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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 18, 2005 7:38:41 GMT -5
1398 - Turkish warrior Timur Lenk (Tamurlane) conquered Delhi.
1737 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin-maker, died. Noted for their astonishing sound quality, his surviving violins are still unsurpassed.
1787 - New Jersey became the third state in the United States.
1796 - Baltimore, Maryland's "Monitor" was published as the first Sunday newspaper.
1862 - In New York City, the first orthopedic hospital was organized. It was named the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled.
1865 - Slavery was abolished throughout the United States with the ratification of the 13th amendment.
1892 - Peter Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker premiered at the Marinski Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, and it was a huge flop. The choreography was to blame, because Tchaikovsky's beautiful music was a hit, and has been popular ever since.
1903 - The United States-Panama treaty placed the Canal Zone under United States control for an annual rent.
1912 - Charles Dawson discovered fossils known as the "Piltdown Man" on Piltdown Common in East Sussex, England, and claimed they were the remains of primitive man. It was later discovered to be a hoax.
1916 - The 10-month Battle of Verdun ended after huge loss of life -- 543,000 French and 434,000 German troops were killed in the battle.
1917 - The United States Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting alcohol. It was ratified in 1919 and repealed in 1933.
1919 - British aviator Sir John Alcock crashed and died. Earlier that year he and fellow Briton Arthur Brown had made the first non-stop transatlantic flight.
1920 - In Camden, New Jersey, conductor Arturo Toscanini made his first recording for Victor Records.
1932 - In New York City, Beau Jack defeated Tippy Larkin to win the World Lightweight Boxing Championship.
1934 - On Decca Records, Willie Smith sang with Jimmy Lunceford and his Orchestra on "Rhythm is Our Business".
1935 - In her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Australian soprano Marjorie Lawrence, singing the role of Brunnhilde in Die Gotterdammerung, sent her horse through a ring of real flames burning on the stage. This was the first time this effect had ever been attempted by an opera singer during a performance.
1935 - A $1 silver certificate was issued and was the first currency to depict the both sides of the Great Seal of the United States.
1935 - Eduard Benes was elected as the second president of Czechoslovakia after the resignation of Tomas Masaryk.
1936 - Su-Lin, the first giant panda to arrive in the United States from China arrived in San Francisco, California. The bear was sold to the Brookfield Zoo for only $8,750.
1939 - The crew of the German cruiser Graf Spee scuttled their vessel off Montevideo, Uruguay, to avoid capture by British ships.
1940 - A secret plan issued by Adolf Hitler ordered the German General Staff to prepare for the invasion of Russia under the codename "Operation Barbarossa."
1952 - Sugar Ray Robinson announced his plans to retire as Middleweight Boxing Champion in order to pursue a career as a dancer and an entertainer.
1953 - WPTZ, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania presented a Felso laundry detergent commercial, the first color telecast viewed on a local station.
1956 - Japan was admitted to the United Nations.
1956 - On CBS-TV, One of America’s great panel shows, "To Tell the Truth," debuted with host Bud Collyer. The program had a 10-year run and made stars of panelists: Phyllis Newman, Orson Bean, Kitty Carlisle (Hart), Sam Levinson, Tom Poston, Milt Kamen and Bess Myerson.
1957 - The movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and directed by David Lean, premiered in New York. It later won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score, and Best Film Editing.
1961 - The Tokens had their first #1 hit single with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight","Wimoweh" for purists. It stayed at the top spot for four weeks in a row.
1961 - Britain's EMI Records rejected the Beatles.
1972 - Helen Reddy earned a gold record for the song that became the anthem for women’s liberation, "I Am Woman", which had reached number one on December 9, 1972.
1972 - Uganda nationalized 41 foreign-owned farms and tea estates, of which 34 were British.
1975 - Rod Stewart announced his departure from, Faces, to start a solo career with Warner Brothers.
1980 - Former Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin died of heart failure. He was premier from 1964 until 1980.
1981 - Rod Stewart performed a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, in California, that was both televised to 23 countries and carried over FM radio stations in the United States. His total audience was about 35 million.
1982 - Daryl Hall and John Oates had their 5th #1 on the music charts with "Maneater". The song stayed at the top spot for four weeks, becoming Hall and Oates’ most popular hit.
1984 - "Saturday Night Live"'s Christopher Guest and actress Jamie Lee Curtis married in Rob Reiner's Los Angeles, California home.
1985 - "Beverly Hills Cop" became the year's top movie grosser with $229.9 million in tickets sales. Michael J. Fox's "Back to the Future" was second, followed in third by "Rambo: First Blood, Part 2", starring Sylvester Stallone.
1987 - Ivan Boesky, the Wall Street financier who played a key role in the biggest insider trading scheme in United States history, was jailed for three years.
1989 - The Soviet Union and the European Community signed a trade and economic cooperation pact which they hailed as opening the way to closer pan-European integration.
1993 - Sam Wanamaker, United States actor and director who campaigned to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe Theater on the Thames River in London, died at 74.
1994 - The Bulgarian Socialist Party won an absolute majority in parliament for the second time since it changed its name from Communist and gave up 45 years of absolute rule.
1995 - The United States airlifted its first combat troops to Bosnia to join NATO's biggest military mission.
1995 - A Zairian passenger plane crashed in Northern Angola, killing 141 people.
1995 - Konrad Zuse, a German engineer who built one of the world's first computers and lost it in the wartime Allied bombing of Berlin, died.
1997 - Chris Farley, comedian and actor, was found dead in his home in Chicago, Illinois. Farley, age 33 and extremely overweight, may have died of a heart attack, but no official cause of death was immediately available. The comic had worked for four years on NBC's Saturday Night Live. The media noted that he was the same age as former SNL comedian John Belushi when he died.
1998 - The United States House of Representatives began debating the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 19, 2005 11:53:05 GMT -5
1154 - Henry II crowned as King of England; his great achievement was to strengthen the administration of the country and to establish the Exchequer.
1564 - The Battle of Dreux took place when Catholics defeated the Huguenots in the first French Religious War.
1732 - Benjamin Franklin began publication of Poor Richard's Almanac. The publication was a series of booklets full of aphorisms and homely sayings.
1776 - The first appearance of The Crisis by Thomas Paine was on this date, with its famous opening, "These are the times that try men's souls...".
1777 - Washington settled his troops at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the winter.
1793 - In the French Revolutionary wars, French forces under General Dugommier and Napoleon Bonaparte recaptured the city of Toulon from the English.
1842 - The United States recognized the independence of Hawaii.
1871 - Corrugated paper, cardboard, was patented by Albert L. Jones of New York City.
1903 - The first major suspension bridge in the United States -- the Williamsburg Bridge -- opened in New York City.
1917 - The new National Hockey League's first games were played. The league consisted of five teams: Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec, the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers.
1918 - Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon of unusual, hard-to-believe facts from around the world was first published in the New York Globe. Ripley first planned to call the cartoon "Chumps and Champs" as it originally involved sport feats, but decided instead on "Believe It Or Not!".
1932 - The British Broadcasting Corp. began transmitting overseas.
1939 - The German cruise liner Columbus was scuttled by its crew in the Atlantic after being followed by a United States cruiser; 577 survivors were picked up.
1941 - Adolph Hitler took over as commander-in-chief of the army after sacking Field Marshal von Brauchitsch.
1946 - War broke out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacked the French.
1950 - General Dwight Eisenhower was named NATO commander.
1957 - Meredith Wilson’s musical, "The Music Man", opened at New York City's Majestic Theatre. The show starred Robert Preston and enjoyed a 1,375 show run. the band included 76 trombones and 101 cornets.
1957 - An agreement was signed to start a regular air service between Moscow and London.
