This Day in History

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Maybe he didn't like them much anyway.

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November 29

There are 32 days remaining in 2016.

There are 25 days until Christmas.


Events

800 – Charlemagne arrives at Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.

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

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

1847 – Whitman massacre: Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians, causing the Cayuse War.

1864 – American Indian Wars: Sand Creek massacre: Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacre at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants [mostly women & children] inside Colorado Territory.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Spring Hill: A Confederate advance into Tennessee misses an opportunity to crush the Union Army. General John Bell Hood is angered, which leads to the Battle of Franklin.

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

1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole.

1944 – The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission: Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbits the Earth twice and splashes down off the coast of Puerto Rico.

1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

1967 – Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.

1972 – Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

1996 - American singer and ukulele player Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) died from a heart attack on stage while playing his hit ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ at a club in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

2001 - Beatles guitarist George Harrison died in Los Angeles of lung cancer aged 58.

2009 – Maurice Clemmons shoots and kills four police officers inside a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington.

Births

1803 – Christian Doppler (described the Doppler Effect); 1831 – Frederick Townsend Ward; 1832 – Louisa May Alcott; 1876 – Nellie Tayloe Ross; 1895 – Busby Berkeley; 1895 – Yakima Canutt; 1898 – C. S. Lewis; 1908 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; 1917 – Merle Travis; 1919 – Joe Weider; 1920 – Joseph Shivers (developed Spandex); 1927 – Vin Scully; 1933 – John Mayall♪ ♫(John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers); 1935 – Diane Ladd; 1940 – Denny Doherty♪ ♫(The Mamas & The Papas); 1940 – Chuck Mangione♪ ♫; 1942 – Felix Cavaliere; 1946 – Suzy Chaffee (Suzy Chapstick in the Chapstick commercials); 1947 – Ronnie Montrose(Montrose); 1949 – Jerry 'The King' Lawler; 1949 – Dutch Mantel; 1949 – Garry Shandling; 1951 – Barry Goudreau(Boston); 1952 – Jeff Fahey (The Lawnmower Man); 1954 – Joel Coen; 1955 – Howie Mandel; 1957 – Janet Napolitano; 1960 – Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull); 1961 – Kim Delaney; 1961 – Tom Sizemore; 1962 – Andy LaRocque(King Diamond); 1962 – Andrew McCarthy; 1964 – Don Cheadle; 1968 – Jonathan Knight♪ ♫(New Kids On The Block); 1970 – Larry Joe Campbell (According To Jim); 1972 – Brian Baumgartner (The Office); 1976 – Anna Faris; 1982 – Lucas Black (Slingblade, NCIS: New Orleans); 1982 – Ashley Force; 1988 – Russell Wilson

Deaths

1974 – James J. Braddock; 1981 – Natalie Wood; 1986 – Cary Grant; 1991 – Ralph Bellamy; 1999 – Gene Rayburn; 2001 – George Harrison(The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys); 2004 – John Drew Barrymore; 2005 – Wendie Jo Sperber

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November 30

Today is observed as Cities For Life Day worldwide, supporting the abolition of the death penalty.

Today is the last day of November.

There are 31 days remaining in 2016.

There are 24 days until Christmas.


Events

1707 – The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).

1786 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, under Pietro Leopoldo I, becomes the first modern state to abolish the death penalty (later commemorated as Cities for Life Day).

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

1864 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers heavy losses in an attack on the Union Army of the Ohio in the Battle of Franklin. [I went to the reenactment on the anniversary of the Battle Of Franklin. 25,000 reenactors, breastworks, fortifications, huge encampment of reenactors. It was freaking awesome. At the time, it was the second-largest reenactment, second only to Gettysburg.]

1886 – The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.

1934 – The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.

1936 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.

1954 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.

1968 - Glen Campbell started a five-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'Wichita Lineman.' Jimmy Webb's inspiration for the lyrics came while driving through Washita County in northern Oklahoma. Webb was driving through an endless litany of telephone poles, each looking exactly the same as the last. Then, in the distance, he noticed the silhouette of a solitary lineman atop a pole. Webb then "put himself atop that pole and put that phone in his hand" as he considered what the lineman was saying into the receiver.

