This Week in History
Edited by Bonnie K. Goodman
Ms. Goodman is the Editor / Features Editor at HNN. She has a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University, and has done graduate work in history at Concordia University. Her blog is History Musings
Monday, February 1, 2010
This Week in History... February 1-7, 2010
- 01/02/1587 - English queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuarts death sentence
- 01/02/1790 - Supreme Court convenes for 1st time (NYC)
- 01/02/1810 - US Population: 7,239,881, Black population: 1,377,808 (19%)
- 01/02/1860 - 1st rabbi to open House of Representatives, Morris Raphall of NYC
- 01/02/1861 - Texas becomes 7th state to secede
- 01/02/1862 - Julia Howe publishes "Battle Hymn of Republic"
- 01/02/1865 - 13th amendment approved (National Freedom Day)
- 01/02/1865 - General Sherman's march through South Carolina begins
- 01/02/1871 - Jefferson Long of Georgia is 1st black to make an official speech in House of Reps (opposing leniency to former Confederates)
- 01/02/1887 - Harvey Wilcox of Ks subdivides 120 acres he owned in Southern Calif and starts selling it off as a real estate development (Hollywood)
- 01/02/1892 - Mrs William Astor invites 400 guests to a grand ball at her mansion thus beginning use of "400" to describe socially elite
- 01/02/1893 - Thomas Edison complete's worlds 1st movie studio (West Orange NJ)
- 01/02/1951 - 1st telecast of atomic explosion
- 01/02/1953 - "General Electric Theater" premieres on CBS TV; Reagan later hosts
- 01/02/1953 - "You Are There" with Walter Cronkite premieres on CBS television
- 01/02/1960 - 4 students stage 1st civil rights sit-in, at Greensboro NC Woolworth
- 01/02/1965 - Martin Luther King Jr and 700 demonstrators arrested in Selma Ala
- 01/02/1965 - Peter Jennings, 26, becomes anchor of ABC's nightly news
- 01/02/1968 - Former VP Richard Nixon announces candidacy for president
- 01/02/1968 - Famous photo: Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to head
- 01/02/1978 - Harriet Tubman is 1st black woman honored on a US postage stamp
- 01/02/1979 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 yrs in exile
- 02/02/1536 - Pedro de Mendoza finds Argentine city of Buenos Aires
- 02/02/1550 - English Edward Seymour duke of Somerset, freed
- 02/02/1843 - US and British settlers in Oregon Country choose govt committee
- 02/02/1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War; US acquires Texas California, New Mexico and Arizona for $15 million
- 02/02/1848 - 1st ship load of Chinese arrive in SF
- 02/02/1863 - Samuel Clemens becomes Mark Twain for 1st time
- 02/02/1876 - Baseball's National League forms with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, St Louis
- 02/02/1913 - NYC's Grand Central Terminal opens
- 02/02/1942 - LA Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
- 02/02/1948 - President Truman urges congress to adopt a civil rights program
- 02/02/1954 - Pres Eisenhower reports detonation of 1st H-bomb (done in 1952)
- 02/02/1955 - 1st presidential news conference on network TV-Eisenhower on ABC
- 03/02/1690 - 1st paper money in America issued (colony of Mass)
- 03/02/1740 - Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, invites Jews to return to Sicily
- 03/02/1783 - Spain recognizes US independence
- 03/02/1836 - Whig Party holds its 1st national convention (Albany NY)
- 03/02/1855 - Wisconsin Supreme Ct declares US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional
- 03/02/1860 - Thomas Clemson takes office as 1st US superintendent of agriculture
- 03/02/1864 - Sherman's march through Mississippi
- 03/02/1865 - Hampton Roads Peace Conference, Lincoln and Stephens reach an impasse
- 03/02/1870 - 15th Amendment (Black suffrage) passed
- 03/02/1908 - Supreme Court rules a union boycott violates Sherman Antitrust Act
- 03/02/1916 - Canada's original Parliament buildings, in Ottawa, burns down
- 03/02/1917 - US liner Housatonic sunk by German sub and diplomatic relations severed
- 03/02/1919 - League of Nations 1st meeting (Paris)
- 03/02/1930 - William Howard Taft, resigns as chief justice for health reasons
- 03/02/1947 - 1st black reporter in Congressional press gallery (Percival Prattis)
- 03/02/1962 - Pres Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs
- 03/02/1994 - Pres Bill Clinton lifts US trade embargo against Vietnam
- 04/02/1586 - Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, becomes governor of Neth
