Today in History

Bard

Yesterday in 1939: Gone With The Wind was released.

...

Today in 1215: The English barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta

Today in 1790: Benjamin Franklin died.

Today in 1941: Yugoslavia surrendered to the Nazis.

Today in 1970: Apollo 13 returned to Earth.

And today in 1989, "She Drives Me Crazy" by the Fine Young Cannibals and Madonna's "Like A Prayer" were riding high in the charts.

(Feel free to add to this thread day by day)

Mark

April 18th in History

1775: Paul Revere made his famous ride from Lexington to Concord, Massachusetts, warning the American people that the British “redcoats” had landed and will soon arrive

1906: An earthquake, followed by fire, destroys most of San Francisco, killing 3000 people

1949: Republic of Ireland created

1978: US Senate approves transfer of Panama Canal to Panama

1983: Eighty-three people are killed at the US Embassy in Beirut.

1989: Zimbabwe gains independence

Mark

April 19th in History

1587: English captain Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cadiz harbour

1775: Minutemen Capt John Parker orders not to fire unless fired upon. A shot is fired and the American revolution begins at the Lexington Common. That was the "shot heard round the world"

1933: FDR announces that the US will leave the gold standard

1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt

1971: The Soviet Union launch the first manned spacelab, Salyut 1

1971: Sierra Leone becomes a republic

1972: Bangladesh joins the British Commonwealth

1975: India launches 1st satellite with help of USSR

1993: Massacre of Branch Davidian religious minority at Waco, Texas

1995: Oklahoma City - Murrah Federal Building bombed

And a quick birthday:
1903: Eliot Ness, American agent who put Al Capone behind bars

Mark

April 20th in History

1441: During the Council of Florence, Pope Eugenius IV issues the bull "Etsi non dubitemus," which asserts the superiority of the pope over the Councils

1775: British begin siege of Boston As a result, New York adopts new constitution as an independent state

1782: Netherlands recognizes US
1902: Marie Curie isolate radioactive element radium

1929: The first Italian parliament made up completely from Mussolinis Fascists opens

1945: Soviet troops enter Berlin

1961: Revolt in the South African country of Angola

1999: Columbine Massacre

Birthday-
121: Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor

1889: Adolf Hitler, Dictator of Germany

Bard

more April 20th

On April 20, 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate radioactive radium salts from the mineral pitchblende in their laboratory in Paris.

April 20th 1689 - The Siege of Derry begins

April 20th 1871 Third Force Act (AKA Ku Klux Act) passed by Congress, authorising President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

April 20th 1925, Talented jazz musician Tito Puente was born

April 20th, 1989 - In the charts: "Prince & NPG - Kiss", "The Bangles - Manic Monday" and "Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love"

Mark

April 21st in History

1789: John Adams sworn in as first US Vice President, 9 days before Washington is sworn in as president

1898: Spanish-American War begins

1961: French army revolts in Algeria

1970: A bomb explodes aboard a Philippines airliners. All 36 aboard are killed

1972: Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission lands on the Moon.

1989: 100,000 chinese students gather for quiet protest in Tiananmen Square

Birthdays

1816: Charlotte Bronte, British writer

1926: Elizabeth II, British Queen

mike65

Not to mention Iggy Pop, Anthony Quinn,
Charles Grodin and Tony (Taxi) Danza!

Mike.

PHB

April 22nd

1500 : The area that became Brazil is discovered by Portuguese explorers

1509 : Henry VIII became King of England

1954 : Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings began Red scare starts

1955 : Congress orders all US coins bear motto "In God We Trust"

It also appears that April 22nd is Earth Day!!!

April 22nd birthdays

1451 : Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain and patron of Christopher Columbus

1870 : Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (aka Lenin), Russian leader

1904 : Robert Oppenheimer, Inventor of atomic bomb

Bard

Earth Day 2003

74 years ago today , the waste disposal unit was devised. Fascinating, eh?

Bard

3 years ago today, Charles M. Schultz, creater of the Peanuts comic strip, died at the age of 77.

If William Shakespeare were still alive, today would be his 439'th birthday. He probably wouldn't enjoy that much, in fairness. The "Big 'O'", Roy Orbison would be 67 today if he were alive.

Almost 1,000 years ago today (989 to be precise), Brian Boru, the high king of Ireland, was murdered by a group of retreating Norse Vikings. They were retreating because Boru's Irish forces had defeated them in battle.

Shirley Temple is 75 years old today. Hard to imagine, that, really...

On this day in 1983, Michael Jackson was in the charts with both "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" - and Dexy's Midnight Runners were riding high with their hit "Come on Eileen".

Mark

More April 23rd in History!

1348: English order of knighthood founded

1661: King Charles II crowned the King of Great Britain and Ireland

1945: Himmler begins secret negotiations for a separate peace in the West with Count Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross

1965: The USSR launch its first communications satellite

1967: Russian Vladimir Komarov becomes the first man to make two spaceflights (er...woo?)

1983: Cliff Thorburn of Canada made the first maximum 147 break in the history of the World Professional Snooker Championships (I loves me snooker I does)

1984: The United States announce the discovery of the AIDS virus

And April 23rd is also apparently:

St. George's Day, Patron Saint of England.

Bard

April 24th

According to my desktop calendar here, it was 35 years ago today that Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. was assassinated. Mind you, most web sites I look up say he was killed on April 4th... so I'm not entirely sure...

50 years ago today, Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Today in 1916 was Easter Monday - the day the Easter Rising began in Dublin with the IRB orchestrating an armed uprising against British rule. Assisted by militant Irish socialists under James Connolly, Pearse and others, Republicans rioted and attacked British provincial government headquarters across Dublin and seized the GPO.

On April 24, 1980, an ill-fated military operation to rescue the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ends with eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.

... and today in 1984... Apple introduced their "portable computer", the Apple ][c at a media extravaganza in San Francisco, featuring banners announcing "Apple ][ Forever." (Awww... how cute! )

Mark

April 24th in History

1348:Order of the Garter established.

1792: "La Marseillaise", which later becomes the French national anthem, composed by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle

1800: Library of Congress established with $5,000 allocation

1941: German forces in Greece break through British positions at Thermopylae. The British expeditionary force begins the evacuation of its troops to Egypt and Crete.

1961: JFK accepts "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs

1961: General de Gaulle of France order a blockade of Algeria

1969: US B-52's drop 3,000 ton bombs at Cambodian boundary

1970: China becomes the 5th nation to launch a satellite into orbit

1985: Israel begins the third stage of its troop removal from Lebanon

1989: Tens of thousands of students strike in Beijing China

Bard

Today (April 25th), 56 years ago, India achieved independence from British colonial rule. G'WAN THE INDIA!!!

Mark

April 25th in Historeh

1792: Guillotine used for the first time in France on a highwayman

1859: Work begins on the Suez Canal, Egypt (Its completed in 1869)

April 25th, 1945: Units of the US Ninth Army (Simpson) and the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front (Konev) meet on the Elbe at Torgau, 100 miles SW of Berlin. In Berlin, the battle continues with unabated ferocity, both sides suffering heavy casualties in bitter house-to-house fighting. The relief attack by III Panzerkorps (Steiner) from the area of Eberswalde 50 miles NE of Berlin fails for lack of forces. The isolated fortress of Breslau is still holding out. In Italy, US and British forces cross the Po river and capture Parma and Mantua. German U-boats sink 5 Allied supply ships in the English Channel. Beginning of the San Francisco Conference convened to discuss the founding of the United Nations.

1961: Robert Noyce patents integrated circuit (Ahem...yes....the intengrated one)

1982: In accordance with Camp David, Israel completes Sinai withdrawl

2003: I walloped the bin off my shin and sweet divine mother of Mary it hurts.

Birthdays

1599: Oliver Cromwell, English civil war leader and Lord Protector

1840: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer

1874: Guglielmo Marconi, Inventor of radio

1940: Al Pacino, American actor

Mark

April 26th in History
1514: Copernicus makes his observations of Saturn

1937: German-made planes destroy Basque town of Guernica in Spain. The massacre is later painted by Picasso

1945: The British Second Army (Dempsey) enters Bremen. In the East, the Soviet 3rd Belorussian Front (Vassilevsky) captures the port of Pillau 20 miles W of Königsberg, while the 2nd Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky) occupies Stettin at the mouth of the Oder. The remnants of 9.Armee (Busse) are cut off and surrounded in the Halbe pocket 30 miles SW of Frankfurt.