1982 – Michael Jackson's second solo album, Thriller is released worldwide. It will become the best-selling record album in history.

1994 - Tupac Shakur was shot five times during a robbery outside a New York City recording studio.

1994 – MS Achille Lauro catches fire off the coast of Somalia.

1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

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

1999 – In Seattle, United States, demonstrations against a World Trade Organization meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.

1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.

Births

1466 – Andrea Doria (the person, not the ship); 1667 – Jonathan Swift; 1781 – Alexander Berry; 1810 – Oliver Winchester (founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company); 1835 – Mark Twain; 1836 – Lord Frederick Cavendish; 1872 – John McCrae (wrote the poem In Flanders Fields); 1874 – Winston The British Bulldog Churchill; 1909 – Robert Nighthawk; 1912 – Gordon Parks; 1915 – Brownie McGhee; 1918 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; 1924 – Shirley Chisholm; 1924 – Allan Sherman♪ ♫; 1925 – William H. Gates, Sr. (Bill Gates father); 1926 – Richard Crenna; 1927 – Robert Guillaume; 1928 – Joe B. Hall (head basketball coach at University of Kentucky for 13 years, the man is royalty here); 1929 – Dick Clark♪ ♫; 1929 – Joan Ganz Cooney (co-created Sesame Street); 1930 – G. Gordon Liddy; 1932 – Bob Moore (member of The Nashville A Team); 1936 – Abbie Hoffman; 1937 – Jimmy Bowen♪ ♫; 1937 – Luther Ingram♪ ♫; 1937 – Ridley Scott; 1937 – Tom Simpson (died in 67 Tour de France cycling up Mont Ventoux); 1943 – Terrence Malick; 1945 – Roger Glover(Deep Purple, Rainbow); 1947 – David Mamet; 1952 – Mandy Patinkin; 1953 – Shuggie Otis (wrote Strawberry Letter 23); 1953 – June Pointer♪ ♫(youngest Pointer Sister); 1953 – David Sancious(E Street Band); 1955 – Billy Idol♪ ♫; 1957 – John Ashton♪ ♫(The Psychedelic Furs); 1957 – Colin Mochrie; 1958 – Stacey Q♪ ♫; 1962 – Bo Jackson; 1965 – Ben Stiller; 1973 – John Moyer(Disturbed, Operation: Mindcrime (a band, not the Queensryche album)); 1975 – Mindy McCready♪ ♫; 1978 – Clay Aiken♪ ♫; 1982 – Elisha Cuthbert; 1985 – Kaley Cuoco(8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, The Big Bang Theory)

Deaths

1873 – Alexander Berry; 1900 – Oscar Wilde; 1979 – Zeppo Marx; 1994 – Lionel Stander ('Max', the Man Friday to the Harts on Hart To Hart); 1996 – Tiny Tim; 2000 – Scott Smith(Loverboy); 2007 – Evel Knievel; 2013 – Paul Walker

[xoxoxoBruce]

1954 – In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space.

I seem to remember it hit her on the thigh.

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[Gravdigr]

December 1

Today is observed as a Day Without Art, an annual event to raise AIDS awareness. Coincides with World AIDS Day.

There are 30 days remaining in 2016.

There are 23 days until Christmas.


Events

1824 – United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1913 – Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.

1941 – World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States.

1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.

1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns.

1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested (and later deported) from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.

1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery since World War II is held in the United States.

1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.

1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.