- 04/02/1787 - Shays' Rebellion (of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers) fails
- 04/02/1789 - 1st electoral college chooses Washington and Adams as Pres and VP
- 04/02/1822 - Free American Blacks settle Liberia, West Africa
- 04/02/1847 - 1st US telegraph co established in Maryland
- 04/02/1854 - Alvan Bovay proposes name "Republican Party," Ripon, Wisc
- 04/02/1855 - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
- 04/02/1861 - Confederate constitutional convention meets for 1st time, Montgomery Ala, Ga, Fla, La, Miss and SC elect Jefferson Davis pres of Confederacy
- 04/02/1864 - 24th Amendment abolishes Poll tax
- 04/02/1887 - Interstate Commerce Act authorizes federal regulation of railroads
- 04/02/1914 - US Congress approves Burnett-anti-immigration law
- 04/02/1942 - Clinton Pierce becomes 1st US general wounded in action in WW II
- 04/02/1945 - FDR, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta
- 04/02/1997 - Sec of State Margaret Albright announces she just discovered that her grandparents were Jewish
- 04/02/1586 - Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, becomes governor of Neth
- 04/02/1787 - Shays' Rebellion (of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers) fails
- 04/02/1789 - 1st electoral college chooses Washington and Adams as Pres and VP
- 04/02/1822 - Free American Blacks settle Liberia, West Africa
- 04/02/1847 - 1st US telegraph co established in Maryland
- 04/02/1854 - Alvan Bovay proposes name "Republican Party," Ripon, Wisc
- 04/02/1855 - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
- 04/02/1861 - Confederate constitutional convention meets for 1st time, Montgomery Ala, Ga, Fla, La, Miss and SC elect Jefferson Davis pres of Confederacy
- 04/02/1864 - 24th Amendment abolishes Poll tax
- 04/02/1887 - Interstate Commerce Act authorizes federal regulation of railroads
- 04/02/1914 - US Congress approves Burnett-anti-immigration law
- 04/02/1942 - Clinton Pierce becomes 1st US general wounded in action in WW II
- 04/02/1945 - FDR, Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta
- 04/02/1997 - Sec of State Margaret Albright announces she just discovered that her grandparents were Jewish
- 05/02/1649 - Prince of Wales becomes king Charles II
- 05/02/1778 - Articles of Confederation ratified by 1st state, South Carolina
- 05/02/1861 - Louisiana delegation except Mr Bouligny withdraws from Congress
- 05/02/1865 - Battle of Hatcher's Run, VA (Armstrong's Mill, Dabney's Mill)
- 05/02/1930 - 5th Aliyah to Israel begins
- 05/02/1937 - FDR proposes enlarging Supreme Court, "court packing" plan failed
- 05/02/1969 - US population reaches 200 million
- 06/02/1862 - Gen Ulysses S Grant captures Fort Henry in Tennessee
- 06/02/1862 - Ulysses S Grant begins military campaign in Mississippi
- 06/02/1865 - Robert E Lee appointed Confederate General in Chief
- 06/02/1899 - Spanish-American War ends, peace treaty ratified by Senate
- 06/02/1918 - Britain grants women (30 and over) vote
- 06/02/1933 - 20th Amendment goes into effect: Pres term begins in Jan not March
- 06/02/1956 - U of Alabama refuses admission to Autherine Lucy (because he's black)
- 06/02/1974 - US House of Reps begins determining grounds for impeachment of Nixon
- 06/02/1978 - Muriel, wife of late Hubert Humphrey (Sen-D-Minn) takes his office
- 07/02/1569 - King Philip II forms inquistion in South America
- 07/02/1795 - 11th Amendment to US Constitution ratified, affirms power of states
- 07/02/1839 - Henry Clay declares in Senate "I had rather be right than president"
- 07/02/1862 - Federal fleet attack on Roanoke Island NC
- 07/02/1864 - Federal troops occupy Jacksonville, Florida
- 07/02/1950 - Sen Joe McCarthy finds "communists" in US Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- 07/02/1956 - Autherine Lucy, 1st black admitted to U of Alabama, is expelled
- 07/02/1962 - President Kennedy begins blockade of Cuba
- 07/02/1964 - Beatles land at NY's JFK airport, for 1st US tour
- 07/02/1973 - Senate creates Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities
- 07/02/1983 - 1st female secretary of transportation sworn-in (Elizabeth Dole)
Sunday, January 17, 2010
This Week in History... January 2010
This Week in History... January 3-10 2010
- 01-01-1863 - Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
- 01-01-1908 - The ball signifying the New Year was dropped for the first time at Times Square in New York City.
