th day of the year, with only 220 days remaining until the end of the year.

1738 - A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conjocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.

1895 - Playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

1925 - John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

1935 - Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

1953 - At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conduct their first and only nuclear artillery test.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the end of the decade.

1977 - Star Wars is released in theaters, inspiring the Jediism religion and Geek Pride Day holiday.

1985 - Bangadesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.

2001 - 32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

24th of May

Today is the 144th day of the year, with only 221 days remaining until the end of the year.

1626 - Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan Island for local natives.

1738 - John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement.

1844 - Samuel Morse sends the message, "What hath God wrought?" from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the U.S. Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail in Baltimore, Maryland to inaugurate the first telegraph line.

1846 - General Zachary Taylor captures Monterrey, Mexico.

1856 - John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.

1883 - The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.

1895 - Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted.

1921 - The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti begins.

1935 - The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 2 to 1 at Crosley Field.

1943 - Dr. Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1980 - The International Court of Justice calls for the release of United States embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran.  They would not be released until the following January.

1988 - The fourth fame of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Edmonton Oilers and the Boston Bruins had to end in a tie because of a power failure.  The Oilers went on to win the Cup with a 6 to 3 victory in game 5.

1991 - Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.

2001 - 15-year-old Sherpa Temba Tsherri becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everet.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

23rd of May

Today is the 143rd day of the year, with only 222 days remaining until the new year.

1430 - Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to relieve Compiegne.

1568 - The Netherlands declare their independence from Spain.

1701 - After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London, England.

1829 - A patent is granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austria for the accordion.

1900 - Sergeant Willliam Harvey Carney becomes the first African-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.

1934 - American bank robbers Bonnie And Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.

1945 - Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, commits suicide while in Allied custody.

1995 - The first version of the Java programming language is released.

2002 - The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

22nd of May

Today is the 142nd day of the year, with only 223 days remaining.

334 BC - The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Granicus.

1807 AD - A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1819 - The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  The ordeal is completed June 20 when they arrive in Liverpool, England.

1843 - Thousands of people and their cattle head west via wagon train from Independence, Missouri to what would later becomes the Oregon Territory.  It is part of the Great Migration.  They follow what is known as the Oregon Trail.

1856 - Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the Senate, for a speech the latter had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas.

1872 - President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

1906 - The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine."

1915 - Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail crash near Gretna Green, Scotland.  The event kills 227 people and injures 246, it is the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.

1942 - Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor.

1947 - In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry Truman signs an act into law that will later be called the Truman Doctrine.  The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece, each battling an internal Communist movement.

1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the goals of his Great Society social reforms to bring an "end to poverty and racial injustice in America."

1980 - Namco releases the highly influential arcade game, Pac-Man.

1990 - Microsoft releases the Windows 3.0 operating system.

1992 - After 30 years, 66-year-old Johnny Carson hosts The Tonight Show for the last time.

1998 - A federal judge rules that United States Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the scandal, involving President Bill Clinton.

2002 - In Washington, D.C., the remains of the missing Chandra Levy are found in Rock Creek Park.

2002 - A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry, of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing ot the 16th Street Baptist Church.

2003 - In Fort Worth, Texas, Annika Sorenstam becomes the first woman to play the PGA Tour in 58 years.

Monday, May 21, 2012

21st of May

It is the 141st day of the year, with only 224 days remaining.

1758 - Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape Indians during the French and Indian War.

1856 - Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.

1863 - The Union Army succeeds in closing off the last escape route from Port Hudson, Louisiana, in preparation for the coming siege.

1871 - French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting.  By the close of Bloody Week, some 20,000 communards have been killed and 38,000 arrested.

1881 - The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.

1934 - Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1946 - Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1972 - Michelangelo's Pieta, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.

2005 - The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

20th of May

It is the 140th day of the year, with only 225 days remaining until the new year.

526 - An earthquake kills about 300,000 people in Syria and Anitochia.

1570 - Cartographer Abraham Ortelius, issues the first modern atlas.

1609 - Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London.  Some say illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.

1802 - By law, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies.

1861 - The State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1862 - Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.