Births

1761 – Marie Tussaud (founded Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum); 1886 – Rex Stout (author of Nero Wolfe detective novels); 1913 – Mary Martin (Peter Pan, South Pacific, Larry Hagman's mother); 1923 – Dick Shawn; 1929 – David Doyle (Charlie's Angels); 1933 – Lou Rawls♪ ♫; 1934 – Billy Paul♪ ♫; 1935 – Woody Allen; 1939 – Lee Trevino; 1940 – Richard Pryor; 1944 – Eric Bloom(Blue Oyster Cult); 1944 – John Densmore(The Doors); 1944 – Michael Hagee; 1945 – Bette Midler♪ ♫; 1946 – Jonathan Katz; 1946 – Gilbert O'Sullivan♪ ♫; 1947 – Elizabeth Baur (Ironside); 1951 – Obba Babatundé; 1951 – Jaco Pastorius; 1951 – Treat Williams; 1957 – Chris Poland♪ ♫(Megadeth); 1957 – Vesta Williams♪ ♫; 1960 – Carol Alt; 1961 – Jeremy Northam; 1967 – Nestor Carbonell (Lost, Suddenly Susan); 1970 – Jonathan Coulton♪ ♫; 1970 – Sarah Silverman; 1975 – Isaiah "Ikey" Owens(The Mars Volta); 1977 – Brad Delson♪ ♫(Linkin Park); 1985 – Chanel Preston (porn actress)

Deaths

1866 – George Everest (namesake of Mt. Everest); 1935 – Bernhard Schmidt (invented the Schmidt camera); 1947 – Aleister Crowley; 1954 – Fred Rose♪ ♫; 1973 – David Ben-Gurion (namesake of Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport); 2008 – Paul Benedict (neighbor 'Bentley' on The Jeffersons, The Number Painter on Sesame Street)

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December 2

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is observed each year on this day.

There are 29 days remaining in 2016.

There are 22 days until Christmas.


Events

1775 – The USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones, bass player with Led Zeppelin.

1823 – Monroe Doctrine: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas.

1845 – Manifest destiny: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James K. Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

1859 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

1927 – Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.

1930 – Great Depression: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Herbert Hoover proposes a $150 million (equivalent to $2,128,000,000 in 2015) public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.

1939 – New York City's LaGuardia Airport opens.

1942 – World War II: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1943 – World War II: A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks numerous cargo and transport ships, including the American SS John Harvey, which is carrying a stockpile of World War I-era mustard gas.

1954 – Cold War: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censure Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute".

1956 – The Granma reaches the shores of Cuba's Oriente Province. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement disembark to initiate the Cuban Revolution.

1970 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

1976 – Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.

1982 – At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.

1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

1993 – Space Shuttle program: STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

2001 – American energy company Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2015 – San Bernardino attack: Terrorists kill 14 people and wound 22 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.

Births

1754 – William Cooper (founded Cooperstown, New York); 1863 – Charles Edward Ringling (co-founded the Ringling Brothers Circus); 1923 – Maria Callas♪ ♫; 1924 – Jonathan Frid ('Barnabas' on Dark Shadows); 1924 – Alexander Haig ("I am in control here."); 1931 – Edwin Meese; 1939 – Harry Reid; 1945 – Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years); 1946 – Gianni Versace; 1954 – Dan Butler ('Bulldog' on Frasier); 1956 – Steven Bauer (Scarface, Breaking Bad); 1960 – Rick Savage(Def Leppard); 1968 – Lucy Liu (Elementary, Ally MacBeal); 1978 – Nelly Furtado♪ ♫; 1981 – Britney Spears♪ ♫; 1983 – Aaron Rodgers

Deaths

1547 – Hernán Cortés; 1814 – Marquis de Sade; 1859 – John Brown; 1936 – John Ringling (co-founded Ringling Brothers Circus); 1957 – Harrison Ford; 1982 – Marty Feldman; 1986 – Desi Arnaz♪ ♫; 1990 – Aaron Copland♪ ♫; 1995 – Roxie Roker (upstairs neighbor 'Helen' on The Jeffersons, Lenny Kravitz's mother); 2000 – Gail Fisher (secretary 'Peggy Fair' on Mannix); 2008 – Odetta♪ ♫<---

[xoxoxoBruce]

1775 – The USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones, bass player with Led Zeppelin.

Um, did you fact check that?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Um, did you fact check that?

The flag-hoisting bit is a fact. The bass player may have been some other guy.