- 01-01-1914 - The world's first airline, St. Petersburg Tampa Airboat Line, starts operation in St. Petersburg, Florida.
- 01-01-1959 - Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries took over Cuba and toppled Fulgencio Batista's regime.
- 01-01-1975 - John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman were convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate affair.
- 01-02-1492 - Muhammad XI, the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.
- 01-02-1788 - Georgia was admitted to the Union as the 4th state.
- 01-02-1905 - The Russo-Japanese war ended.
- 01-02-1923 - The African-American town of Rosewood, Fla., was burned by a white mob./li>
- 01-02-1935 - The Bruno R. Hauptmann trial began for the kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
- 01-02-1959 - The first spacecraft to fly by the Moon and also to orbit the Sun, Mechta (Luna 1) was launched by the USSR.
- 01-02-1994 - Rudolph Giuliani is inaugurated as New York City's mayor.
- 01-03-1521 - Martin Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X.
- 01-03-1777 - George Washington defeated Cornwallis's forces at the Battle of Princeton.
- 01-03-1833 - Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands.
- 01-03-1870 - Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began.
- 01-03-1920 - The New York Yankees acquired Babe Ruth and so began the "curse of the Bambino" that haunted the Boston Red Sox until 2004.
- 01-03-1947 - Congressional proceedings were televised for the first time.
- 01-03-1959 - Alaska became the 49th state in the United States.
- 01-03-1967 - Jack Ruby, the man who shot John Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, died.
- 01-04-1885 - Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is thought to be the first appendectomy.
- 01-04-1896 - Utah was admitted as 45th state in the United States.
- 01-04-1904 - In Gonzales v. Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that citizens of Puerto Rico are not aliens and can enter the U.S. freely.
- 01-04-1951 - During the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured the city of Seoul.
- 01-04-1965 - President Johnson outlined his "Great Society" in his State of the Union address.
- 01-05-1914 - Henry Ford introduced the $5-a-day minimum wage.
- 01-05-1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor of a state (Wyoming).
- 01-05-1972 - President Nixon ordered the development of the space shuttle.
- 01-06-1540 - King Henry VIII of England married his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves.
- 01-06-1759 - George Washington married Martha Custis.
- 01-06-1838 - Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of the telegraph.
- 01-06-1912 - New Mexico became the 47th state in the United States.
- 01-06-1919 - Former president Theodore Roosevelt died in Oyster Bay, N.Y.
- 07/01/1927 - Transatlantic commercial telephone service began between New York and London.
- 07/01/1953 - Harry Truman announced that the U.S. had developed the hydrogen bomb.
- 07/01/1979 - Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government.
- 07/01/1999 - The impeachment trial of President William Clinton began in the Senate.
- 08/01/1790 - George Washington delivers 1st state of union address (or Jan 4)
- 08/01/1815 - Battle of New Orleans-War of 1812 ended 12/24/1814 but nobody knew
- 08/01/1853 - 1st US bronze equestrian statue (of Andrew Jackson) unveiled, Wash
- 08/01/1867 - Legislation gives suffrage to DC blacks, despite Pres Johnson's veto
- 08/01/1918 - Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify 18th amendment (prohibition)
- 08/01/1918 - Pres Wilson outlines his 14 points for peace after WW I
- 08/01/1925 - 1st all-female US state supreme court appointed, Texas
- 08/01/1958 - Cuban revolutionary forces capture Havana
- 08/01/1964 - President Lyndon B Johnson declares "War on Poverty"
- 08/01/1975 - Judge Sirica orders release of Watergate's John W Dean III, Herbert W Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
- 09/01/1349 - 700 Jews of Basel Switzerland, burned alive in their houses
- 09/01/1570 - Tsar Ivan the terrible kills 1000-2000 residents of Novgorod
- 09/01/1839 - Daguerrotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science
- 09/01/1861 - Mississippi becomes 2nd state to secede
- 09/01/1861 - 1st hostile act of Civil War; Star of West fired on, Sumter, SC
- 09/01/1905 - Bloody Sunday-demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops (1/22 NS)