1961: French paratroopers' revolt suppressed in Algeria

1964: Tanganyika & Zanzibar unite to form Tanzania

1982: Argentina surrenders to Britain on South Georgia near Falkland Island

1984: US President Ronald Reagan visits China

1986: An accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant leads to widespread nuclear contamination

1994: 1st multi-racial election in South Africa begins

1996: Completion of Mir.

April 26th birthdays

1894: Rudolf Hess, German Nazi leader

1452: Leonardo Da Vinci

Bard

omg, two days missing (!) :eek:

A quick round-up of events:

April 27th

1521: Portugese explorer Magellan killed by poisoned arrow while trying to convert inhabitants of Mactan island in the Phillippines to Christianity.

1865: Tragedy on the Mississippi: Days after the end of the Civil War, the worst maritime disaster in American history occurs when the steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,100 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing all but 400 of those aboard.

Birthdays:
Samuel Morse - inventor (1791)
US President Ulysses S. Grant (1822)
Walter Lantz - creator of Woody Woodpecker (1900)
Sheena Easton - singer (1959)

April 28th

1789: Mutiny on the Bounty!!! Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master's mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti.

1969: Following the defeat of his proposals for constitutional reform in a national referendum, Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France.

Birthdays:
US President James Monroe (1758)
Jay Leno - comedian / chat show host (1950)


... and on these days in 1982, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder were topping the UK charts with 'Ebony and Ivory'

Mark

Oh deary meh! Best get her up to date

April 29th in History
1429: The seige of Orleans is lifted by Joan of Arc

1852: First edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus published

1913: The modern form of the zip fastener is patented

1945: The German armed foces in Italy surrender to the allies

1945: April 29th, 1945: The British Second Army crosses the Elbe at Lauenburg, 20 miles E of Hamburg, and advances toward Schwerin and Wismar in Mecklenburg. The French First Army (de Tassigny) captures Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. In the battle of Berlin, the Red Army has now captured most of the city except for the area around the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichskanzlei and the Reichstag which is still fiercely defended by isolated units of the Waffen-SS.

1975: US Forces pull out of Vietnam

Birthdays
1769: Birth of the Duke of Wellington

1901: Emperor Hirohito of Japan

1937: Saddam Hussein, Iraqi leader

1957: Daniel Day Lewis, British actor

1957: Michelle Pfeiffer, American film actress

Bard

Also for April 29th:

1897: Gueglielmo Marconi built the world's first permanent radio station. [ read more ]

Mark

April 30th in History

1789: George Washington becomes the first US President

1798: US department of Navy established

1803: Louisiana sold to the United States by France (Napoleon needed the cash to fund his almost constant state of war)

1900: Hawaii ceded itself to the USA

1941: After the surrender of the Greek Army (Mussolini insists on a separate surrender to the Italian forces), the German occupation of Greece is now complete, the Wehrmacht having taken 223,000 Greek and 22,000 British prisoners. In Cyrenaica, the Afrikakorps' second attempt to capture Tobruk fails.

1942: Hitler and Mussolini meet at Berchtesgaden to discuss future Axis strategy in North Africa and the Mediterranean, the main objectives being the reduction of Malta and the seizure of the Suez Canal.

1970: American troops enter Cambodia, Asia

1975: The Vietnam war ends, with the South surrendering to the North




Birthdays

1777: Karl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician

1909: Queen Juliana Of Holland

Bard

Jules Leotard (heh!) invented the flying trapeze today in 1859.




(That is all!)

Mark

May 1st in History .

1903: 100,000 workers rally in Manila, Philippines against U.S. rule

1906: Troops in Paris make many arrests during a May Day protest

1925: The island of Cyprus becomes a British colony

1931: The Empire State Building, in New York, is completed

1941: The Luftwaffe begins a series of 8 consecutive night raids against Liverpool.

1942: In the East, the siege of the Crimean fortress of Sevastopol by 11.Armee (von Manstein) continues with a ceaseless bombardment by batteries of heavy guns (up to 800mm: Big Dora) and hundreds of bombers (up to 1,000 sorties a day) of Luftflotte 7 (von Richthofen). Heavy fighting also continues on the front around besieged Leningrad whose inhabitants are suffering from bombing, disease and starvation.

1960: Gary Powers, in a U2 spy plane, shot down and captured by the USSR

1968: Legoland, in Denmark, opens

1986: One million South Africans strike against apartheid in COSATU strike

Birthday

1769: Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington (Famous Nemesis of Napoleon)

Bard

Also on May 1st:

1872 - The Jesse James Gang robbed it's first passenger train. (Awww, bless )

May 2nd:

324 years ago today, the pressure cooker was invented by Denis Papin.

Mark

May 2nd in history

1583: Leonardo da Vinci Day is first celebrated.

1896: U.S. troops intervene in Nicaragua

1670: The Hudson Bay Company was chartered by England's King Charles II.

1945: General Chuikov, defender of Stalingrad, meets with General Weidling and accepts the unconditional surrender of the surviving defenders of Berlin. Some units refuse to quit and try to break out to the West, but are annihilated in the attempt. Stalin announces the fall of Berlin in his Order of the Day No. 359.

1986: Radiation released from the Chernobyl accident reach France, Britain

1989: 60 Chinese students rode bicycles into Beijing to present demands for democratic reforms to Chinese leaders

Birthdays

1729: Catherine The Great

1904: Bing Crosby, American actor and singer

Oh and btw Bard: I WAS ROBBED DAMMIT AND YOU KNOW IT! THAT QUIZ IS MINE!

Mark

GASP! 3 days missed! Drink, feck, and indeed some quantities of buttock.

May 3rd in History

1841: New Zealand becomes a British colony

1906: The Sinai peninsula becomes Egyptian territory

1949: A ten nations conference in London forms the Council of Europe

1980: 60,000 march on Pentagon to end military involvement in El Salvador

Birthdays

1520: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci.

May 4th in History

1904: Work begins on the Panama Canal, Central America

1979: Margaret Thatcher elected Britain's first female Prime Minister.

1990: Latvia declares its independence from the Soviet Union

May 5th in History

1751: The Portuguese government takes steps to curb the Inquisitions powers

1788: Vancouver Island claimed by Spain.

1802: Madame Tussaud Arrived in London.

1942: Battle of Coral Sea

1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first American into space

1980: Bobby Sands, IRA member, dies in prison from hunger strike

1988: A live broadcast from the top of Mt Everest is made for the first time, by Japanese TV

Birthdays
1818: Karl Marx born

Bard

Ah good old Mark keeping this up to date

This weekend just gone, 9 years ago, "Friends" was first shown on American TV.

May 5th, 92 years ago, Hiram Binham discovered the lost Inca city of Macchu-Pichu.

Today in History:

1937 - The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crewmembers.

1954 - Roger Bannister becomes the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, a feat that had been tried so many times by so many athletes for so long that people made it out to be a physical impossibility.

1989 - The Louvre Museum in Paris opened it's Pyramid entrance.

1992 - Marlene Dietrich dies

1994 - English Channel tunnel opens

Birthdays:

1856 - Sigmund Freud (psychiatrist), Robert E. Peary (explorer, discoverer of the North Pole, Greenland and the Melville meteorite)

1915 - Orson Welles (actor/author)

1945 - Bob Seger (musician/singer)

Mark

The thought of your toight bodeh kept meh going Bardeh

More May 6th in History

1910: George V becomes the King of England

1945: The US Third Army (Patton) occupies Pilsen in Bohemia and halts all further advances. After an 82-day siege, the remaining defenders of Breslau finally surrender to Soviet forces.

1980: 170,000 workes in Togliatti auto plant, Soviet Union, stay home to support bus driver walkout.

1987: Black South African workers go on strike over whites only election.

Bard

Originally posted by Mark
The thought of your toight bodeh kept meh going Bardeh

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:


Stop that right now, you!!!


Anyway...

May 7th:

1865: Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America assassinated.