1864 - Battle of Ware Bottom Church, in the Virginia Bermuda Hundred Campaign, 10,000 troops fight fight in the Confederate victory.

1873 - Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1891 - The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1902 - Cuba gains its independence from the United States.

1916 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting, the Boy with Baby Carriage.

1927 - A 7:52, Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.  He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22, the next day.

1932 - Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.

1940 - The first prisoners arrive at a concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1956 - In Operation Redwing, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

1983 - In the journal, Science, it is the first publication of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS, by Luc Montagnier.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

19th of May

It is the 139th day of the year, with only 226 days remaining.

1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

1828 - President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff Act into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States.

1848 - Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevava, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the country for $15 million.

1921 - Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration.

1943 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings.  It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.

1962 - A birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City.  The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday."

Friday, May 18, 2012

18th of May

Today is the 138th day of the year, with only 227 days remaining.

1631 - In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.

1652 - Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal.

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.

1860 - Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.

1896 - The Supreme Court rules in Plessy Vs. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.

1910 - The Earth passes through the tail of Halley's Comet.

1933 - President Franklin Rossevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1955 - Operation Passage to Freedom end, as the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers, and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War.

1958 - An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2.259.82 km/h).

Thursday, May 17, 2012

17th of May

It is the 137th day of the year, with only 228 days remaining.

1673 - Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.

1792 - The New York Stock Exchange is formed.

1902 - Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.

1939 - The Columbia Lions and Princeton Tigers, play in the first televised sporting event in the U.S., a collegiate baseball game in New York City.

1943 - The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.

1954 - The Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown Vs. Board of Education, of Topeka, Kansas.

1973 - Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate, about the Watergate scandal.

1983 - The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, found to be 4.2 million pounds, in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.

2006 - The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.

2007 - Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments.  This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone in 54 years.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

16th of May

It is the 136th day of the year, with only 229 days remaining.

1770 - 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes king of France.

1843 - The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1868 - President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trail by one vote in the United States Senate.

1929 - In Hollywood, California, the first Academy Awards are handed out.

1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is put down, and ends.

1953 - American journalist William N. Oatis is released after serving 22 months of a ten-year prison sentence for espionage in Czechoslovakia.

1960 - Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

1988 - A report by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

15th of May

Today is the 135th day of the year, with only 230 days remaining until the new year.

1252 - Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.

1618 - Johannes Kepler confirms his previously rejected discovery of the third law of planetary motion.

1718 - James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun.

1755 - Laredo, Texas is established by Spanish settlers.

1811 - Paraguay declares its independence from Spain.

1817 - Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture.

1864 - At the Battle of New Market, Virginia, students from the Virginia Military Institute flight alongside the Confederate Army to force Union General Franz Sigel ot of the Shenandoah Valley.

1869 - Susan B. Anthonty and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.

1905 - Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when 110 acres, in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.

1928 - Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy.

1940 - McDonald's opens it first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1942 - In The United States, a bill creates the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is signed into law.

1945 - The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.

1969 - California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by University of California, Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot called Bloody Thursday.

1990 - Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million, the most expensive painting at the time.

1997 - The United States government acknowledges this existence of the "Secret War" in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong fighters and other veterans.

2010 - Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.

Monday, May 14, 2012

14th of May

It is the 134th day of the year, with only 231 days remaining.

1607 - Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.

1796 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.

1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Cam Dubois  and begins up the Missouri River.

1913 - New York Governor William Sulzer, approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.

1939 - Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1948 - Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established.  Immediately after the declaration, they are attacked by the neighboring Arab states.

1963 - Kuwait joins the United Nations.

1973 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

13th of May

Today is the 133rd day of the year, with only 232 days remaining until the end of the year.

1846 - The United States declares war on Mexico.

1861 - Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a proclamation of neutrality which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

1865 - It is the end of the Battle of Palmito Ranch, in far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory.

1880 - In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

1939 - The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut.  The station later becomes WDRC-FM.

1940 - Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse.  Winston Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1958 - The trade mark Velcro is registered.

1960 - Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  31 students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.

1994 - Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

2000 - In Enschede, Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950 and resulting in approximately 450 million Euros in damage.