1959 - In the first Liberty Bowl football game, Penn State’s Nittany Lions beat Alabama, 7-0. The game was held in Memphis, Tennessee, where it was played at the stadium now called the Liberty Bowl. Memphis State also plays its games at the Liberty Bowl. Visitors to the bowl game can find lots to do at next door Libertyland Amusement Park.
1959 - Walter Williams, said to be the last Civil War veteran alive, died in Houston, Texas, at 117 years old.
1960 - RCA Victor Records released Neil Sedaka’s "Calendar Girl". The song would be Sedaka’s fourth record to make the charts. Other hits include: "The Diary", "Stairway to Heaven", "Bad Girl", "Next Door to an Angel", "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", "Laughter in the Rain" and "Breaking Up is Hard to Do".
1960 - Frank Sinatra recorded his first session with his own record company, Reprise Records. Recorded that day were "Ring-A-Ding-Ding" and "Let’s Fall in Love".
1961 - In New York City, "Judgment At Nuremberg" opened with a star-studded cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, and Maximillian Schell who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film. The film would also receive an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as nine other nominations.
1965 - Charles de Gaulle won 54.5 percent of the vote in the French presidential election, defeating Francois Mitterrand.
1971 - NASA launched Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp.
1972 - Apollo 17 returned to Earth.
1973 - Johnny Carson pulled a prank in front a nationwide, late-night NBC audience. Carson started a false toilet-paper scare when in his "Tonight Show" monologue, he said a Wisconsin congressman warned toilet paper would disappear from supermarket shelves. In many parts of the United States, toilet paper soon became a scarce after the gag.
1979 - Elvis Presley's personal physician, George Nichopoulos, was charged with "illegally and indiscriminately" prescribing over 12,000 tablets of uppers, downers, and painkillers for the rock and roll star during the 20 months preceding his untimely death.
1981 - Eight crewmen on the Penlee lifeboat drowned as they battled in vain to save the crew of the coaster Union Star off Cornwall, England.
1984 - Twenty-three year old Wayne Gretsky, of the Edmonton Oilers, led his hockey team to beat Los Angeles 7-3. He scored two goals and racked up four assists, becoming the 18th player in the National Hockey League to score over than 1,000 points.
1984 - Britain and China signed an agreement for the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
1985 - Jan Stenerud announced he was retiring from the NFL. The kicker holds the record for most career field goals with 373; all of which were made while kicking for the Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings from 1967 on.
1985 - ABC Sports announced it was ending its relationship with Howard Cosell and released "The Mouth" from all television commitments with the network. "Humble" Howard would continue on ABC Radio for another five years.
1986 - Russia freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile.
1992 - South African President F.W. de Klerk said he had sacked or suspended 23 military officers, including two generals, for illegal and unauthorized activities and malpractices.
1993 - Two years after he was charged, a Pakistani court acquitted Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of kidnapping.
1995 - Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky and his government, threatened by a looming budget row, tendered their resignations to President Thomas Klestil.
1997 - Titanic, James Cameron's movie epic, was released across the United States. At more than three hours long, and a $200 million production price, critics anticipated that it would fail miserably. However, the "most expensive film ever", made with state-of-the-art technology, wowed audiences of all ages, and quickly became the top box-office champ for a film longer than 3 hours.
1998 - The United States House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice by the United States House of Representatives.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 20, 2005 9:06:05 GMT -5
1046 - By the Synod at Sutri in Italy, King Henry III dismissed Pope Gregory VI and four days later Clement II was elected as pope.
1560 - The first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland took place.
1606 - Setting sail from London, England, were the "Susan Constant", "Godspeed" and "Discovery", destined for America. Captain Christopher Newport commanded the three tiny ships, which are now on display at Jamestown village in Virginia. The royally chartered ships landing at Jamestown, Virginia was the beginning of the first permanent English settlement in America.
1699 - Peter the Great announced a reorganization of the Russian calendar, decreeing that the New Year would begin on January 1 and not September 1.
1803 - France sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million, a price of about $20 a square mile.
1820 - Missouri enacted legislation taxing bachelors between the ages of 21-50, $1 a year for not being married.
1860 - South Carolina became the first state to secede from the American Union; it was not readmitted until 1868.
1880 - Broadway, New York's main thoroughfare, was illuminated by electricity for the first time, between 14th and 26h Streets.
1892 - The pneumatic tire was patented by Alexander T. Brown and George Stillman of Syracuse.
1914 - In World War I, the first battle of Champagne began with the French attacking German machinegun positions.
1920 - An English-born comedian Leslie Downes, who would later be knwon as Bob Hope, became an American citizen today. Having lived in the United States since 1908, he became one of the nation's true ambassadors for show business and charity.
1928 - The 47th Street Playhouse, built for actress Ethel Barrymore and the first named for a living actress, opened in New York City.
1928 - In Lewiston, Maine, mail delivery by dog sled started.
1932 - On Brunswick Records, Al Jolson recorded "April Showers".
1938 - Vladimir Kosma Zworykin of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, patented the iconoscope television system, which caught on; although the name didn't.
1945 - Karl Renner was elected first president of the new Second Austrian republic.
1949 - Harry Belafonte recorded his second session at Capitol Records, waxing the songs "Whispering" and "Farewell to Arms". With eight song recorded and little enthusiasm from record buyers, Capitol decided not to renew the singer’s contract. He relocated to RCA Victor in April, 1952 where he enjoyed a successful career.
1952 - Jimmy Boyd hit #1 on the record charts with the Christmas song of the year, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.
1954 - The Buick Motor Company signed Jackie Gleason to one of the largest contracts ever with an entertainer. Gleason would produce 78 half-hour long shows over two years for $6,142,500.
1956 - The Montgomery bus boycott ended after a Supreme Court decision calling for the integration of the public bus system was implemented.
1962 - Don Meyers set a world indoor pole-vault record was set in Chicago, Illinois, when he cleared 16 feet, 1-1/4 inches.
1963 - The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time, remaining so for the holiday season, but closing again on January 6, 1964. During this time, 4,000 people crossed over to visit relatives.
1969 - Leaving on a Jet Plane, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, jumped into the Number 1 spot on this date on Billboard's Top 40 record charts and was in the top slot for one week.
1970 - In Poland, Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka resigned after riots and was replaced by Edward Gierek.
1971 - Pakistani President Mohammad Yahya Khan resigned and handed power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
1972 - Jack Albertson and Sam Levine starred in Neil Simon's classic comedy, The Sunshine Boys, as two retired vaudevillians. The show opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City for the first of 538 performances. The movie version, starring Walter Matthau and George Burns, became a box office hit too.
1973 - In Spain, General Franco's prime minister and right-hand man, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was assassinated as he rode through a Madrid street.
1973 - Multi-talented entertainer Bobby Darin, best remembered for his Grammy-winning single Mack the Knife, died at age 37 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles while undergoing surgery to remove two artificial valves in his heart which were malfunctioning. According to the biography written by son Dodd, Darin's hospitalization and subsequent death was brought on by not taking prescribed antibiotics before a teeth-cleaning procedure. Darin had a history of heart problems.
1979 - Kim Jae-kyu, head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, was sentenced to death for the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in Seoul.
1979 - Knots Landing debuted on CBS, starring Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark as Gary and Valene Ewing.
1980 - Former child star, Shirley Temple Black became a grandmother when, today, her oldest daughter, Susan, gave birth to a baby girl.
1980 - Television experimented with football when NBC covered the meaningless NFL game between the New York Jets (4-11) and the Miami Dolphins (8-7) with no announcers in the booth. The only thing heard were field noises and spectators as the pictures tried to get across the emotion of the game. The next day headlines read, "Jets Silence Dolphins 24-17."
1981 - Romuald Spasowski, Polish ambassador in Washington, was granted political asylum in the United States.
1983 - The Washington Redskins Joe Gibbs, was named NFL Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, making him the first head coach to receive the honor in consecutive years since 1961-1962, when Allie Sherman, of the New York Giants, was honored. In the 1983 season, Joe Gibbs took the Redskins to a 14-2 finish.