1915: British ocean liner Lucitania sunk without warning off the coast of Cork, Ireland, by a torpedo strike from a German submarine.

1954: In northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days.

Birthdays:

1812: Robert Browning (Poet)
1833: Johannes Brahms (Composer)
1840: P.I. Tchaikovsky (Composer)
1901: Gary Cooper (Actor)

Mark

*sighs overdramatically*

FINE Bardeh but I demand a penguin in return (nudgewinknudgepokepokenudge)

Even MORE May 7th in Historeh

1911: Large demonstrations held in New York, demanding women's right to vote

1937 - Camillo Berneri, Italian anarchist, murdered by Soviet Communists for reporting the truth about the Spanish Civil War

1943: Tunis, in North Africa, captured by WW2 Allied forces

1945: This day marks the end of hostilities between the Wehrmacht and the Allied armies in Europe. At 2:41 a.m. CET, Generaloberst Jodl signs the instrument of unconditional surrender of all German forces in a schoolroom at Rheims, France, to be effective at noon the following day. Off the Firth of Forth, U-2336 sinks the last Allied ships of the war, the coastal vessels Sneland and Avondale Park, while an RAF Catalina sinks U-320, the last German submarine destroyed in WWII, near Bergen off the coast of Norway.

1960: Leonid Brezhnev becomes the President of the USSR

1973: US President Nixon denies all knowledge of the Watergate affair

1994: The Channel Tunnel opened by the British Queen and French President Mitterand

Birthdeh
1919: Marie Peron, Argentinian on who 'Evita' was based

Bard

Here you go... Three uncooked penguins.



May 8th:

1541: Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and "his 400 ragged troops" reached and crossed the Mississippi river.

1831: The Foreign Legion was formed (in France).

1973: The American Indian Movement surrender to federal authorities, ending their 71-day siege of Wounded Knee, site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890.

1984: Soviets boycott Olympic games in Los Angeles, but China participates for the first time since 1952.


Birthdays:

1884: Harry S. Truman (U.S. President)
1932: Charles "Sonny" Liston (World Heavyweight Boxing Champion)
1940: Peter Benchley (Author, "Jaws")
1944: Gary Glitter (Paul Gadd) (singer/child porn afficionado)

Mark

Originally posted by Bard
Here you go... Three uncooked penguins.


)

You have no idea how incredibly happy that made meh . MUCH THANKEHS!

Far sexier than Bards May 8th in History

1660: Monarchy restored under Charles II

1902: The volcano Mount Pelee, in the Caribbean, erupts, killing 30,000 people

1911: Iceland gives the vote to women

1933: Gandhi, in India, begins a hunger strike in protest against the British

1945: VE-DAY (Victory-in-Europe Day). - In deference to the Soviet victors, the surrender ceremony at Rheims of the previous day is repeated before Marshall Zhukov and other Soviet generals at Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin. The last convoys of German refugees from the East arrive in western Baltic ports, ending the largest rescue operation by sea in history. Since January 25, a total of 420,000 civilians and wounded soldiers have been evacuated - besides the U-boat campaign, it is the Kriegsmarine's most memorable feat of WWII. The remnants of AOK Ostpreussen have held their positions in the Vistula delta and the Frische Nehrung to the last. In recognition of their valor, their commander, General der Panzertruppen von Saucken, is awarded the Diamonds to the Knight's Cross by Grossadmiral Dönitz.

1950: American General MacArthur becomes comander of the UN forces in Korea

1980: World Health Organization announced smallpox had been eradicated

1988: François Mitterrand elected President of France

1996: South Africa's Const Assembly adopts permanent post-apartheid constitution


Peng-ah-gwin!

Mark

May 9th in History

1922: The Egyptian governmant becomes the country's only legal trader in opium, cocaine and hashish

1940: The RAF begins night bombing raids on targest in Germany

1942: In the East, the Red Army launches a counter-offensive toward Charkov

1947: The World Bank opens in Washington, United States

1962 Laser beam successfully bounced off Moon for 1st time

1979 US & USSR sign Salt 2 treaty, limiting nuclear weapons

1993 Paraguay holds its 1st presidential & parliamentary elections in 50 years

Birthdehs

1873: Howard Carter, English egyptologist

1934: Alan Bennett, English playwright and actor

1936: Albert Finney, Actor

Mark

May 10th in History

1896: The American transcontinental railroad is completed

1933: Nazis burn 'un-German' books outside Berlin University

1940: At 5:35 a.m. CET, the Wehrmacht begins Operation Yellow, the invasion of Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg, employing Heeresgruppe A (von Rundstedt) and B (von Bock), with Heeresgruppe C (von Leeb) in reserve. The attacking forces comprise 10 armored, 5 motorized, and 75 infantry divisions. The 3 Panzerkorps - XIX. (Guderian), XX. (Hoth) and XLI. (Reinhardt) - field 2,445 tanks, most of which are of the light Marks I, II, 35(t) and 38(t) type, against 3,373 French and British tanks. In his Order of the Day, Hitler declares, "Soldiers of the Western Front! The battle which is beginning today will decide the fate of the German nation for the next thousand years. Go forward now and do your duty!"

1990: French TGV-train hits record speed of 510.6 kph

1993: Paul Cézannes still life sells for $28,600,000 in NYC

1994: Nelson Mandela sworn in as South Africa's 1st black president

Mark

Arse biscuits, missed yesterday: h0t d0ublE UpDaTe AcTi0n!1

May 11th in History

1709: Large numbers of Germans begin emigrating to North America

1933: During Spanish civil war, martial Law is announced in several Spanish cities (Year may be incorrect here)

1944 - Maximillian Hernandez Martinez, dictator of El Salvador for 13 years, deposed by a massive general strike

1949: Siam changes its name to Thailand

1949: Israel becomes a member of the United Nations

1981 - Bob Marley dies

Birthdays

1803: Hector Berlioz, French composer

1880: Irving Berlin, American composer

1931: Rupert Murdoch, Media tycoon

1963: Natasha Richardson, American Actress

May 12th in History

1881: Tunisia becomes a French protectorate

1839: Paris Insurrection

1936: Black rebellion in Harlem, NY

1937: British King George VI coronated in Westminster Abbey

1943: Surrender of all German and Italian forces in Tunisia (130,000 German and 120,000 Italian prisoners), marking the end of the three-year North African campaign.

1944: In Italy, fierce German counter-attacks along the Gustav Line at Cassino. The US 8th Air Force (800 bombers) carries out attacks against the synthetic fuel plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Lützkendorf, Zeitz and Brüx.

1945: General Vlasov, commander of the anti-Bolshevist Russian Liberation Army (ROA) is handed over by the Americans to the Soviets to be tortured and executed for treason in August, 1946

1949: The blockade of the city of Berlin, by the USSR, is officially lifted

Birthdays

1567: Claudio Monteverdi, Italian composer

1820: Florence Nightingale, English pioneer of nursing

1828: Dante Rossetti, English artist and poet

1918 - Julius Rosenberg born

1929: Burt Bacharach, American Composer

Mark

This WEEK in History. Oh yes.

May 13th in History

1846: The United States declare war on Mexico

1888: Slavery abolished in Brazil

1960: Student sit-in against "red hunting" by House Un-American Activities Committee, San Francisco, CA

1927: Black Friday' in Germany, the day when the economic collapse of Germany begins.

1944: Hitler gives permission for German forces to withdraw from the USSR

1981: Pope John Paul II is shot and wounded

Birthdays

1265: Dante Alighieri, Italian poet

1907: Daphne du Maurier, English novelist

1950: Stevie Wonder, American singer

May 14th in History

1610: Henry IV of France assassinated

1940: Rotterdam, in Holland, captured by German forces during WW2

1948: Jewish provisional government formed as British Mandate for Palestine ends

1955: The Warsaw Pact signed by Eastern bloc countries

1973: The United States launch the Skylab 1 space station

Birthdays

1686: Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, German inventor of mercury thermometer

1727: Thomas Gainsborough, British artist

1944: George Lucas, Creator of the Star Wars films

May 15th in History

1902: Portugal declares itself bankrupt

1908: Artist Claude Monet destroys some of his paintings, which he didn't like

1988: Soviet troops begin their withdrawl from Afghanistan

1964: U.S. begins bombing Laos

Birthdays

1859: Pierre Curie, French physicist

1909: James Mason, British actor

May 16th in History

1770: The Dauphin of France and Marie Antoinette get married

1804: Napoleon declared Emperor of France

1920: Switzerland joins the League of Nations (Switzerland actually taking part in ANYTHING? I'll call Guinness!)