[Gravdigr]

The world carries on, and, so must we all.

December 3

1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.

1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.

1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.

1919 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.

1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released.

1964 – Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property. [Guess they should have banned banned protest protests, huh?]

1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).

1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, and plays a concert two days later.

1979 – In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert.

1982 – A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.

1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague. [The message said "Merry Christmas".]

1994 – The PlayStation was released in Japan.

1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.

2005 – XCOR Aerospace makes the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California.

2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid (162173 Ryugu) to collect rock samples.

Births

1826 – George B. McClellan; 1842 – Charles Alfred Pillsbury (yeah, that one); 1925 – Ferlin Husky♪ ♫; 1927 – Andy Williams♪ ♫; 1934 – Nicolas Coster; 1937 – Bobby Allison; 1948 – Ozzy Osbourne♪ ♫; 1949 – Mickey Thomas♪ ♫(Jefferson Starship, Starship); 1951 – Rick Mears; 1952 – Benny Hinn; 1960 – Daryl Hannah (Splash, Clan of the Cave Bear); 1960 – Julianne Moore; 1963 – Terri Schiavo; 1965 – Katarina Witt; 1968 – Brendan Fraser; 1968 – Montell Jordan♪ ♫; 1980 – Anna Chlumsky

Deaths

311 – Diocletian; 1552 – Francis Xavier; 1888 – Carl Zeiss (yeah, the lens guy); 1894 – Robert Louis Stevenson; 1910 – Mary Baker Eddy; 1919 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1981 – Walter Knott (founded Knott's Berry Farm); 1989 – Connie B. Gay♪ ♫(founded the Country Music Association); 1999 – Madeline Kahn; 2014 – Ian McLagan(Small Faces, Faces); 2015 – Scott Weiland♪ ♫(Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver)

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December 4

771 – Austrasian king Carloman I dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frankish Kingdom.

1619 – Thirty-eight colonists arrive at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia. The group's charter proclaims that the day "be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

1674 – Father Jacques Marquette founds a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illiniwek. (The mission would later grow into the city of Chicago.)

1783 – At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, U.S. General George Washington bids farewell to his officers.

1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.

1872 – The crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the Canadian brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged.

1875 – Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison; he is later recaptured in Spain.

1881 – The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.

1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.

1954 – The first Burger King is opened in Miami. [Thank you God.]

1956 – The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio for the first and last time.

1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein becomes San Francisco's first female mayor.

1988 – Roy Orbison plays his last set at The Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio. Orbison dies two later of a heart attack, aged 52.

1991 – Terry A. Anderson is released after seven years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut; he is the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.

1992 – Somali Civil War: President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia in Northeast Africa.

1998 – The Unity Module, the second module of the International Space Station, is launched.

2006 – Six black youths assault a white teenager in Jena, Louisiana.

Births

34 – Persius; 1892 – Francisco Franco; 1921 – Deanna Durbin; 1923 – Charles Keating; 1930 – Ronnie Corbett (one of The Two Ronnies); 1933 – Wink Martindale; 1933 – Horst Buchholz (The Magnificent Seven); 1934 – Victor French (Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven and Carter Country); 1937 – Max Baer, Jr. ('Jethro' on The Beverly Hillbillies); 1939 – Freddy Cannon♪ ♫; 1942 – Bob Mosley(Moby Grape); 1944 – Chris Hillman♪ ♫(The Byrds); 1944 – Dennis Wilson(The Beach Boys); 1947 – Terry Woods♪ ♫(The Pogues); 1948 – Southside Johnny♪ ♫(Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes); 1949 – Jeff Bridges; 1951 – Gary Rossington(Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rossington-Collins Band); 1964 – Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny); 1966 – Fred Armisen (SNL); 1966 – Andy Hess(Gov't Mule, The Black Crowes); 1969 – Jay Z♪ ♫; 1971 – Shannon Briggs; 1973 – Tyra Banks

Deaths

1131 – Omar Khayyám; 1902 – Charles Dow (co-founded Dow Jones & Company); 1945 – Thomas Hunt Morgan; 1967 – Bert Lahr (the 'cowardly lion' in The Wizard of Oz); 1976 – Tommy Bolin(James Gang, Deep Purple); 1993 – Frank Zappa♪ ♫(The Mothers Of Invention); 2015 – Robert Loggia (Big, Independence Day, Scarface)

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

Jumping down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on this one, I discovered that when humans landed a probe on that comet with the Rosetta spacecraft a couple years ago, the sensors picked up this methyl isocyanate organic compound.