- 09/01/1945 - US soldiers led by Gen Douglas MacArthur invades Philippines
- 10/01/1776 - "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, published
- 10/01/1811 - Louisiana slaves rebell in 2 parishes
- 10/01/1861 - Florida becomes 3rd state to secede from US
- 10/01/1863 - 1st underground railway opens in London
- 10/01/1878 - US Senate proposes female suffrage
- 10/01/1920 - League of Nations established
- 10/01/1928 - Soviet Union orders exile of Leon Trotsky
- 10/01/1943 - 1st US pres to visit a foreign country in wartime-FDR leaves for Casablanca, Morocco
- 10/01/1946 - UN General Assembly meets for 1st time (London)
- 10/01/1966 - Julian Bond denied seat in Ga legislature for opposing Vietnam War
- 10/01/1967 - PBS (the National Educational TV) begins as a 70 station network
This Week in History... January 11-17, 2010
- 11/01/1785 - Continental Congress convenes in NYC
- 11/01/1803 - Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to buy New Orleans; they buy La
- 11/01/1861 - Alabama becomes 4th state to secede
- 11/01/1897 - M H Cannon becomes 1st woman state senator in US (Utah)
- 11/01/1986 - 1st black gov since reconstruction sworn in (Douglas Wilder of Va)
- 11/01/1991 - Congress empowers Bush to order attack on Iraq
- 12/01/1863 - President Davis delivers his "State of Confederacy" address
- 12/01/1915 - House of Reps rejects proposal to give women right to vote
- 12/01/1944 - Churchill and de Gaulle begin a 2-day wartime conference in Marrakesh
- 13/01/1559 - Elizabeth I crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey
- 13/01/1630 - Patent to Plymouth Colony issued
- 13/01/1733 - James Oglethorpe and 130 English colonists arrive at Charleston, SC
- 13/01/1794 - Congress changes US flag to 15 stars and 15 stripes
- 13/01/1869 - Colored National Labor Union, 1st Black labor convention
- 13/01/1888 - National Geographic Society founded (Washington, DC)
- 13/01/1898 - Emile Zola publishes his open letter (J'accuse) in defense of Dreyfus
- 14/01/1601 - Church authorities burn Hebrew books in Rome
- 14/01/1699 - Massachusetts holds day of fasting for wrongly persecuting "witches"
- 14/01/1784 - Revolutionary War ends; Congress ratifies Treaty of Paris
- 14/01/1864 - General Sherman begins his march to the South
- 14/01/1878 - US Supreme court rules race separation on trains unconstitutional
- 14/01/1943 - FDR and Winston Churchill confer in Casablanca concerning WW II
- 15/01/1535 - Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church
- 15/01/1777 - People of New Connecticut (Vermont) declare independence from England
- 15/01/1780 - Continental Congress establishes court of appeals
- 15/01/1870 - Donkey 1st used as symbol of Democratic Party, in Harper's Weekly
- 15/01/1942 - FDR asks commissioner to continue baseball during WW II
- 15/01/1943 - World's largest office building, Pentagon, completed
- 15/01/1950 - 4,000 attend National Emergency Civil Rights Conference in Wash DC
- 15/01/1973 - 4 Watergate burglars plead guilty in federal court
- 15/01/1976 - Sara Jane Moore sentenced to life for attempting to shoot Pres Ford
- 16/01/1581 - English parliament passes laws against Catholicism
- 16/01/1776 - Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks
- 16/01/1777 - Vermont declares independence from NY
- 16/01/1865 - Gen Wm Sherman issues Field Order #15 (land for blacks)
- 16/01/1870 - Virginia becomes 8th state readmitted to US after Civil War
- 16/01/1883 - Pendleton Act creates basis of US Civil Service system
- 16/01/1920 - 1st assembly of League of Nations (Paris)
- 16/01/1920 - 18th Amendment, prohibition, goes into effect; repealed in 1933
- 16/01/1938 - Benny Goodman refuses to play Carnegie Hall when black members of his band were barred from performing
- 16/01/1944 - Gen Eisenhower took command of Allied Invasion Force in London
- 17/01/1821 - Mexico permits Moses Austin and 300 US families to settle in Texas
- 17/01/1874 - Armed Democrats seize Texas govt ending Radical Reconstruction
- 17/01/1893 - Queen Liliuokalani deposed, Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic
- 17/01/1911 - Failed assassination attempt on premier Briand in French Assembly
- 17/01/1945 - Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, arrested by secret police in Hungary
- 17/01/1945 - Liberation of Warsaw by Soviet troops (end of Nazi occupation)
- 17/01/1945 - Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation
- 17/01/1946 - United Nations Security Council holds its 1st meeting
- 17/01/1948 - Trial of 11 US Communist party members begins in NYC