1985 - A bill empowering the Librarian of Congress to name a Poet Laureate/Consultant of Poetry each year was signed into law.
1987 - A collision between the Philippine ferry Dona Paz and a tanker caused the deaths of 4,386 passengers and crew, all but 11 aboard the ferry -- the worst peace-time tragedy at sea. The Dona Paz was licensed to carry just 1,500.
1988 - Warner Chappell, a division of Warner Communications and the largest music publisher in the world, agreed to pay $25 million for the song "Happy Birthday to You." The song, owned by Birchtree Ltd., reportedly generated $1 million a year in royalty fees. The copyright would expire after the year 2010.
1989 - The United States invaded Panama and installed a new government but initially failed in its key objective of seizing strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega.
1990 - Russian Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, a key figure in five years of Soviet reform that helped end the Cold War, resigned.
1995 - NATO took over peacekeeping from the United Nations in Yugoslavia and moved quickly to sweep away key roadblocks in Sarajevo.
1995 - 163 people aboard an American Airlines passenger jet en route from Miami died when it slammed into a mountain in southwest Colombia and burst into flames. Only four people survived the crash.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 21, 2005 9:32:55 GMT -5
1620 - The "Mayflower", and its pilgrims from England, arrived at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
1846 - The first surgical operation under anesthesia in Britain was performed at University College Hospital, London by Robert Liston who amputated the leg of a servant.
1849 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first ice-skating club in America was formed.
1909 - Although called introductory high schools, the McKinley and Washington schools of Berkeley, California, were the first authorized, junior-high schools in the United States. They taught grades 7,8 and 9.
1913 - Journalist Arthur Wynne invented the modern crossword puzzle by redesigning a Victorian-era game called The Magic Square. The first crossword puzzle appeared on this date in the weekly supplement to New York's World.
1914 - Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Mack Swain appeared in the first feature-length comedy that was six reels long. Mack Sennett directed the film called, "Tillie’s Punctured Romance".
1937 - The world premier of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an instant hit. Disney took a tremendous gamble with this 3-year artistic venture, as fantasies usually did not (and still do not) fare well at the box office. He had much of his own money tied up in the film, and Snow White had the potential of financially ruining him. The film was originally budgeted for $250,000, but ended up costing $1,480,000. The film utilized the talents of 570 artists and contained 250,000 drawings. Would adults sit through a cartoon that ran nearly an hour and a half? But the pre-release fears were unfounded. The public and most critics were enchanted and impressed with Disney's painstakenly crafted fairy tale. Never before had anyone so successfully produced a full-length animation film, and it was quickly dubbed into 10 languages. In England, children under 16 were not allowed to see the film unless accompanied by an adult, and it was under partial ban in South Africa and the Netherlands. The film ran for an unprecented 5 weeks at New York's Radio City Music Hall and for 31 weeks in Paris. Snow White set new attendance records around the world, marking the dawn of a new age in animation.
1944 - Unitl World War II ended, horse racing was banned in the United States.
1945 - The FCC assigned television channels to several licensees, including CBS and NBC in New York City and Radio Corp. of America in Camden, New Jersey.
1948 - The Republic of Ireland Bill was signed by the President of Eire, ending association with Britain.
1958 - Charles De Gaulle was elected the first president of the fifth Republic of France with 78.5 percent of the votes cast by the electoral college.
1960 - King Saud took over the government of Saudi Arabia after Crown Prince Faisal resigned as prime minister.
1966 - The Beach Boys were awarded a gold record for thire single, "Good Vibrations".
1967 - The Rolling Stones released their LP, "Their Satanic Majesties Request". It cost $50,000 to produce the album which came with a 3-D picture of the Stones on the cover.
1968 - Apollo 8, with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, was launched by a Saturn 5 booster from Cape Kennedy. Three days later the crew carried out the first manned flight around the moon.
1970 - Elvis Presley went to the White House to volunteer his help in fighting United States drug problems. President Richard Nixon gave him a federal Narcotics Bureau badge.
1972 - After nearly two decades of Cold War hostility, East and West Germany established diplomatic ties in a treaty which committed them to good-neighborly relations, paving the way for international recognition of East Germany.
1973 - Joseph Danzansky announced he could not meet the financial conditions that to enable the San Diego Padres baseball franchise to move to Washington, DC. The team was purchased by McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, who vowed to keep it in San Diego, California. Kroc even refunded the admission costs to everyone in Jack Murphy Stadium one night, apologizing for how poorly the team played.
1973 - The first peace conference with Israel and her Arab neighbors opened in Geneva. Jordan, Israel, Egypt, the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations were represented.
1974 - Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle rose to the Number 1 spot on Billboard's record charts, and was there for one week.
1975 - Terrorists of the "Arm of the Arab Revolution" led by "Carlos the Jackal" raided the OPEC headquarters in Vienna and held 11 oil ministers and their staff hostage.
1981 - In seven overtimes, the longest collegiate basketball game in NCAA Division I history, Cincinnati defeated Bradley 75-73. The long game was played in Peoria, Illinois.
1983 - The NCAA men’s basketball rules-committee repealed the controversial, last-two-minute, free-throw rule. At the start of the 1983 season it had been enforced to eliminate excessive fouling at a game's end, but the ideas failed. There were more fouls after the rule was enacted then before.
1985 - Bruce Springsteen’s album, "Born in the USA", surpassed Michael Jackson’s "Thriller", making it the second longest-lasting LP in the top 10. springsteen's album lasted at it peak for 79 weeks, and was second to "The Sound of Music" with Julie Andrews that lasted: 109 weeks.
1986 - Atlanta center Jeff Van Note, who at 40 was the oldest pro football player, played his 246th and last NFL game as Atlanta beat Detroit, 20-6.
1988 - Pan Am World Airways Flight 103 was the victim of a terrorist attack when the jet exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. The 258 passengers, crew, and several people on the ground at the site of the crash were all killed.
1989 - Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu declared a state of emergency in the western district of Timis, where security police had earlier crushed anti-government riots.
1990 - Albania tore down eastern Europe's last towering statues of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
1992 - 54 people were killed when a Martinair DC-10 charter plane carrying Dutch holidaymakers crashed in flames at Faro, in Portugal. Aboard were 327 passengers and 13 crew.
1993 - President Boris Yeltsin abruptly abolished the former KGB security police, saying the huge force Russian citizens feared for decades was "incapable of being reformed."
1995 - In the worst disaster on the accident-prone Egyptian railways in more than 15 years, 75 people were killed and 76 injured when a crowded train rammed the back of another in the town of Badrasheen, 17 miles (28 km) south of Cairo.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 22, 2005 10:52:13 GMT -5
640 - The Saracens under Amrou conquered Alexandria, having invaded Egypt two years earlier.
1715 - James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" and claimant to the British throne, landed at Peterhead from exile in France to start a rebellion.
1772 - Moravian missionaries begin construction of the first schoolhouse west of the Allegheny Mountains, at Schoenbrunn, Pennsylvania.
1783 - George Washington resigns his military commission.
1807 - The United States Embargo Act took effect, banning trade with Britain, France and the rest of the world. Passed by Congress, it aimed to force Britain and France to stop harassing American trade.
1850 - Hawaiian Post Office established.
1877 - The first copies of the "American Bicycling Journal" went on sale.
1894 - In New York City, the United States Golf Association was formed.
1894 - Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer, was convicted of selling secrets to Germany and sentenced to imprisonment on Devils Island. He was not completely exonerated until 1906.
1910 - The first postal savings stamps were issued; In 1914, they would be discontinued.
1917 - Peace negotiations opened between the new Russian government and Germany at Brest-Litovsk.