[Gravdigr]

December 5

Today is World Soil Day, as declared by the United Nations. So, idk, have some dirt.

There are 26 days remaining in 2016.

There are 19 days until Christmas.


Events

1492 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

1766 – In London, James Christie holds his first sale.

1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1831 – Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives.

1847 – Jefferson Davis is elected to the U.S. Senate.

1848 – California Gold Rush: In a message to the United States Congress, U.S. President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California.

1876 – The Brooklyn Theatre fire kills at least 278 people in Brooklyn, New York.

1932 – German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein is granted an American visa.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. [And there was much rejoicing. I mean, like, a lot of rejoicing.]

1952 – Great Smog: A cold fog descends upon London, combining with air pollution and killing at least 12,000 in the weeks and months that follow.

1955 – E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.)

1960 - Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested for pinning a condom to a brick wall and then igniting it. The two were told to leave Germany and The Beatles returned home, discouraged.

1964 - Lorne Greene star of the NBC TV show 'Bonanza' was at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Ringo', making him the second Canadian (after Paul Anka) to have a US No.1 single.

2004 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there.

Births

1782 – Martin Van Buren (8th POTUS); 1839 – George Armstrong Custer; 1859 – John Jellicoe; 1871 – Bill Pickett (<--Interesting read. He invented 'bulldogging', which evolved into the rodeo event of the same name.); 1879 – Clyde Vernon Cessna (yeah, that Cessna); 1890 – Fritz Lang; 1901 – Walt Disney; 1901 – Werner Heisenberg (German scientist, namesake of 'Walter White's' alias in Breaking Bad); 1902 – Strom Thurmond; 1906 – Otto Preminger; 1912 – Sonny Boy Williamson II♪ ♫; 1921 – Alvy Moore (Green Acres); 1932 – Little Richard; 1934 – Joan Didion; 1935 – Calvin Trillin; 1936 – James Lee Burke; 1938 – JJ Cale(wrote Cocaine, Call Me The Breeze, After Midnight, and many other songs); 1938 – J.D. McDuffie; 1944 – Jeroen Krabbé (The Fugitive (1993 movie)); 1946 – José Carreras♪ ♫(one of The Three Tenors); 1947 – Jim Messina(Buffalo Springfield, Poco, Loggins & Messina); 1951 – Morgan Brittany; 1960 – Jack Russell♪ ♫(Great White); 1963 – Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards (British Olympic skier, subject of the movie Eddie The Eagle (<--great flick, btw)); 1963 – Carrie Hamilton (daughter of Carol Burnett); 1965 – John Rzeznik♪ ♫(The Goo Goo Dolls); 1968 – Margaret Cho; 1979 – Nick Stahl; 1980 – Jessica Paré; 1985 – Frankie Muniz (Malcolm In The Middle)

Deaths

1791 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; 1870 – Alexandre Dumas; 1895 – Gall (Hunkpapa Lakota war chief); 1926 – Claude Monet; 1951 – Shoeless Joe Jackson; 1955 – Glenn L. Martin (of Martin Marietta Corp); 1993 - Doug Hopkins♪ ♫(Gin Blossoms); 1998 – Albert Gore, Sr. (if only he'd worn a condom); 2002 – Roone Arledge; 2008 – Nina Foch; 2010 – Dandy Don Meredith; 2012 – Dave Brubeck; 2013 – Nelson Mandela; 2015 – Chuck Williams (founded Williams-Sonoma, Inc.)