- 17/01/1961 - Eisenhower allegedly orders assassination of Congo's Lumumba
- 17/01/1966 - Martin Luther King Jr opens campaign in Chicago
- 17/01/1983 - Alabama Gov George C Wallace, becomes governor for record 4th time
- 17/01/1987 - Pres Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran
- 17/01/1991 - Operation Desert Storm begins-US led allies vs Iraq
- 17/01/1991 - Operation Desert Storm: 1st US pilot shot down (Jeffrey Zahn)
- 17/01/1998 - Pres Clinton faces sexual harrament charges from Paula Jones
This Week in History... January 18-24, 2010
- 18/01/1486 - King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV
- 18/01/1671 - Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panam
- 18/01/1778 - Capt James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)
- 18/01/1817 - San Martˇn leads a revolutionary army over Andes
- 18/01/1854 - Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW Mexico
- 18/01/1862 - Confederate Territory of Arizona forms
- 18/01/1871 - 2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I and Bismarck
- 18/01/1919 - WW I Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
- 18/01/1943 - Jews in Warsaw Ghetto begin resistance of Nazis
- 18/01/1944 - 1st Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
- 18/01/1945 - Warsaw freed by Soviet army
- 18/01/1991 - Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
- 18/01/1993 - Martin Luther King Jr holiday observed in all 50 states for 1st time
- 19/01/1419 - French city of Rouen surrenders to Henry V in Hundred Years War
- 19/01/1793 - French King Louis XVI sentenced to death
- 19/01/1840 - Antarctica discovered, Charles Wilkes expedition (US claim)
- 19/01/1861 - Georgia becomes 5th state to secede
- 19/01/1861 - MS troops take Ft Massachusetts an Ship Island
- 19/01/1865 - Union occupies Fort Anderson, NC
- 19/01/1871 - 1st Negro lodge of US Masons approved, New Jersey
- 19/01/1920 - US Senate votes against membership in League of Nations
- 19/01/1955 - 1st presidential news conference filmed for TV (Eisenhower)
- 19/01/1981 - US and Iran sign agreement to release 52 American hostages
- 19/01/1987 - Guy Hunt becomes Alabama's 1st Republican governor since 1874
- 19/01/1989 - Pres Reagan pardons George Steinbrenner for illegal funds for Nixon
- 20/01/1778 - 1st American military court martial trial begins, Cambridge, Mass
- 20/01/1785 - Samuel Ellis advertises to sell Oyster Island (Ellis Is), no takers
- 20/01/1788 - Pioneer African Baptist church organizes in Savannah, Ga
- 20/01/1801 - John Marshall appointed US chief justice
- 20/01/1807 - Napoleon convenes great Sanhedrin, Paris
- 20/01/1868 - Florida constitutional convention meets in Tallahassee
- 20/01/1869 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton becomes 1st woman to testify before Congress
- 20/01/1937 - 1st Inauguration day on Jan 20th, (held every 4th years there-after)
- 20/01/1939 - Hitler proclaims to German parliament to exterminate all European Jews
- 20/01/1945 - FDR sworn-in for an unprecedented 4th term as president
- 20/01/1949 - Pres Truman announces his point 4 program
- 20/01/1953 - 1st live coast-to-coast inauguration address (Eisenhower)
- 20/01/1961 - Robert Frost recites "Gift Outright" at JFK's inauguration
- 20/01/1969 - Richard M Nixon inaugurated as president
- 20/01/1981 - 52 Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days freed
- 20/01/1981 - Ronald Reagan inaugurated as president
- 20/01/1989 - Bush inaugurated as 41st president and Quayle becomes 44th vice pres -- Reagan becomes 1st pres elected in a "0" year, since 1840, to leave office alive
- 20/01/1993 - Bill Clinton inaugurated as 42nd president
- 21/01/1789 - 1st American novel, WH Brown's "Power of Sympathy," is published
- 21/01/1861 - Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and 4 other southern senators resign
- 21/01/1950 - NY jury finds former State Dept official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury
- 21/01/1953 - John Foster Dulles appointed as Secretary of State
- 21/01/1977 - Pres Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders
- 22/01/1371 - King Robert II Stuart of Scotland crowned
- 22/01/1814 - 1st Knights Templar grand encampment in US held, NYC
- 22/01/1863 - Union Gen Burnside's "Mud March"
- 22/01/1905 - Bloody Sunday: Russian demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops
- 22/01/1944 - During World War II, Allied forces begin landing at Anzio Italy
- 22/01/1945 - Heavy US air raid on Okinawa