1920 - New York City's WEAF aired the first ringside broadcast of a prize fight from Madison Square Garden. Joe Lynch defeated Peter Herman to keep the bantamweight title. The maxium weight for a bantamweight is 118 pounds.
1922 - WEAF in New York City broadcast radio’s first double wedding ceremony. As vows were exchanged at Grand Central Palace, 4,000 spectators watched. The broadcast was in conjunction with the American Radio Exposition. Each of the couples each got $100; which in 1922 was a large sum.
1929 - A dispute between the Soviet Union and China over the Eastern Railway ended when both sides agreed to withdraw troops.
1937 - New York's Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic.
1939 - At only 17 years old, Gloria Jacobs became the first girl to hold a world pistol record, won when as she shot 299 out of a possible 300 points. She beat the world mark by one point.
1941 - On Decca Records, Jimmie Lunceford and his orchestra recorded "Blues in the Night", which became one of Lunceford’s biggest hits. From 1934 to 1946 Jimmy Lunceford racked up 22 hits, more than any other black jazz band of the time, except Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.
1941 - The Japanese launched a major attack with 80-100,000 troops in the Philippines at the Gulf of Lingayen.
1943 - Sporting goods manufacturers were given permission to use synthetic rubber as the core of baseballs. The change of material resulted in livelier baseballs.
1956 - The first gorilla born in captivity, Colo, was born at the Colombus, Ohio zoo. He weighed three-and-a-quarter pounds.
1964 - Lockheed SR-71 spy aircraft reaches 2,206 mph (3,530 kph), a record for a jet.
1968 - The 82-man crew of the United States intelligence ship "Pueblo" were released after being seized by North Korea.
1972 - Folk singer Joni Mitchell was awarded a gold record for her album, "For the Roses"; which included the song, "You Turn Me on, I’m a Radio".
1973 - Barbra Streisand's hit record, The Way We Were, from the movie of the same title that she starred in with Robert Redford, debuted on Billboard's pop record charts on this date. The song was on the charts for 17 weeks total, and for 3 weeks was Number 1. It was later certified gold, and it won the Academy Awards for Best Song and for Best Original Dramatic Score. The music was written by Marvin Hamlisch, and the lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
1975 - On CBS-TV's "All In the Family," Mike and Gloria Stivic, played by Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers, had a baby.
1976 - Production of "Let’s Make A Deal" came to an end. During the games show's 3,200 episodes, Monty Hall gave away an estimated $35 million in prizes and over 20,000 kisses. The show's announcer was Jay Stewart, and Carol Merrill was the spokesmodel.
1981 - A rock 'n' roll auction in London, England, had a buyer pay $2,000 for a letter of introduction from Buddy Holly to Decca Records. Among the treasures auctioned off were John and Cynthia Lennon’s marriage certificate, worth $850, and an autographed program from the world premiere of the Beatles film "Help!" which brought $2,100.
1981 - In Argentina, General Leopoldo Galtieri was sworn in as president after the Junta dismissed President Viola.
1984 - CBS Records it would release Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, first solo album, set for release in February, 1985. After a 20-year career with the self-proclaimed “greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world,” Jagger went solo with the album: "She’s the Boss".
1984 - Bernhard Goetz shoots 4 teen-agers on a subway train in New York.
1986 - "Sports Illustrated" magazine named Joe Paterno Sportsman of the Year; whose naming marked the second time a coach won the honor. The first coach to do so was UCLA basketball legend, John Wooden. For this issue, the magazine chose to change its logo to a two-line design.
1989 - Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in a whirlwind revolution after 24 years of hard- line rule. He escaped by helicopter but was recaptured and later executed.
1992 - A Libyan Boeing 727 with 158 people aboard crashed near the town of Souk al-Sabt, near Tripoli, killing all aboard.
1993 - South Africa's white parliament, sitting probably for the last time, buried apartheid, voting 237 to 45 to adopt an interim constitution leading to majority rule after the staging of the country's first all-race election.
1993 - The United States granted political asylum to Alina Fernandez Revuelta, one of Cuban leader Fidel Castro's children.
1993 - Residents of a small Spanish coastal town danced in the streets after learning they had won at least 32 billion pesetas ($230 million) in the world's biggest lottery -- El Gordo (the fat one). Many of Campello's 11,000 people had bought pieces of a winning ticket.
1994 - Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned after his government was toppled by a mutiny by the Northern League coalition party.
1997 - In a landmark Hollywood trial, actress Hunter Tylo won a judgement against the television's Melrose Place for wrongful firing when the producers were told she was pregnant in March 1996. The Los Angeles jury determined that the beautiful Tylo was still able to credibly portray the seductive, scheming vixen she was cast as, and the firing was a thinly disguised attempt at sex discrimination.
1998 - A unit of RJR Nabisco pleaded guilty of attempting to smuggle cigarettes into Canada.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 23, 2005 12:23:53 GMT -5
1588 - Henry III of France ordered the assassination of Henri III Duc de Guise and his brother Louis, cardinal of Lorraine, at a meeting of the States General at Blois.
1783 - After disbanding his army, following the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, George Washington returned to Mount Vernon.
1823 - An anonymous poem appeared in the Troy (NY) Sentinel, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," later known better as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." The poem was written by a professor of Greek and Oriental literature, Clement Clark Moore, and appeared without his permission in the newspaper.
1852 - In San Francisco, California, the Theatre of Celestial John opened on Telegraph Hill; it was the first Chinese theatre in the United States.
1861 - The Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were formally united as Romania.
1888 - In a fit of depression, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear. His "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" shows the right one bandaged because he painted the mirror image.
1913 - President Woodrow Wilson signed the "Federal Reserve Act" into law. The act established twelve Federal Reserve Banks.
1919 - The first ship designed for use as an ambulance to transport sick and wounded patients was launched. The hospital ship, called the "USS Relief", had 515 beds.
1930 - Under contract to Universal Studios, an unknown actress, named Elizabeth Davis, arrived in Hollywood, California. Universal Studios changed her name for the movies, and five years later, the shes won an Academy Award for her work in "Dangerous"; followed in 1938 by another Oscar for playing Julie in "Jezebel". Her stage name? Bette Davis.
1933 - Marinus van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death in Germany for setting fire to the Reichstag earlier in the year.
1938 - After three years on the air, "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" aired for the last time on the radio. The program's action centered around life in a Kentucky shanty town.
1941 - The Japanese captured Wake Island and renamed it the Island of Birds.
1942 - Bob Hope agreed to entertain United States airmen stationed in Alaska for what would be the first of his famous Christmas shows for American armed forces across the world. The Christmas show tradition continued for over three decades.
1943 - The first televised, complete opera aired on WRBG in Schenectady, New York. The call letters,WRBG, stood for red, blue and green; the three primary colors on a color television picture tube. The presented opera was Englebert Humperdinck’s "Hansel and Gretel".
1947 - John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley created the transistor, for which they would share the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics. In its original form, the transistor took up a large amount of space in the New Jersey lab where it was invented. Today, thousands of transistors can be put into a space tinier than a pinhead; and used in electronics such as computers, radios, televisions and video games.
1948 - Hideki Tojo was hanged as a war criminal; a Japanese soldier who became prime minister, he was in power when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
1950 - Pope Pius XII announced that St. Peter's tomb had been found under the Vatican.
1953 - In the Soviet Union, Lavrenty Beria, former security police chief who played a role in Stalin's political purges, was executed for plotting to succeed him as Soviet leader.
1954 - Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, starring Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Peter Lorre and Paul Lukas, was released to theaters. It became one of the Disney studio's biggest-grossing films.
1957 - Actor Dan Blocke debuted on television in the "Restless Gun" production of "The Child". Two years after this, Blocker would star in NBC's "Bonanza" as Hoss Cartwright.
1964 - A cyclone struck Ceylon, killing at least 2,000 people.