1929: The first ever Academy Awards (Oscars) are held

1985: Sinn Fein wins its first seats in the Northern Ireland local elections

Birthdays

1905: Henry Fonda, American oscar winning film actor

1955: Debra Winger, American film actress

May 17th in History

1792: New York Stock Exchange founded

1939: Sweden, Norway and Finland reject Germany's non-aggression pact

1940: The Belgian government moves to Ostend because of invading German forces

1973: The Senate Select Committee hearings on Watergate open

1991: Tim Berners-Lee announce the official launch of the first website

Birthdays

1866: Erik Satie, French composer

1911: Maureen O'Sullivan, American film actress

1938: Dennis Hopper, American film actor

May 18th in History

1900: Tonga becomes a British protectorate

1910: The first ever conference on air traffic opens in Paris

1936: The Spanish Civil breaks out

1980: Mt St. Helens, North America, erupts causing widespread damage

1983: Sri Lanka impose a State of Emergency after election violence

1990: Treaty forming the basis for monetary union between East and West Germany signed

Birthdays

1872: Bertrand Russell, English philospher

1883: Walter Gropius, American architect

1918: Pope John Paul II, Head of the Catholic Church

May 19th in History

1649: England declared a Commonwealth

1906: The last British soldiers leave Canada

Birthdays
1890: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader, after whom Saigon was renamed

1925: Malcolm X born

May 20th in History

1927: Britain recognises the independence of Saudi Arabia

1944: Failed assassination attempt made on Hitler by his own officers

1980: Uprising for democracy in which 2,000 massacred by military government in South Korea

1990: An estimated 2 million people across China protest Martial Law

1991: The Soviet government began allowing citizens to leave the country if they wished

Birthdays

1908: James Stewart, American film actor

1915: Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader

1946: Cher, American actress

Manach

Today - May 21st
1st use of Summer Savings Time in Britain in 1916.

St Crispin of Viterbo day.

Andrei Sakharov born today.

Manach

Today in History:
St Rita's day, Patron saint of awful marriages.
Strangley enough, Jordan & Naomi Campbell born this day.

Windows 3.0 debuts.

Mark

Apologies for lack of update, been busy as an egg the last few days, will do a week update when I get time at the weekend.

Cheers to Manach btw (/me tips hat)

Mark

This Week (and er...3 days) in History

May 21st in History

1851: Gold discovered in Australia.

1819: Bicycles introduced to the U.S.

1927: Charles Lindbergh becomes the first to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Birthdays

1527: King Philip II of Spain.

1904: Fats Waller, American musician.

1916: Harold Robbins, American novelist.

1917: Raymond Burr, American actor.

May 22nd in History

1942: In the East, the Soviet forces (two armies) attacking toward Charkov are stopped and destroyed by the German 6.Armee (von Paulus); 241,000 prisoners are taken.

1972: Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka.

1988: Hungarian Communist Party leader ousted.

Birthdays

1813: Richard Wagner, German operatic composer.

1907: Laurence Olivier, British actor of stage and screen.

1924: Charles Aznavour, French born singer.

May 23rd in History

1618: The Thirty Years War begins.

1926: Lebanon becomes a republic.

1982: 10,000 march against Falklands/Malvinas War in London.

Birthdays

1718: William Hunter, Scottish anatomist.

1848: Otto Lilienthal, German glider builder.

1883: Douglas Fairbanks Snr, American film star.

May 24th in History

1941: The German battleship Bismarck, supported by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, sinks the British battle cruiser Hood after firing only three salvoes; there are only 3 survivors out of a crew of 1,419.

1943: Auschwitz gets a new doctor, the 'Angel of Death'

1948: The USSR stop road and rail traffic between Berlin and the West.

1956: 2,500th anniversary of the death of Buddha celebrated in India.

Birthdays

1819: Queen Victoria.

1941: Bob Dylan, American singer/songwriter.

May 25th in History

1768: Explorer Captain Cook sets sail on his first voyage.

1907: The first national assembly, in which women had parliamentary seats, opens in Finland.

1910: French troops occupy Morocco, North Africa.

1935: Athlete Jesse Owens sets six world records in under an hour, infuriating Hitler.

1944: Yugoslav partisan leader Tito narrowly escapes capture by German paratroops supported by Stukas in his HQ in Bosnia.

1945: Arthur C.Clark suggests using relay satellites to cover the Earth.

1961: President Kennedy announces plan to send men to the Moon.

Birthdays

1803: Ralph W. Emerson, American poet.

1881: Bela Bartok, Hungarian composer.

1892: Josip Tito, Former Yugoslavian president.

1926: Miles Davis, American jazz trumpet player.

1939: Ian McKellen, English actor.

May 26th in History

1805: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned King of Italy

1924: The United States start limiting immigration, banning all Japanese

1940: Employing hundreds of naval, commercial and private vessels, the beaten British forces in France begin Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk. Calais fall to the Germans, and the advance toward Dunkirk, ordered stopped by Hitler 3 days previously, is resumed.

1991: Presidential elections, after the collapse of the USSR, are held in Georgia.

1992: With the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia and the Ukraine decide to split the Black Sea fleet.

Birthdays

1886: Al Jolson, American singer.

1907: John Wayne.

1913: Peter Cushing, British born film actor.

1925: Roy Dotrice, American actor.

May 27th in History

1930: Widespread unrest in India after Gandhi's arrest.

1941: In the Atlantic, the crippled German battleship Bismarck is relentlessly bombarded by dozens of British warships, including the battleships Rodney and King George V. After all her guns are silenced, she is sunk by torpedos from the cruiser Dorsetshire; there are only 14 survivors out of a crew of 2,200 (0wned).

1952: European Defense Community Treaty, establishing an EU army, signed.

1980: End of student-led uprisings against South Korean dictatorship, 2,000 killed .

1990: Poland holds its first free elections in over fifty years.

Birthdays

1867: Arnold Bennett, English novelist.

1897: John Cockcroft, English nuclear physicist.

1911: Vincent Price, American film actor.

1922: Christopher Lee, British born film actor.

1923: Henry Kissinger, American politician.

1936: Lou Gossett Jr, American film actor.

May 28th in History

1906: The Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) makes large areas of land available to the peasants.

1915: Women in Berlin demonstrate for peace.

1940: In the West, the Belgian Army surrenders, King Leopold being taken prisoner. In Norway, French mountain troops capture the port of Narvik, forcing the German defenders (Gebirgsjäger units and crews of sunk destroyers) into the surrounding hills.

1961: Last ever Orient Express from Paris to Bucharest.

Birthdays

1660: George I, British King.

1908: Ian Fleming, British writer.

May 29th in History

1919: Einstein's theories given a practical test during an eclipse.

1940: British forces begin their evacuation from Dunkirk, France.

1990: Brois Yeltsin elected leader of the Russian Federation.

Birthdays

1630: King Charles II of Britain.

1874: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English novelist.

1903: Bob Hope, US entertainer.

1917: John F. Kennedy, 35th American President.

May 30th in History

1536: King Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour.

1842: Assassination attempt made on Queen Victoria.

1934: Nazis open trials of alleged communists.

1942: The RAF launches its first "Thousand Bomber Raid" against Cologne: 1,046 heavy bombers drop 1,455 tons of bombs, destroying 600 acres of built-up area, killing 486 civilians and making 59,000 people homeless.

Birthdays

1672: Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia and founder of Saint Petersburg.

1846: Peter Faberge, Russian jeweller.

1896: Howard Hawks, American film director.

1908: Mel Blanc, Provided many cartoon voices for Warner Brothers.

1909: Benny Goodman, American bandleader.

May 31st in History

1900: Boxer rebellion in China.

1902: The Boer war, in South Africa, ends.

1961: South Africa becomes an independent republic.

1990: Soviet Legislature televised for the first time.

Birthdays

1819: Walt Whitman, American poet.

1930: Clint Eastwood, American film actor/director.