[Gravdigr]

December 6

Today is marked as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, by our friends in Canadia, informally referred to as White Ribbon Day.

There are 25 days remaining in 2016.

There are 18 days until Christmas.


Events

1534 – The city of Quito in Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.

1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.

1865 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery.

1877 – The first edition of The Washington Post is published.

1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.

1897 – London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs.

1907 – A coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia, kills 362 workers.

1917 – Halifax Explosion: A munitions explosion near Halifax, Nova Scotia kills more than 1,900 people in the largest artificial explosion up to that time.

1933 – U.S. federal judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce's novel Ulysses is not obscene.

1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom and Canada declare war on Finland in support of the Soviet Union during the Continuation War. Camp X opens in Canada to begin training Allied Secret Agents for the War.

1949 - American blues artist, Leadbelly died. Huddie William Ledbetter wrote many songs including 'Goodnight Irene', ‘Cotton Fields’, 'The Rock Island Line', and ‘The Midnight Special'. Leadbelly was jailed several times for fights and knife related incidents, he was once jailed for shooting a man dead during an argument over a woman.

1953 – Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.

1967 – Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the United States.

1973 – The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. (On November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3.)

1975 – The Troubles: Fleeing from the police, a Provisional IRA unit takes a British couple hostage in their flat on Balcombe Street, London, beginning a six-day siege.

1982 – The Troubles: The Irish National Liberation Army bombed a pub frequented by British soldiers in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing eleven soldiers and six civilians.

1986 - Europe were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'The Final Countdown'. They became only the second Swedish act to score a UK No.1. The song reached No.1 in 25 countries and the song's lyrics were inspired by David Bowie's song 'Space Oddity'.

1988 - American singer/songwriter Roy Orbison died of a heart attack aged 52.

1989 – The École Polytechnique massacre (or Montreal Massacre): An anti-feminist gunman murders 14 young women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.

1997 – A Russian Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo plane crashes into an apartment complex near Irkutsk, Siberia, killing 67 people.

1998 – in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is victorious in presidential elections.

2005 – An Iranian Air Force C-130 military transport aircraft crashes into a ten-floor apartment building in a residential area of Tehran, killing all 84 people on board and 44 more people on the ground.

2006 – NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

2011 - American singer/songwriter Dobie Gray died from complications of cancer surgery in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 71.

2013 - The electric guitar played by Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was sold at auction in New York for a record $965,000. The Fender Stratocaster had been in the possession of a New Jersey family for 48 years after Dylan left it on a private plane.

Births

1872 – William S. Hart; 1876 – Fred Duesenberg (Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company); 1886 – Joyce Kilmer; 1896 – Ira Gershwin♪ ♫; 1898 – Alfred Eisenstaedt; 1900 – Agnes Moorehead ('Endora' on Bewitched); 1908 – Baby Face Nelson; 1917 – Irv Robbins (co-founded Baskin-Robbins); 1920 – Dave Brubeck; 1921 – Otto Graham; 1924 – Wally Cox (Mr. Peepers, voice of Underdog); 1934 – Nick Bockwinkel; 1936 – Kenneth Copeland; 1941 – Richard Speck; 1942 – Robb Royer(Bread); 1943 – Mike Smith(Dave Clark Five); 1948 – JoBeth Williams; 1952 – Craig Newmark (founded Craig's List); 1953 – Tom Hulce; 1955 – Steven Wright; 1956 – Peter Buck(R.E.M.); 1956 – Randy Rhoads(Ozzy, Quiet Riot); 1967 – Judd Apatow

Deaths

343 – Saint Nicholas (WHAT?! St. Nick is dead?! Is Christmas cancelled??); 1889 – Jefferson Davis (President of The Confederate States of America); 1892 – Werner von Siemens (founded the Siemens Company); 1949 - Huddie 'Leadbelly' Ledbetter; 1955 – Honus Wagner; 1972 – Janet Munro (Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Swiss Family Robinson); 1988 – Roy Orbison♪ ♫(The Traveling Wilburys); 1989 – Frances Bavier ('Aunt Bee' on The Andy Griffith Show); 1989 – John Payne (Miracle on 34th Street, The Restless Gun); 1993 – Don Ameche (Cocoon, Trading Places); 2000 – Werner Klemperer ('Colonel Klink' on Hogan's Heroes); 2002 – Philip Berrigan; 2011 – Dobie Gray♪ ♫; 2014 – Ralph H. Baer (created the Magnavox Odyssey video game system)

[Gravdigr]

December 7

Today is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States, commemorating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

Today is also International Civil Aviation Day, as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly.