1969 - B.J. Thomas was awarded a gold record for the single, "Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head" from the film, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". On January 3, 1970, the song would hit number one on the pop charts, staying there for 4 weeks.
1969 - Elton John had his first meeating with arranger Paul Buckmaster, writer Bernie Taupin and producer Gus Dudgeon. Their collaboration started one of music's most lucrative milestones of the 1970s. Together the four created "Your Song", "Friends", "Levon", "Tiny Dancer", "Rocket Man" and many more.
1972 - A massive earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, resulting in the deaths of some 7,000 people.
1973 - Iran announced that the six main oil producers in the Gulf would increase the export price of their oil 100 percent from January 1974.
1982 - Chaminade defeated there to unbeaten Virginia at a home game in Honolulu, Hawaii. Until then, few had heard of Chaminade. Ralph Samson, one of the NBA’s Houston Rockets‘Twin Towers’, was held to 12 points, as the school with a student body of only 850 won, 77-72. Chaminade’s students were surprised they won, as they were never known for sports.
1983 - The National Football League named Joe Theisman, the Washington Redskins quarterback, Offensive Player of the Year.
1985 - Two young men, allegedly inspired by the British heavy-metal band Judas Priest to commit suicide, shot themselves on this date with a sawed-off shotgun. Five years later in 1990, the parents of Raymond Belknap, age 18, and James Vance, age 20, filed a lawsuit against the members of Judas Priest and CBS Records, saying that subliminal messages on the group's records, such as "Try suicide," "Let's be dead," and "Do it," led the young men to shoot themselves in a duo suicide pact. The parents' argument in the lawsuit was that the subliminal messages in the group's albums had pushed the two men over the edge, and made suicide sound like an adventure. Belknap died at the time of the shooting; Vance lived for three years, ultimately dying from his injuries and to a reaction to medication. Vance had blown away the lower portion of his face. Judas Priest was found innocent in the lawsuit.
1986 - Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager became the first airplane pilots to make a non-stop, round-the-world trip without refueling. The trip consisted of 216 hours of continuous flying; breaking the duo's previous record of 111 hours set a year and a half earlier. For the flight, they piloted their "Voyager" to and from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.
1990 - The people of Slovenia voted overwhelmingly in a plebiscite for the northwestern Yugoslav republic to become an independent state.
1994 - In Yugoslavia, United Nations special envoy Yasushi Akashi clinched a deal and Bosnia's Muslim-led government and rebel Serbs signed a cease-fire agreement to take effect at noon the next day.
1995 - Fire swept through a school ceremony at the Rajiv Marriage Palace in a small north Indian town, killing at least 400 people, most of them children.
1996 - Four women were ordained as priests in Jamaica, the first in the 330-year history of the Anglican church in the Caribbean.
1997 - Terry Nichols was convicted by a Denver, Colorado, jury on charges of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 24, 2005 7:13:39 GMT -5
1618 - Poland agreed to truces in its conflicts with both Sweden and Turkey.
1800 - Authorities in Paris uncovered a plot to assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte.
1814 - The War of 1812 between America and Britain ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.
1818 - Oberndorf, Germany's Franz Gruber, composed the music for Silent Night,, whose words were written by Josef Mohr. The following day, Christmas, it was sung for the first time.
1851 - Fire destroyed two-thirds of the 55,000 volumes in the Library of Congress.
1865 - The Ku Klux Klan white supremacy organization was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee.
1867 - On Christmas Eve, R.H. Macy’s department store in New York City stayed open until midnight to get sales from last-minute shoppers. It was a Merry Christmas for Macy's which took in a record $6,000.
1871 - Verdi's magnificent opera, Aida, had its world premier in Cairo, Egypt. The khedive of Egypt commissioned the composer to write the opera as part of the festivities for the Suez Canal's opening.
1889 - Daniel Stover and William Hance of Freeport, Illinois, were up late assembling bicycles for their children when they patented the back pedal brake. Later their invention t would be known as the safety brake, becoming a standard feature on most bikes. Today, there are 18 gears on a bike, and we need two hands brake instead of just pedaling backwards with our feet.
1906 - From Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Professor Reginald A. Fessenden sent his first radio broadcast. The "program" included a verse, some violin music and a speech.
1914 - The first air raid on Britain took place when a German monoplane dropped a single bomb on Dover.
1924 - Notre Dame's football coach, Knute Rockne, said he opposed eliminating the forward pass as it helped "to curb the brutality of football." Rockne's .881, record for the highest winning percentage in Division I-A football, stands today. It was decided not to do away with the forward pass.
1928 - "The Voice of Firestone"'s first broadcast was heard, it would air every Monday night at 8:00. "The Voice of Firestone" became a cornerstone in radio broadcasting; staying with its original night and sponsor, although in 1931 its time changed to 8:30. On September 5, 1949, the program of classical and semiclassical music began runninig on television as well.
1941 - The British Eighth Army recaptured Benghazi, Libya, from the Germans.
1942 - The German research station at Peenemunde successfully tested a new surface-to-surface weapon system. Called the FZG76, it later became better known as the V1 Flying Bomb.
1942 - Francois Darlan, French admiral and a leading figure in the World War II Vichy government, was killed by an anti-Vichy assassin.
1943 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force preparing for the invasion of France.
1944 - The Andrews Sisters starred in "The Andrews Sisters’ Eight-To-The-Bar-Ranch" as it debuted on ABC Radio. For the show, Patty, Maxene and LaVerne ran a fictional dude ranch. Until the show's run ended in 1946, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes was a regular guest along with Vic Schoen’s Orchestra.
1948 - The first television broadcast of a midnight Mass was broadcast. The services originated from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
1948 - In Dover, Massachusetts, the first entirely solar-heated house was occupied by the first solar-heated people.
1950 - Coach Paul Brown had his fifth consecutive pro-football championship win when Lou Groza kicked a field goal in the game's final 20 seconds, allowing the Cleveland Browns to beat the Los Angeles Rams, 30-28.
1951 - Libya declared its independence and proclaimed a monarchy under King Idriss I.
1951 - NBC-TV presented "Amal and the Night Visitors", the first opera written just for television. It would became a Christmas classic.
1953 - Dragnet, starring Jack Webb as Detective Joe Friday, became the first network television show to have a sponsor, Fatima cigarettes.
1953 - In New Zealand, 151 people were killed when an express train crashed into the Whangaehu river.
1955 - The Lennon Sisters debuted as "The Lawrence Welk Show"'s featured singers on ABC. In just a month they became regulars and remained on the show until 1968.
1968 - After their release from North Korea, the crew of the United States Navy ship, "Pueblo", walked across the Bridge of No Return between North and South Korea. The "Pueblo's" captain, Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, and 82 of his crew were held for 11 months after their ship was seized by North Korea as a suspected American spy vessel.
1976 - Takeo Fukuda became Japanese prime minister.
1977 - The Bee Gees' How Deep is Your Love became Number 1 on the music charts, and stayed there for 3 weeks.
1981 - Reggie Jackson chose Christmas Eve to announce he was joining Gene Autry’s California Angels for the 1982 season.
1985 - The Cuban cigar lost status as one of Fidel Castro's trademarks. The president of Cuba announced he was a non-smoker.
1986 - Aurel Cornea, a French television soundman, was released in Beirut by the clandestine pro-Iranian group which had held him for 291 days.
1989 - Following years of physical and verbal abuse inflicted on him as a child by his international film and recording star father Bing Crosby, Lindsay Crosby took his life, reportedly right after watching his father sing White Christmas during the television-airing of the classic Christmas movie, Holiday Inn.
1989 - Deposed Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega turned himself in to the pope's envoy in Panama and asked for political asylum.
1992 - President George Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger and five other Reagan aides involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
1994 - Fundamentalist Muslim guerrillas killed two people as they hijacked a French airliner at Algiers airport.