Mark

This Week in History

June 1st in History

1689: Uprising in New York Colony against the British.

1779: Benedict Arnold is court-martialed

1812: By the summer of 1812 President James Madison had grown tired of watching America's merchant ships and sailors take a beating at the hands of the British. The nation's maritime interests had been caught in the crossfire of the Napoleonic Wars since the early 1800s. Though France had long since begged off from interfering with U.S. economic activities, England persisted in its practice of halting U.S. ships and seizing men who were suspected of having deserted the Royal Navy. Reluctant to build up America's military forces, Madison attempted to rebuff the British through fiscally minded measures. However, neither the Embargo Act (1807) nor successive versions of non-intercourse legislation (1809, 1810) did much to dissuade the British from their habit of harassing American ports and ships. And so on this day in 1812, Madison gave the call to Congress to declare war on Great Britain. Just three days later the hawkish House voted 79 to 49 to engage England in armed conflict; by the end of the month the United States was embroiled in the War of 1812.

1940: In the West, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk continues, with another 64,400 men taken off the beaches. The British destroyers Keith, Basilisk and Havant and the transport Scotia are sunk by Luftwaffe dive bombers.

1941: Crete falls to German forces.

1942: News of concentration camp killings becomes public for first time, news of it published by the Warsaw underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade.

1946: First TV licenses in Britain.

1952: East Germany closes its links with West.

1958: General De Gaulle named the premier of France.

1967: Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album comes out.

1968: Helen Keller dies in Westport, Connecticut, at the age of 87.

1973: Greece becomes a republic, scrapping its monarchy.

1977: Soviets charge Anatoly Shcharansky, a leader among Jewish dissidents and human rights activists in Russia, with treason

1976: City University of New York (CUNY) ends 129 years of free education in NYC to pay off the bankers.

Birthdays

1926: Andy Griffith, American film and television actor.

1926: Marilyn Monroe, American film actress.

1937: Morgan Freeman.

June 2nd in History

1910: R. Scott set sail for South Pole.

1938: Superman's first flight in DC Comics.

1941: Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass on the German-Italian border to discuss the progress of the war.

1953: Summit of Everest reached for the first time.

1953: Coronation of British Queen Elizabeth II.

Birthdays

1840: Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet.

1903: Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and 'Tarzan'.

1942: Barry Levinson, American film director.


June 3rd in History

1839: Chinese destroy opium in order to suppress addiction. British later wage two wars to reopen China to British and U.S. drug kingpins, Canton, China

1912: U.S. troops intervene in Cuba .

1940: Paris suffers heavy bombing from German aircraft.

1940: In Norway, British and French forces (24,000 men) abandon Narvik, while the last Allied troops are evacuated from Dunkirk (in all, 218,226 British and 120,000 French).

1944: In Italy, German forces withdraw from Rome which has been declared an 'open city'.

1974: Yitzhak Rabin takes over from Golda Meir as Israels premier.

Birthdays

1865: King George V.

1925: Tony Curtis, American film actor.

June 4th in History

1903: A new element, Polonium, discovered by the Curie husband aand wife team.

1938: Sigmund Freud leaves Austria for refuge in London.

1942: Japanese suffer heavy losses at Midway Island.

1943: In the East, Luftwaffe bombers attack the great tank-producing plants at Gorki.

1970: Tonga gain independence.

Birthdays

1738: King George III

1811: Harriet Beecher Stowe, American novelist.

1910: Christopher Cockerell, Hovercraft inventor.


June 5th in History

1876: First Supreme Court of Canada.

1942: The United States declares war on Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria.

1967: The six day war in the Middle East, between Israel and its neighbours, begins.

1968: US Senator Robert Kennedy shot and killed in Los Angeles.

Birthdays

1878: Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary.

1882: Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer and conductor.


June 6th in History

1683: First Public Museum opened, Oxford.

1940: In the West, 7. Panzerdivision (Rommel). advancing W of Amiens, penetratees 20 miles into French territory. U-46 (Kptlt. Sohler) sinks the British armed merchant cruiser Carinthia off the west coast of Ireland.

1941: Hittler issues a directive for the implementation of the Kommissarbefehl (Commissar Order) which calls for the summary execution of all Soviet political commissars attached to the Red Army; this order is tacitly disobeyed by most German army and corps commanders who deem it contrary to German military custom and tradition.

1944: D-DAY. - In the early morning hours, the Allied Expeditionary Force of American, British, Canadian, Polish, and Free French troops begins Operation Overlord, the long-awaited invasion of 'Fortress Europe', as the Germans call it. After an intensive naval and aerial bombardment, the first wave of 5 divisions (156,115 men) are landed at designated beaches in Normandy named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, preceded by some 12,000 paratroopers of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions behind the German lines on the Cotentin peninsula and the British 6th Airborne Division near Caen. These forces are supported by 1,213 warships, including 7 battleships and 23 cruisers, 1,600 auliary ships, and 4,126 landing craft, as well as several Allied air forces flying 14,674 sorties. Opposing them in their bunkers on the beaches are 5 lowgrade German infantry divisions with about 50,000 men and 100 tanks and assault guns. Despite some heavy casualties, especially at Omaha Beach, the German defenders, stunned and surprised by the massive onslaught, are progressively overwhelmed, and most of the Allied objectives are reached and secured by nightfall. There is little opposition from the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine.

1967: Egypt closes the Suez canal as Israel seizes Gaza.

Birthdays

1778: George (Beau) Brummell, Fashion leader.

1862: Henry Newbolt, English poet.

1868: Robert F. Scott, English antartic explorer.

1875: Thomas Mann, German writer and Nobel prize winner.


June 7th in History

1329: Death of Robert the Bruce.

1942: In the East, 11. Armee (von Manstein) begins the final assault on the Soviet fortress of Sevastopol in the Crimea.

1965: Monarchy restored in Morocco.

1990: Hungary announces plan to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.

Birthdays

1799: Alexander Pushkin, Russian playwright and poet.

1848: Paul Gauguin, French artist; lived with Van Gogh for some time.

1909: Jessica Tandy, American actress; 'Driving Miss Daisy'.

Gorgeous George

June 3rd

1657 Death of physician and anatomist William Harvey.

1665 The Duke of York defeats a Dutch fleet off Lowestoft, sinking 16 ships and killing the Dutch Admiral Opdam.

1865 The future King George V is born in Marlborough House, London.

1898 Death of Samuel Plimsoll who brought about the Shipping Act of 1876 which stipulated that all ships must be marked with a line on the hull to prevent overloading. Formally called the Load Line it is actually called the Plimsoll Line. The old name for a running shoe was also called after Mr Plimsoll who was born in Bristol in 1824.

1936 Emperor Hailie Saillissie of Abbyssinia arrives in London in exile.

1937 The former King Edward VIII, now Duke of Windsor, marries Wallis Simpson in France.

1942 The British Government announces it's intention to take over the country's coal mines.

1984A report on Sellafield nuclear plant finds the incidence of childhood leukaemia to be abnormally high in the area of the plant.

1991Prince William undergoes an operation for a fractured skull after being struck by a golf ball.

Mark

Sexiest EVAR Week in History. EVAR I TELLS J0O!11!!1!!1!

June 8th in History

68: Rome Senate accepts emperor Galba.

452: Italy invaded by Atilla the Hun.

1333: Edward III orders seizure of the Isle of Man.

1504: Michaelangelo's "David" set in place in the Palazzo of Florence, Italy

1786: The first commercially-made ice cream was sold in New York City by Mr. Hall.

1789: James Madison first proposed the Bill of Rights, which led to the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

1861: Tennessee became the 11th and last state to secede from the Union. It was also the first state to be readmitted to the Union.

1905: President Theodore Roosevelt offered to act as a mediator in the Russo-Japanese War.

1939: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain arrive in Washington, D.C., the first British sovereigns to visit the U.S.

1941: British and Free French forces invade Lebanon and Syria against stiff resistance by Vichy French troops.

1965: U.S. troops in South Vietnam were given orders to begin fighting offensively.

1968: Funeral mass for Robert F. Kennedy held at St. Patricks Cathedral, N.Y. in the morning. Funeral train carries RFK's body to Washington from New York. Burial at Arlington National Cemetery that night (10:30 P.M.). The only burial at Arlington ever held at night.