There are 24 days remaining in 2016.

There are 17 days until Christmas.


Events

43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated.

1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, makes landfall. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.

1732 – The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.

1776 – Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, arranges to enter the American military as a major general.

1869 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.

1917 – World War I: The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1930 – W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts telecasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The telecast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

1941 – World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1946 – A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, kills 119 people, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history.

1963 – Instant replay makes its debut during the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1967 - Otis Redding went into the studio to record '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay'. The song went on to be his biggest hit. Redding didn't see its release; he was killed three days later in a plane crash. Redding's familiar whistling, heard before the song's fade was the singer fooling around, he had intended to return to the studio at a later date to add words in place of the whistling.

1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.

1974 - Carl Douglas started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Kung Fu Fighting'. The song was recorded in 10 minutes, had started out as a B-side and went on to sell over 10 million copies.

1977 - Inventor Dr Peter Carl Goldmark was killed in a car crash aged 71. Goldmark invented the long-playing microgroove record in 1945.

1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr., becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a British Aerospace 146-200A, crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.

1988 – Spitak earthquake: In Armenia an earthquake measuring 6.8 (surface wave magnitude) kills more than 25,000 people, injures 30,000 and leaves 500,000 homeless out of a population of 3,500,000. This day is commemorated in Armenia as Spitak Remembrance Day.

1993 – Long Island Rail Road shooting: Passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.

1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

1999 – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: The Recording Industry Association of America sues the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster, alleging copyright infringement.

2014 - Pink Floyd's classic album, The Dark Side Of The Moon made a surprise return to the Billboard chart when it landed at No.13, thanks to ultra-cheap pricing in the Google Play store where the album was discounted to 99-cents.

Births

521 – Columba; 1863 – Richard Warren Sears (co-founded Sears); 1873 – Willa Cather; 1888 – Hamilton Fish III; 1904 – Clarence Nash (voice of Donald Duck for 50 years); 1910 – Louis Prima♪ ♫; 1915 – Eli Wallach; 1923 – Ted Knight; 1928 – Noam Chomsky; 1928 – Mickey Thompson; 1932 – Ellen Burstyn; 1939 – Blackie Dammett (actor, father of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis); 1942 – Harry Chapin♪ ♫; 1943 – John Bennett Ramsey (father of JonBenét Ramsey); 1947 – Johnny Bench; 1947 – James Keach (actor/producer/director, brother to Stacey Keach); 1949 – Tom Waits♪ ♫; 1956 – Larry Bird; 1958 – Tim Butler(The Psychedelic Furs); 1958 – Rick Rude; 1965 – Jeffrey Wright ('Felix Leiter' in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace); 1966 – C. Thomas Howell; 1979 – Sara Bareilles♪ ♫

Deaths

43 BC – Cicero; 1817 – William Bligh; 1894 – Ferdinand de Lesseps (co-developed the Suez Canal); 1902 – Thomas Nast; 1970 – Rube Goldberg; 1975 – Thornton Wilder; 1985 – Robert Graves; 1989 – Haystacks Calhoun; 1990 – Joan Bennett; 2004 – Jerry Scoggins (sang the theme to Beverly Hillbillies, "The Ballad Of Jed Clampett"); 2004 – Jay Van Andel (co-founded Amway, damn his eyes); 2006 – Jeane Kirkpatrick; 2011 – Harry Morgan ('Col. Potter' on M*A*S*H (tv series); 2013 – Chick Willis