1995 - Thousands of Palestinians gathered at Bethlehem's Manger Square to celebrate the city's first Christmas in 28 years free from Israeli occupation.
1995 - Serb and Muslim armies swapped more than 200 prisoners of war in a Christmas Eve gesture symbolising a new era of Bosnian peace under NATO's biggest military operation.
1995 - The first general election victory by an Islamic party in Turkey's 72-year secular history took place when the Welfare Party received 21.32 percent of the vote.
1997 - Japanese broadcasters agreed to establish guidelines for the production of animated programs to prevent a repeat of the recent incident in which more than 700 children were sent to hospitals following convulsions, seizures, and other symptoms while watching the cartoon series Pocket Monsters, the Tokyo newspaper Nikkei Industrial Daily reported. The guidelines were expected to be published by the end of March 1998.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 26, 2005 8:30:50 GMT -5
1492 - Christopher Columbus established Spain's first colony in the Americas on Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti.
1773 - Tea ships were expelled from Philadelphia.
1776 - General Washington's American troops defeated a Hessian force fighting for the British at the battle of Trenton, New Jersey.
1848 - The first gold seekers arrived in Panama en route to San Francisco.
1865 - James H. Mason patented the coffee percolator.
1890 - Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist and excavator of Troy, died.
1898 - Radium was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie and G. Bemont.
1902 - Oscar Battling was on the canvas five times in a boxing match in Hot Springs, South Dakota. His opponent, Christy Williams, ate canvas 42 times, setting a record for knockdowns.
1906 - The world's first feature film, "The Story of the Kelly Gang," was premiered at the Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, Australia.
1908 - American Jack Johnson became the first black boxer to win the world heavyweight title when he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney.
1917 - During World War I, the United States government took over operation of the nation's railroads.
1927 - Football fans applauded numbers on the front and back of jerseys during the East-West Shrine football game.
1931 - At the Music box Theatre in New York City, George Gershwin’s musical, "Of Thee I Sing", opened; becoming the first American musical awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
1939 - In New York City, W.C. Handy, of Memphis, Tennessee, one of the most legendary blues composers ever, recorded "St. Louis Blues" with his band for Varsity Records. Handy was among the first to use the flat third and seventh notes, known in the music world as 'blue’ notes, in a composition. The music awards for blues artists’ were named for him, titled, the W.C. Handy National Blues Awards.
1943 - The last major German battleship, the Scharnhorst, was sunk by the British Royal Navy.
1947 - In New York City, the heaviest snowfall since 1888 hit.
1950 - The Gillette Safety Razor Company signed agreements to the rights of the next six years of baseball’s World Series and All-Star games for $6 million dollars.
1953 - After 17 years, "Big Sister" was last heard on CBS Radio. "Big Sister" was the story of the relationship between Sue Evans Miller and her big sister, Ruth Evans. Over the years, big sister Ruth was played by: Alice Frost, Nancy Marshall, Marjorie Anderson, Mercedes McCambridge. Sister Sue was voiced by: Haila Stoddard, Dorothy McGuire, Peggy Conklin and Fran Carlon.
1954 - "The Shadow," one of radio’s most popular programs hit the air for the last time. Since 1903, vigilante crime-fighter Lamont Cranston had fought greed and corruption. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”
1963 - Capitol Records rushed to release its first Beatles' single. On February 1, 1964, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", backed by "I Saw Her Standing There", reached #1. The music by John, Paul, George and Ringo started the British Invasion; forever changing contemporary.
1964 - The Beatles got their sixth #1 hit song since February 1, when "I Feel Fine" took top honors today. The first five songs to hit #1 for The Beatles were: "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "Can’t Buy Me Love", "Love Me Do" and "A Hard Day’s Night".
1967 - The Dave Brubeck Quartet formally broke up after saxophone player Paul Desmond left the group. Desmond had been in the jazz group 16 years and can be heard on all the Brubeck standards, including "Take Five".
1973 - Soyuz 13 returned to Earth.
1975 - The Tupolev-144 became the world's first supersonic aircraft to go into regular service, carrying mail from Moscow to Alma Ata.
1976 - The most steals in an NBA game was set at 11 on this date, by Larry Kenon for the San Antonio Spurs at Kansas City.
1982 - "TIME" magazine's Man of the Year was, for the first time, a non-human. The winner was a computer, honored as 1982’s “greatest influence for good or evil.”
1984 - House Speaker Tip O’Neill was chosen as the winner of "TV Guide's" J. Fred Muggs Award, given by for television blunders. The Speaker of the House earned the unwanted prize when he ordered CSPAN cameras to pan the nearly empty House of Representatives while Republicans made rip-roaring speeches. J. Fred Muggs was the rougish, yet cute, chimpanzee that, in the 1950s, wreaked havoc on the "Today" show. The NBC thought the chimp would liven things up for the boring Dave Garroway. Unfortunately, Garroway hated Muggs and the chimp, who knew it, proceeded to terrorize the entire show for a while. When Garroway threatened to quit Muggs was soon history.
1985 - Thirteen 8 x 10 drawings from such classic animated movies as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi, and Dumbo, were stolen from the Walt Disney Studios's Ink and Paint building in California. The cels were valued at $65,000.
1986 - Thirty-one year old Doug Jarvis, set a National Hockey League record when he skated in his 916th consecutive game. The record started in 1974, and Doug still holds the individual record for most consecutive games played with 964.
1986 - "Search for Tomorrow," television's longest-running drama was seen for the final time after 35 years on TV. The CBS program included show veterans, Wayne Rogers, Jill Clayburgh, Morgan Fairchild and Don Knotts.
1986 - Stage and screen actress Elsa Lanchester, married at one time to Charles Laughton, and known for her eccentric and comic roles, died at age 84. One of her most famous roles was in the cinema horror-classic, The Bride of Frankenstein .
1989 - Romania's National Salvation Front named a new government headed by President Ion Iliescu, a day after announcing the execution of deposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
1990 - Romania expelled ex-King Michael only hours after he had returned from exile after 43 years.
1991 - Harry Veltman III of Westminster, California, was arrested at his home after allegedly stalking Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt in Germany, and writing her threatening and obscene letters. Veltman, unemployed, had a history of psychological problems.
1993 - Four gunmen vanished into the mountainous wilds of southern Russia with a $10 million ransom after a four-day hostage drama aboard a commandeered helicopter.
1994 - French anti-terrorist police stormed a hijacked jet at Marseille, killing all four Islamic fundamentalist hostage-takers and saving the lives of some 170 passengers and crew.
1996 - The day after Christmas, 6-year-old beauty pageant winner JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the cellar of her family's expensive Boulder, Colorado home. The tiny blonde beauty, the youngest child of a former beauty queen and a wealthy computer businessman, was found 8 hours following her mother's early-morning discovery of a handwritten 3-page ransom note, demanding $118,000 for JonBenet's return, spread on a back stairway. There was no sign of forced entry, and the note was block printed in an attempt to alter the handwriting. After more than a year of investigation, Boulder police still had no suspects, and many elements in the case still baffled them. The precocious girl had reigned as National Tiny Miss Beauty, Little Miss Colorado, America's Royale Miss, as well as many other pageant titles.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 27, 2005 8:06:11 GMT -5
1703 - England and Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty, under which the Portuguese agreed to admit English textiles, which they had previously prohibited, and the English agreed to import wines at a duty rate lower than that imposed on French wines.
1831 - The British Admiralty survey ship HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, set out from Plymouth on its scientific voyage round the globe.
1845 - When he delivered his own child, in Jefferson, Georgia, Dr. Crawford Williamson Long gave anesthesia its first use for childbirth.
1900 - Carrie Nation held her first saloon raid at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas, where she broke every one of the liquor bottles in the bar. Nation usually used a hatchet to cause her damage; calling her vandalism, hatchetation.