1969: Spain closes its border with Gibraltar.

1973: Generalissimo Francisco Franco handed over Spain's premiership to Luis Carrero Blanco, after ruling alone for 34 years. He remained as head of state.

1974: US & Saudi Arabia sign military-economic contract.

1978: US Congress supports bankrupted New York with a $2 billion bond.

1979: The Source, the first computer public information service, went online.

1986: Former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, accused of hiding a Nazi past, won election to a six-year term as president of Austria.

1990: Czechoslovakia's first free elections in 44 years.

1994: Bolvia Earthquake Of 1994: hit a 8.2 magnitude.

1997: John Bruton conceded narrow defeat in national elections to opposition leader Bertie Ahern.

Birthdays

1625: Giovanni Cassini, Italian astronomer.

1772: Robert Stevenson, English engineer.

1810: Robert Schumann, German composer.

1925: Barbara Bush

1957: Scott Adams, Dilbert Creator.

1967: Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect.

Deaths

632: Mohammed, founder of Islam.

1795: King Louis XVII, 10 year old pretender to the throne during the French Revolution.

1845: Andrew Jackson, US President 1829-37.


June 9th in History

1156: Marriage of Friedrich "Barbarossa" King of Germany, to Beatrix of Burgundy.

1198: Otto IV chosen King of Germany.

1480: Turks attack Malta.

1534: French explorer Jacques Cartier, looking for gold and a northwest passage to the Orient, was the first to sail in to the mouth of a river he named for St. Lawrence.

1549: England enforces Act of Supremacy.

1588: Spanish Armada sails from Lisbon to England.

1604: A new Law against witchcraft passes its' first reading in the English House of Lords.

1720: Sweden & Denmark signs third Treaty of Stockholm.

1752: French army surrenders to the English in Trichinopoly, India.

1893: Ford's Theater collapsed.

1897: Japan protests United States' takeover of Hawaii.

1898: China leases Hong Kong to Britain for 99 years.

1900: Peter Rabbit was published by Helen Beatrix Potter.

1902: The first restaurant with vending machine service is the Automat Restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1931: The rocket-fueled aircraft design is patented by Robet Goddard.

1956: Heavy earthquake strikes Afghanistan, 400 killed.

1963: JFK names Winston Churchill US honarary citizen.

1979: Michael Cairney topples a record row of 169,713 dominoes.

1989: China began reporting large-scale arrests in the wake of the crushed pro-democracy movement. The arrests coincided with the public reappearance of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who was rumored to have been seriously ill.

1991: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir insisted his country have a say in the selection of Palestinians who would attend a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference.

1998: Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar was sworn in as Nigeria's new military ruler, one day after the death of Gen. Sani Abacha, who'd seized power in a 1993 military coup. Abacha had died of an apparent heart attack at age 54.

1999: After 78 days of intense NATO airstrikes, Yugoslav and Western generals signed a pact clearing the way for a Kosovo peace plan.

Birthdays

1672: Peter the Great, Tsar Of Russia.

1875: Sir Henry Dale, English physiologist and Nobel prize winner.

1893: Cole Porter, American composer of musicals.

1961: Michael J. Fox.

1963: Johnny Depp.

1981: Natalie Portman.

Deaths

68: Nero, Roman Emperor 54-68.

1870: Charles Dickens, novelist.


June 10th in History

1610: The first Dutch settlers arrived in Manhattan.

1624: Netherlands & France sign anti-Spanish Treaty of Compiegne.

1652: John Hull opened the first mint in America, in Boston (in defiance of English colonial law).

1776: The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.

1793: Philadelphia ceased to be the capital of the United States when all federal government offices moved to Washington, D.C.

1793: The first public zoo, the Jardin des Plantes, opened in Paris.

1801: The North African state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean.

1869: The 'Agnes' arrives in New Orleans with the first ever shipment of frozen beef.

1898: The U.S. Marines land at Guantanamo Bay, beginning the invasion of Cuba during Spanish-American War.

1909: SOS signal used as an emergency call for the first time.

1916: Mecca, under control of the Turks, falls to the Arabs during the Great Arab Revolt.

1925: Tennessee adopts a new biology text book denying the theory of evolution.

1940: In Norway, the remaining troops of the Norwegian Army surrender.

1940: Italy declared war on France and Britain; the same day, Canada declared war on Italy.

1940: Britain and France and begins an offensive along the coast of the Riviera.

1942: Germany razes the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and kills more than 1,300 citizens in retribution of the murder of Reinhard Heydrich.

1943: The Ball Point Pen was patented by Lasalo Biro of Budapest, Hungary. The British Royal Air Force, who employed him, needed a pen that would write under low atmpspheric pressure at high altitudes during the war. It had been invented in 1938 while Biro was a journalist in Budapest, Hungary. Biro escaped the Nazis by travelling via Paris to Argentina in 1940. There, Englishman Henery Martin, in Buenos Aires on a mission for the British government, saw the invention and recognized its value for air crews making high altitude navigational calculations. Martin aquired the rights and began producing tthe ballpoint pens for the RAF.

1943: The Allies begin bombing Germany around the clock.

1947: President Truman becomes the first president to pay a state visit to Canada.

1950: The West turns down Soviet plans to reunify Germany.

1971: Us lift 21 year trade embargo on China.

1977: Apple Computer ships its first Apple II.

1979: First ever European Assembly elections.

1985: The Israeli army pulls out of Lebanon after 1,099 days of occupation.

1994: President Clinton intensified sanctions against Haiti's military leaders, suspending U.S. commercial air travel and most financial transactions between the two countries.

1995: A bomb blamed on drug traffickers exploded in Medellin, Colombia, killing 26 people.

1999: The Supreme Court ruled, 6-to-3, that the city of Chicago went too far in its fight against street gangs by ordering police to break up groups of loiterers.

Birthdays

1819: Gustav Courbet, French painter.

1832: Nicholaus Otto, German engineer.

1840: Henry Morton Stanley, US journalist and explorer.

1922: Judy Garland, US actress of 'Wizard Of Oz' fame.

1966: Elizabeth Hurley.

Deaths

1836: Andre-Marie Ampere,Scientist, Physicist, Mathematician, French, Electrodynamics father; electricity & magnetism; the ampere is named for him as a unit of electrical current.

1906: Mary Putnam Jacobi,Physicist, Writer, Suffragate, the foremost woman doctor of her era.

2000: Syrian President Hafez Assad died at age 69; he was succeeded by his son, Bashar.

Mark

June 11th in History

1184 BC: Greeks finally captured Troy.

1346: Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected Holy Roman Emperor in Germany.

1474: Louis XI, King of France, ratifies the "Perpetual Peace."

1496: Columbus returns to Spain.

1509: King Henry VIII married wife #1: Catherine Of Aragon.

1509: Domestic animals were first sent to America.

1644: Florentine scientist describes invention of barometer.

1727: George I becomes the new King of England.

1770: Captain James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, discovered the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

1859: Claim is filed for the Comstock Lode near Virginia City/Nevada. The mine eventually produces more than $300 million in silver.

1891: Puerto Rican flag adopted.

1901: Cook Islands annexed & proclaimed part of New Zealand.

1905: Penns Railroad debuts fastest train in world (NY-Chicago in 18 hrs).

1921: Brazil voted for women suffrage.

1925: A gem dealer is thrown from a plane in Britain in the first recorded murder in the skies.

1927: In recognition of his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, Charles Lindbergh was awarded the first Distinguished Flying Cross.

1942: German U-boats begin laying mines off Boston, Delaware and Chesapeake Bay.

1942: German army defeated at El-Alamein North Africa.

1944: 15 US aircraft carriers attack Japanese bases on Marianas.

1959: Hovercraft demonstrated for the first time.

1963: JFK says segregation is morally wrong & that it is "time to act."

1963: Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, who had defied a federal order to allow two African-Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama by standing at the schoolhouse door, relented after a confrontation with Federal troops.

1963: Protests against the Vietnamese government's treatment of Buddhists reached a peak when monk Quang Duc set fire to himself in Saigon.

1964: Queen Elizabeth orders Beatles to her birthday party, they attend.

1971: US & Japan sign accord to return Okinawa to Japan.

1975: First oil pumped from North Sea oilfield.

1977: A 20-day hostage drama in the Netherlands ended as Dutch marines stormed a train and a school held by South Moluccan extremists. Six gunmen and two hostages on the train were killed.

1985: Russian space probe Vega 1 lands on Venus.

1991: President Bush authorized $1.5 billion in agricultural credit guarantees for the Soviet Union.

1991: Microsoft releases MS DOS 5.0.

1992: President Bush's stopover in Panama en route to the Earth Summit in Brazil was disrupted when riot police fired tear gas at protesters, preventing Bush from speaking at a rally praising the revival of democracy in Panama.

1993: The Supreme Court ruled that people who commit "hate crimes" motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment; the court also ruled religious groups have a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in worship services.

1997: Italian commission approved a move to allow Vittorio Emanuele, son of Italy's last king, to return home after 50 years of exile.

1998: Pakistan announces moratorium on nuclear testing and offers to talk with India over disputed Kashmir.

1999: The FBI was seeking the creator of Worm.Explore.Zip, a file-destroying computer virus which had hit some of the nation's biggest corporations.

Birthdays

1776: John Constable, English painter.

1910: Jaques Cousteau, French underwater explorer.

1935: Gene Wilder, American comedy film actor.

1978: Joshua Jackson, actor.

Deaths

1825: Daniel D. Tompkins, 6th U.S. Vice President 1817-25.

1970: Frank Silvera, actor.

1979: John Wayne


June 12th in History

1099: Crusade leaders visit the Mount of Olives where they meet a hermit who urges them to assault Jerusalem.

1616: Pocahontas arrives in England.

1667: The first successful blood transfusion was carried out by Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to King Louis XIV of France, on a 15-year-old-boy using blood from a sheep.

1672: The British government made it illegal to utter any criticism of the British government.

1775: First Naval battle of American Revolution. Unity (US) captures Margaretta (Br).

1776: Virginia's colonial legislature became the first to adopt a U.S. Bill of Rights.

1798: On the outset of his expedition to conquer Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte captured the island of Malta.

1812: Napoleon invades Russia

1840: Meteorite hits Uden, Netherlands.

1897: Swiss cutlery maker Carl Elsener patented his penknife, a "useful pocket tool," later to become known as the Swiss army knife.

1898: Philippine nationalists declared their independence from Spain to US control.

1965: The Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe is supported by the announcement of the discovery of new celestial bodies know as blue galaxies.

1917: The Secret Service extends protection of the president to his family as well.

1922: Insulin patented.

1931: Al Capone was indicted on 5000 violations of prohibition and perjury.

1935: Senator Huey Long of Louisiana spoke continually for 15 1/2 hours in the Senate. It was the longest speech on record. His 150,000 words filled 100 pages in the Congressional Record and cost the government $5,000 to print.

1942: Anne Frank gets a diary as a birthday present (Amsterdam).

1942: In the battle for Tobruk, German tanks and anti-tank batteries (88mm) of the Afrikakorps destroy 138 enemy tanks, leaving the British Eighth Army with only 75 armored vehicles operational.

1944: The first V1 Rocket falls on England during World War 2.

1944: Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong announced that he would support Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in the war against Japan.

1944: The five Allied beachheads in Normandy link up together; thus far, 326,000 men and 54,000 vehicles have been landed.

1946: Philippines National Day is proclaimed.

1952: USSR declares peace treaty with Japan invalid.

1952: A cat named Dusty gave birth to her record 420th kitten.

1962: Three convicts dig their way out of Alcatraz prison with spoons.

1964: South Africa sentences Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment.

1981: More than 800,000 demonstrate against nuclear proliferation in Central Park, N.Y. City, the largest rally against nuclear arms ever held in America.

1984: Roy Disney reports that he now owns 5% of Disney stock.

1987: President Reagan publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall during a visit to the western side of the Brandenburg Gate.

1988: President Francois Mitterrand's Socialist Party fell short of a majority in the National Assembly. But a right-wing coalition also failed to retain its legislative control.

1989: The Supreme Court rules the burning of the American flag as a political protest is protected by the First Amendment.

1990: The Soviet Union died a little when the Russian legislature declared that in Russian territory Russian laws took precedence over those of the central Soviet government. They got away with it.

1991: The Russian republic held its first-ever direct presidential elections. Boris N. Yelstin was elected by popular vote to the newly created position of Executive President of the USSR's Russian Republic.

1992: In a letter to U.S. senators, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said the Soviet Union had shot down nine U.S. planes in the early 1950's and held 12 American survivors.

1993: A U.S. 1,200-member Quick Reaction Force participates in a U.N. retaliatory strike against a Somalia warlord.

1994: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were slashed to death outside her Los Angeles home; O.J. Simpson spent nine months in 1995 being tried for the killings in Los Angeles court. He was acquitted in October 1995 in a criminal trial, but held liable in a civil action.

1998: Compaq Computer agrees to pay $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corp.

1999: Texas Governor George W. Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.

Birthdays

1924: George Bush, Former (41st) US President.

1929: Anne Frank, Dutch wartime diarist.

1957: Jim Morris.

Deaths

1778: Philip Livingston, Revolutionary, Merchant, Declaration of Independence signer

1994: Nicole Brown Simpson, murdered wife of OJ Simpson.

Mark

June 13th in History

1329: The Kingship of Robert I, "the Bruce," King of Scots, is recognized by Pope John XXII.

1373: Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Alliance (The world's oldest) is signed.

1612: Coronation of Matthias II as Holy Roman Emperor.

1774: Rhode Island becomes first colony to prohibit importation of slaves.

1825: Walter Hunt of New York City patented an invention so he could pay a $15 debt. It only took him 3 hours to make a sketch of his idea, the safety pin, to which he sold the rights for $400 dollars. Since then, billions of safety pins have been sold.

1841: The first Canadian parliament met in Ottawa.

1886: King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned in Lake Starnberg.

1890: The Supreme Council of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm (Freemasons) is instituted.

1900: China's Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence.

1912: The first successful parachute jump from an airplane was made by Captain Albert Berry in Jefferson, MS.

1917: Fourteen German Gotha bombers carried out the first large-scale bombing raid by airplanes on London, killing 162. The only previous aerial bombs were dropped by zeppelins.

1920: The U.S. Post Office Department rules that children may not be sent by parcel post

1922: The longest attack of hiccups began on this day. 98-year-old Charlie Osborne had hiccupped over 435 million times before it stopped. He died just 11 months after his hiccups stopped in 1991.

1927: On this day, for the first time, an American flag was displayed from the right hand of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour.

1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head.

1943: German spies land on Long Island, New York, and are soon captured.

1956: The British give up control of the Suez Canal. Egypt assumes responsibility.

1964: Nelson Mandela arrived on Robben Island to begin his life sentence.

1971: Francois Mitterrand named head of French Socialist Party.

1971: The New York Times began publishing the "Pentagon Papers," a secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam.

1977: James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was recaptured following his escape three days earlier from a Tennessee prison.

1982: Argentine forces surrender to the British in the Falklands conflict

1982: King Khalid of Saudi Arabia died at the age of 69; he was succeeded by a half-brother, Crown Prince Fahd.

1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first spacecraft to leave the solar system

1989: President Bush excercised his first presidential veto on a bill dealing with minimum wage.

1990: Official removal of the Berlin Wall begins.

1994: A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blamed recklessness by Exxon Corp. and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the "Exxon Valdez" disaster, allowing victims of the nation's worst oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.

1995: France announced it would abandon its 1992 moratorium on nuclear testing and conduct eight more tests between September and May.

1997: Former soldier Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing, a devastating crime that killed 168 people.

2000: The presidents of South Korea and North Korea opened a summit in the northern capital of Pyongyang with pledges to seek reunification of the divided peninsula.

2000: Italy pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who'd tried to kill Pope John Paul the Second in 1981.

Birthdays

1831: James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist.

1943: Malcolm McDowell, Film actor.

1953: Tim Allen, TV/Movie Actor, Comedian.

1986: Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen

Deaths

323BC: Alexander The Great.

2002: Bill Blass, Fashion Designer.