1903 - Composed by Henry Armstrong to words written by Richard Gerard, the song Sweet Adeline was sung for the first time in New York City. The song is the all-time favorite song with barbershop quartests.
1927 - Show Boat, a musical by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern and adapted from Edna Ferber's novel, opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City. The musical was very successful, and was later made into a film.
1927 - Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, marking a victory by Stalin in a power struggle.
1932 - The largest movie theater in the world, Radio City Music Hall in New York City, opened on this date. It originally had 5,945 seats - it now has 5,874.
1938 - In North Conway, New Hampshire, the first skimobile course in the United States opened.
1939 - On CBS radio, "The Glenn Miller Show", also known as "Music that Satisfies", begano. The bi-weekly, 15-minute, show was sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes. It aired for nearly three years.
1940 - Singer Al Jolson and actress Ruby Keeler divorced after 12 years of marriage. A year before they had separated, but Jolson talked Keeler into co-starring in the Broadway show, "Hold on to Your Hats" with him. Before opening night, she left the show and then left the marriage.
1945 - The International Monetary Fund was established in Washington.
1945 - Foreign ministers of Britain, United States and U.S.S.R., meeting in Moscow, agreed on a plan to govern Korea for five years.
1946 - For the first time since 1938, the American team won the Davis Cup at a competition held in Melbourne, Australia.
1947 - The children's television show, Howdy Doody, featuring both live action and marionettes, premiered on NBC, with host Buffalo Bob Smith. It was television's first show to complete 1,000 broadcasts and the first to utilize a split screen on a cross-country telecast. After 13 successful years, production ended with a total of 2,343 shows under its belt.
1948 - Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Catholic primate of Hungary, was arrested for anti-Communist statements.
1949 - Indonesia became legally independent from the Netherlands.
1951 - A Crosley automobile became the first vehicle with a steering wheel on the right side put into service delivering mail Cincinnati, Ohio.
1968 - After 35 year on ABC radio, "The Breakfast Club" closed for the last time.
1968 - Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
1971 - Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and Woodstock of Charles Schulz’ "Peanuts" comic strip, made the cover of Newseek.
1972 - Belgium became the first NATO country to establish diplomatic relations with East Germany.
1975 - For the second time in their career, the Staple Singers hit #1 on the pop music charts with "Let’s Do It Again". The song, the theme from the movie soundtrack of the same title, was the group's last hit. On June 3, 1972, "I’ll Take You There" was The Staple Singers’ first number one hit.
1975 - More than 400 Indian miners died after being trapped underground following an explosion and flooding in Chasnala Colliery, Bihar State.
1978 - King Juan Carlos ratified Spain's first democratic constitution.
1979 - Afghan President Hafizullah Amin was executed following a coup backed by Soviet forces.
1980 - John Lennon's Just Like Starting Over jumped into the Number 1 spot on Billboard's pop record charts, and stayed there for 5 weeks. The song's title sadly possessed a grim irony, as Lennon had been assassinated outside his New York Dakota apartment building only a few weeks earlier. He had just come out of a five-year retirement.
1984 - According to the Gallup Poll, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the woman Americans most admired. It was the third year in a row the ‘Iron Lady’ received the honor.
1984 - Four police officers went on trial in Warsaw for the killing of pro-Solidarity priest Father Popieluszko.
1985 - Fifteen people were killed when four Palestinian terrorists attacked the El Al check-in counter at Rome's Fiumicino airport. A similar attack at Vienna's Schwechat airport left four dead, including one gunman.
1986 - "TIME" magazine named Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines, Man of the Year. The only other women so named were Queen Elizabeth II in 1952; and Wallis Warfield Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, in 1936.
1989 - Egypt and Syria resumed full diplomatic relations after a 12-year break.
1990 - Gennady Yanayev was elected to the new post of Soviet vice president.
1991 - All 129 passengers and crew survived when a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) airliner crash-landed and broke into three pieces minutes after taking off from Stockholm.
1994 - Four Roman Catholic priests were shot to death in their rectory in Algiers after French commandos killed four hijackers on an Air France jet.
1995 - Israeli troops withdrew from Ramallah, completing the handover of six West Bank towns to the Palestinians.
1995 - Ukraine-born Shura Cherkassky, one of the world's last great romantic pianists, died.
1996 - Rwanda's first genocide trial opened with the accused facing the death penalty for their part in the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis.
1997 - Billy Wright was assassinated in Northern Ireland after his imprisonment as a Protestant paramilitary leader.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 28, 2005 11:04:27 GMT -5
1170 - Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by four knights acting on the orders of England's King Henry II.
1832 - John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down over differences with President Jackson.
1845 - Texas became the 28th United States state.
1859 - The first iron-hulled armored warship, Britain's HMS Warrior, was launched.
1869 - William E. Semple from Mt. Vernon, Ohio, patented “the combination of rubber with other articles adapted to the formation of an acceptable chewing gum."
1874 - Alfonso XII was proclaimed king of Spain.
1877 - Applying for a patent was John Stevens, of Neenah, Wisconsin. It was for his flour-rolling mill which would raise production 70%.
1895 - The Jameson Raid into the Transvaal to aid the Uitlanders (mainly British settlers) in the Boer republic, began.
1895 - The Lumiere brothers -- Antoine and Louis -- unveiled their Cinematograph in the basement of the Grand Cafe in Paris. Only 33 people paid to see it.
1897 - The play "Cyrano de Bergerac," by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.
1902 - In New York City, the first professional indoor football game was played at Madison Square Garden, where Syracuse beat the Philadelphia Nationals, 6-0.
1911 - Sun Yat Sen became the first president of the Chinese Republic.
1912 - Taking to the streets of San Francisco, Calfornia for the first time were the first municipally-owned street cars.
1937 - The constitution of the Republic of Ireland came into effect.
1940 - German aircraft dropped thousands of incendiary bombs on London, destroying some cherished buildings.
1941 - CBS Radio's "The Helen Hayes Theater", was called the first casualty of World War II, when Lipton Tea dropped sponsorship of the show as preparation for shortages of tea imports from India.
1942 - When R.O. Sullivan crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the 100th time today, he made history.
1944 - Soviet tanks entered Budapest in World War II.
1944 - In New York City, the musical, "On the Town", opened for a 462 performance run. It was Leonard Bernstein’s first big Broadway success and its hit song, "New York, New York", is still successful.
1952 - The first transistor hearing aid was marketed in the United States.
1956 - After five years on NBC-TV, the last "Ding Dong School" aired. Miss Frances, Dr. Frances Horwich, rang her bell for one last time.
1957 - "At The Hop", by Danny and The Juniors, reached the top spot on the music charts, staying there for seven weeks. The original title of the song was "Do the Bop", but at the suggestion of ‘America’s Oldest Living Teenager’ Dick Clark, it was changed. Danny and The Juniors filled in for a group that failed to show up for "American Bandstand" in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Clark called The Juniors to come to the studio immediately and they complied with a lip-synced version of "At The Hop"; written by Junior, Dave White and a friend, John Medora. Soon after the song hit number one. A few years later, Danny and The Juniors gave Chubby Checker a shot a stardom when they failed to show for Clark’s show.
1958 - Call it the greatest NFL Championship Game of all time. That's how most people describe the struggle between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, played in Yankee Stadium. The teams took the game, which was televised nationally and brought the NFL much-needed attention, into overtime tied 17-17. The stars of the day, and there were plenty, were guys like Johnny Unitas, Pat Summerall, Raymond Berry, Charley Conerly, Kyle Rote, Alex Webster and Frank Gifford. Unitas, who completed 26 of 40 passes for 349 yards that day, took the Colts 80 yards on 13 plays on the final drive in overtime. Alan Ameche's one-yard run 8 minutes and 15 seconds into OT capped it, giving the Colts a 23-17 victory.