June 14th in History

510 BC: Rome becomes a republic.

1170: Coronation of Henry III as King of England

1775: The United States Army was founded when the Second Continental Congress established the first U.S. military service.

1777: The Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes replacing the Grand Union as the national flag.

1789: English Admiral Captain Bligh and 18 others, cast adrift after a mutiny aboard HMS Bounty, eventually reached Timor in the East Indies after a voyage of nearly 4,000 miles in an open boat.

1846: California proclaims Independence from Mexico as settlers proclaim the free republic of California at Sonoma, adopting the California Bear Flag.

1847: Robert von Bunsen invented the Bunsen gas burner, allowing a chemist to control a gas flame effectively.

1850: San Francisco had a fire that destroyed 300 buildings.

1864: Congress rules Black soldiers must receive equal pay.

1864: The James River Bridge, the longest (2,100 ft.) pontoon bridge ever used in war, is constructed in 8 hours by 450 Union engineers (enabled Grant's forces to cross and move on to Petersburg).

1900: The Hawaiian Republic was reorganized as the U.S. Territory of Hawaii.

1917: General Pershing and his HQ staff arrived in Paris during World War I.

1940: In German-occupied Poland, the Nazis opened their concentration camp at Auschwitz, where an estimated three to four million people, many of them Jews, were exterminated as part of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution"

1940: German troops enter Paris.

1941: President Roosevelt freezes the assets of Germany and Italy in the U.S.

1941: Estonia loses 11,000 inhabitants as a consequence of mass deportations into Siberia.

1944: The first B-29 raid against Mainland Japan takes place.

1954: America partakes in a nation-wide civil defense test against an atomic attack.

1962: Thirty people arrested in plot to kill the French leader De Gaulle

1963: Valery F. Bykovsky, the fifth Russian in space, in Vostok 5 orbits earth 81 times in 5 days.

1964: Nelson Mandella sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa

1965: Military takeover in South Vietnam.

1966: The Vatican announced the abolition of the Index of Prohibited Books.

1981: The French Socialist Party wins landslide presidential vote.

1982: Argentine forces led by General Mario Menendez surrendered his army of 1,000 to British troops led by General Jeremy Moore at Stanley on the disputed Falkland Islands ending a 74-day conflict since the April 2 British invasion.

1989: Former President Reagan received an honorary knighthood from Britain's Queen Elizabeth the Second.

1992: The Earth Summit concluded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1994:President Clinton unveiled a $9.3 billion-dollar welfare reform plan.

1997: A 1939 comic book featuring the first appearance by Batman was auctioned off for $68,500 at Sotheby's in New York.

Birthdays

1736: Charles Coulomb, French electrical physicist.

1928: Ernesto (Che) Guevera, Revolutionary hero.

1961: Boy George

1968: Yasmine Bleeth, Roide.

Deaths

1801: Benedict Arnold,General, Revolutionary, American Revolutinary War

1868: Maxim Gorki, Short Story Writer, Novelist, Russian.

1946: John Logie Baird, Inventor, Engineer, Scotish, a father of TV; the first man to televise pictures of objects in motion.

Mark

June 15th in History

763 BC: A probable solar eclipse as the earliest on record was in Assyria. Assyrians record total solar eclipse event on clay tablet.

844: Coronation of Louis II as King of Italy.

1215: King John reluctantly signed the Magna Carta ("the Great Charter") at Runnymede, England, granting his barons more liberty. A crucial first step toward creating Britain's constitutional monarchy.

1301: Coronation of Charles I, King of Hungary.

1520: Pope Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther out of the Catholic Church if he did not recant his religious beliefs.

1664: The colony of New Jersey was established.

1752: Ben Franklin's kite-flying experiment proved lightning & electricity were related while flying a kite with a key attatched; What a shock! He later invented the world's first lightning rods to prevent fires caused by lighting by absorbing the bolt into the ground.

1775: The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

1785: Two Frenchmen, Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and P.A. de Roman, were killes attempting to cross the English Channel from France to England in a balloon. Their balloon caught fire and crashed to the ground and the two became the first fatalities in aviation history.

1804: The US 12th amendment was ratified; it changed the way the president and vice president are selected by electors.

1836: Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state.

1844: Vulcanised rubber patented by Charles Goodyear.

1876: Tsunami's after earthquake floods NE coast of Japan, kills 28,000.

1877: The first black man to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was Henry O. Flipper.

1902: Canada's Maritime Provinces switch from Eastern to Atlantic time.

1904: In one of the great maritime tragedies in the history of New York, the steamship General Slocum caught fire and sank. Around 1,000 died, mostly women and children on a church outing.

1917: The Espionage Act passed; it made it illegal to spy against the U.S.

1919: Captain John Alcock and Lt. Arthur W. Browne successfully made the first, non-stop, transatlantic, plane flight. They flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in 16 hours, 12 minutes and won the $50,000 prize offered by the "London Daily Mail".

1924: Congress approves the law making all Indians citizens.

1924: J. Edgar Hoover becomes head of the FBI.

1924: The Ford Motor Company announces the manufacture of its 10,000,000 automobile (7 years to make the first million, but only 132 working days to make the tenth million).

1934: The National Guard becomes part of the U.S. Army in a time of war through the National Guard Act.

1940: Soviet Army occupies Lithuania.

1941: In Libya, the British Eighth Army abandons Gazala.

1948: Soviets stop all coal shipments to Berlin.

1952: "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" is published.

1962: South Africa passes a bill setting death penalty for many crimes.

1969: Georges Pompidou was elected president of France.

1972: 75,000 attend gathering of religious leader Billy Graham, in Texas.

1977: General elections held in Spain, the first since 1936.

1978: King Hussein of Jordan married 26-year-old American Elizabeth "Lisa" Halaby, and proclaimed his bride Queen Noor al-Hussein, Arabic for Light of Hussein.

1981: The F-117A Stealth Fighter is first flown, 31 months after the decision to develop it.

1982: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all children are entitled to a public education whatever their citizenship.

1986: The Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported the director and chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear plant had been dismissed for mishandling the disaster at the power station.

1991: India concluded its violence-racked elections, with the Congress Party of recently assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gaining a plurality of votes.

1991: Cataclysmic eruptions begin at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines at 2 a.m., sending plumes of ash 100,000 feet into the atmosphere, and affecting weather patterns for at least 18 months (worst world volcanic activity in 80 years). Its 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide will slightly cool the earth for several years.

1992: Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin arrived in the United States for his summit with President Bush.

1994: Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on a private mission to try to reduce tensions with the Communist nation.

1994: Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic ties, sealing a historic accord on mutual recognition and reconciliation after centuries of bitterness between Roman Catholics and Jews.

1996: A truck bomb blew up in a retail district of Manchester, England, injuring more than 200 people in an attack claimed by the IRA.

1997: Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal to charge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fraud in an influence-peddling scandal that had threatened to topple his government.

1998: 5 years ago, NATO fighter jets staged a show of force meant to pressure Yugoslav forces to end their attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province.

1999: South Korean ships sunk a North Korean torpedo boat, killing all aboard. The incident had followed a series of confrontations in disputed territorial waters.

1999: Thousands of Ethnic Albanian refugees flooded back into Kosovo while thousands of Serbs fled.

Birthdays

1884: Harry Langdon, American silent film star.

1964: Courteney Cox.

1969: Ice Cube.

Deaths

1989: Ray McAnally, actor.

Gorgeous George

JUNE 7TH

The Battle of Messines in 1917. From an Irish perspective the 16th Irish and 36th Ulster Divisions captured Wytschaete village, losing in the process Maj Willy Redmond, Nationalist MP for Wexford. He is buried in Loker Hospice Cemetery.

Great quote from General Plumer;

We may not make history but we'll certainly alter the landscape.

Gorgeous George

JUNE 13th

William Butler Yeats born in 1865.

Éomer of Rohan

A spectre haunts Europe!

November 7th

Glory to the Revolution and may many of us keep the flame of workers struggle alive for generations in the darkness to come!

It is the Anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik October Revolution.

Manach

Of even greater import
1st broadcast of "Buck Rogers in the 25th century" on CBS-radio

Manach

Mickey Mouse is 75 years young today.

Exit

1965 - One of the coolest looking flags in the world is adopted