1964 - Principal filming for the movie classic, "Dr. Zhivago", started near Madrid, Spain. When finished the film was 197 minutes long. It received ten Academy Award nominations, winning five Oscars, including Best Original Score.
1965 - President Ho Chi Minh of North Vietnam rejected unconditional peace talks offered by United States.
1972 - 99 people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 crashed into the Everglades near Miami International Airport in Florida.
1973 - Akron, Ohio's Chamber of Commerce ended its association with the All-American Soap Box Derby, saying the race had become “a victim of cheating and fraud.” Some competitive kids and their fathers were found to be concealing things in their home made cars, like heavy lead. They could also do things to the wheels to make them spin faster; and some cars were designed like an Indy car instead of like a soap box car. “Clever... but unfair,” said the people of Akron.
1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago," an expose of the Soviet prison system.
1975 - A bomb explosion at New York's La Guardia airport killed 11 people.
1981 - Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Records (WEA) raised the price of 45 rpm records from $1.68 to $1.98, leading the other record labels in a price hike.
1981 - Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American "test-tube" baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.
1981 - United States President Reagan announced a program of economic sanctions against the Soviet Union because of its alleged role in the imposition of martial law in Poland.
1983 - The United States formally announced its intention to withdraw from UNESCO at the end of 1984.
1983 - Drummer for The Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson, drowned at age 39. Wilson had been drinking vodka and wine all day, and was diving into the slip next to the boat he and a few friends were on. The autopsy revealed that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.26, and it was believed that because underwater pressure causes nitrogen to be absorbed into the blood, resulting in euphoria, Wilson misjudged his need for air.
1986 - After seven months sidelined after back surfery, Pat Cash stared a comeback by winning the Davis Cup of men’s international tennis team championship, for Australia when he beat Mikael Pernfors.
1989 - Playwright Vaclav Havel, jailed for five years for his human rights activities and long denounced in the communist media as an enemy of the state, was sworn in as president of Czechoslovakia.
1989 - Alexander Dubcek, the former Czechoslovak Communist leader who was deposed in a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, was named chairman of the country's parliament.
1992 - The Yugoslav parliament voted to oust Prime Minister Milan Panic from office.
1993 - After 2,000 years of often hostile Christian-Jewish relations, the Vatican and Israel approved a document in which the Holy See and the Jewish state recognized each other.
1993 - Tony Danza was admitted to the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, about 50 miles east of Salt Lake City, following a serious ski accident. He underwent back surgery, and had five broken ribs, internal bleeding, and bruises. Danza, who appeared in the television hit comedies Taxi and Who's the Boss?, was 42. He recovered from the operation and went on to star in another television sitcom, Hudson Street.
1994 - 53 people were killed when a Turkish Airlines aircraft crashed in a snowstorm while trying to land in eastern Turkey.
1995 - A French air force cargo plane landed at the Bosnian city of Mostar, becoming the first aircraft to do so since 1992.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Dec 29, 2005 8:55:28 GMT -5
1848 - President James Polk turned on the White House's first gas light.
1890 - In an attempt to suppress South Dakota's Native Americans, the United States Seventh Cavalry massacred over 200 men, women and children. The bloodbath took place at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.
1913 - Selig’s Polyscope Company released "The Unwelcome Throne"; a moving picture which was the first of thirteen installments of "The Adventures of Kathlyn", serial starring Kathlyn Williams. Called the first serial motion picture, it was co-produced by "The Chicago Tribune", which also put "The Adventures of Kathlyn" in the paper in serial form.
1924 - J.M. Barrie's fanciful tale about a boy who didn't want to grow up was released on film for the first time in the silent Peter Pan.
1934 - In New York City, the first regular-season, college basketball game was played at Madison Square Garden where New York University beat Notre Dame, 25-18. In the night's second game, Westminster defeated St. Johns, 37-33.
1937 - After retiring in 1935, Babe Ruth returned to baseball as the new manager of the Class D, De Land Reds of the Florida State League.
1939 - The satirical Western film, Destry Rides Again, starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, opened in the United States.
1943 - Bing Crosby recorded "San Fernando Valley" because he felt it would be a hit. A week after its release, the song became a favorite everywhere.
1945 - On radio, the mystery voice of Mr. Hush was first heard on, "Truth or Consequences", hosted by Ralph Edwards. The show was supposed to be a parody of giveaway shows, but the idea was taken seriously and lasted five weeks before Mr. Hush was identified as fighter Jack Dempsey, for a $13,500 prize.
1945 - Sheb Wooley made the first commercial record to be recorded in Nashville, Tennessee. The recorded song was on the Bullet label; but it took Wooley 13 years to have a hit with "The Purple People Eater". Wooley, whose first name is Shelby, played Pete Nolan on television’s "Rawhide". He also recorded novelty songs as, Ben Colder, and acted in "High Noon", "Rocky Mountain", "Giant" and "Hoosiers". In 1968, the Country Music Association honored him as the Comedian of the Year. Wooley wrote the theme song to television's "Hee Haw".
1949 - Bridgeport, Connecticut's KC2XAK became the first ultrahigh frequency, or UHF, television station to operate on a regular daily schedule. UHF stations broadcast where the VHF, or very high frequency, stations end, channels 14 through 83.
1952 - Sonotone Corporation offered the first transistorized hearing aid for sale.
1953 - Jean Stapleton made her Broadway debut starring with Judith Anderson in the production, "In the Summer House", which opened in New York. The show closed after 55 performances.
1957 - Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme married. They became popular singers on Steve Allen's "The Tonight Show", and as Las Vegas showroom regulars and recording artists. Today they are still together, in one of the most enduring marriages in Hollywood.
1963 - The disc jockeys at New York's 50,000-watt WABC, were upstaged by the 5,000-watt WMCA and its famed ‘Good Guys’ when the latter became the first New York radio station to play the Beatles’ "I Want to Hold Your Hand". WABC got revenge by calling itself the ‘official’ Beatles station: W-A-Beatle-C.
1967 - At age 76, orchestra leader Paul Whiteman died. The King of Jazz, as Whiteman was known, had twenty-eight #1 hits between 1920 and 1934 including, "Three O’Clock in the Morning", "My Blue Heaven", "All of Me" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".
1972 - After 36 years in publication, the "LIFE" magazine's last weekly issue went to the newsstands. It is said the newsweeklty “redefined photojournalism while showing America its own face.” The magazine's first issue featured a newborn baby and a doctor, with the heading, “LIFE Begins.” The magazine became an occasional publication, before enjoying a monthly distribution.
1973 - Time in a Bottle, recorded by the late Jim Croce, jumped into the Number 1 spot on Billboard's record charts on this date, and stayed there for 2 weeks. Croce had died in a plane crash three months earlier and was never to realize the success of his romantic recording.
1982 - It was the last time, after 25 seasons, Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant led the Alabama Crimson Tide football team as they defeated Illinois, 21-15, at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. Sixty-nine year old Coach Bryant retired as the NCAA’s winningest coach. His overall record included 322 wins as coach at Maryland, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Alabama. Total, his teams won six national championships, and played in twenty-nine bowl games, of which they won fifteen of them. He was nicknamed Bear because he once wrestled a bear in a traveling show.
1982 - Jamaica issued a Bob Marley commemorative stamp in honor of the late reggae singer.
1985 - Via satellite television, Phil Donahue and a Soviet radio commentator hosted the ‘Citizens’ Summit’ as a way for people from the United States and the Soviet Union to question each other on politics and policies.
1986 - After eighteen years and $47 million, Coral Gables, Florida's restored Biltmore Hotel reopened for business.
1995 - The powerful film Dead Man Walking opened in United States theaters. The film earned a Best Actress Oscar and Screen Actors Guild award for Susan Sarandon, as well as Oscar nominations for Sean Penn, director Tim Robbins, and Bruce Springsteen, who wrote the title song.
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