- 22/01/1946 - US president sets up CIA, Central Intelligence Agency
- 22/01/1973 - Roe vs Wade: US Supreme Court legalizes some abortions
- 22/01/1973 - US, North and South Vietnam and Vietcong sign boundary accord
- 23/01/1492 - "Pentateuch" (Jewish holy book) 1st printed
- 23/01/1552 - 2nd version of Book of Common Prayer becomes manditory in England
- 23/01/1556 - Most deadly earthquake kills 830,000 in Shensi Province, China
- 23/01/1571 - Queen Elizabeth I opens Royal Exchange in London
- 23/01/1793 - Humane Society of Philadelphia (1st aid society) organized
- 23/01/1845 - Uniform US election day for president and VP authorized
- 23/01/1849 - Mrs Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman physician in US
- 23/01/1907 - Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes 1st Native American US senator
- 23/01/1933 - 20th amendment changes date of presidential inaugurations to 1/20
- 23/01/1950 - Israeli Knesset resolves Jerusalem is capital of Israel
- 23/01/1961 - Supreme Court rules cities and states have right to censor films
- 23/01/1964 - 24th Amendment ratified, barring poll tax in federal elections
- 23/01/1973 - Pres Nixon announces an accord has been reached to end Vietnam War
- 24/01/1656 - 1st Jewish doctor in US, Jacob Lumbrozo, arrives in Maryland
- 24/01/1847 - 1,500 New Mexican Indians and Mexicans defeated by US Col Price
- 24/01/1964 - 24th Amendment to US Constitution goes into effect and states voting rights could not be denied due to failure to pay taxes
This Week in History... January 25-31, 2010
- 25/01/1327 - King Edward III accedes to British throne
- 25/01/1533 - England's King Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn (approximate date)
- 25/01/1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt gathers an army in Kent, rebels against Queen Mary
- 25/01/1721 - Czar Peter the Great ends Russian-orthodox patriarchy
- 25/01/1775 - Americans drag cannon up hill to fight British (Gun Hill Road, Bronx)
- 25/01/1787 - Shays' Rebellion suffers a setback when debt-ridden farmers, led by Capt Daniel Shays, fail to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass
- 25/01/1851 - Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women's Rights Convention (Akron)
- 25/01/1858 - Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" 1st played, at wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Victoria, to crown prince of Prussia
- 25/01/1863 - General Joseph Hooker replaces Burnside as head of Army of Potomac
- 25/01/1877 - Congress determines presidential election between Hayes-Tilden
- 25/01/1882 - Bilu, a Russian Zionist organization, forms
- 25/01/1890 - National Afro-American League forms in Chicago
- 25/01/1905 - Largest diamond, Cullinan (3106 carets), found in South Africa
- 25/01/1907 - Julia Ward Howe is 1st woman elected to Natl Inst of Arts and Letters
- 25/01/1919 - Founding of League of Nations, 1st meeting 1 year later
- 25/01/1961 - 1st live, nationally televised presidential news conference (JFK)
- 25/01/1969 - US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris
- 25/01/1988 - VP Bush and Dan Rather clash on "CBS Evening News" as Rather attempts to question Bush about his role in Iran-Contra affair
- 26/01/1784 - Ben Franklin expresses unhappiness over eagle as America's symbol
- 26/01/1802 - Congress passes an act calling for a US Capitol library
- 26/01/1861 - Louisiana becomes 6th state to secede
- 26/01/1862 - Lincoln issues General War Order #1, calling for a Union offensive McClellan ignores order
- 26/01/1863 - 54th Regiment (Black) infantry forms -- War Dept authorizes Mass governor to recruit black troops
- 26/01/1870 - Virginia rejoins US
- 26/01/1907 - 1st federal corrupt election practices law passed
- 26/01/1926 - Television 1st demonstrated (J L Baird, London)
- 26/01/1939 - Filming begins on "Gone With the Wind"
- 26/01/1942 - 1st US force in Europe during WW II go ashore in Northern Ireland
- 26/01/1948 - Executive Order 9981, end segregation in US Armed Forces signed
- 26/01/1980 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations
- 26/01/1998 - Pres Clinton says "I want to say one thing to the American people I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"
- 27/01/1785 - 1st US state university chartered, Athens Georgia
- 27/01/1823 - Pres Monroe appoints 1st US ambassadors to South America
- 27/01/1870 - After accepting 15th amendment, VA is readmitted to Union
- 27/01/1880 - Thomas Edison patents electric incandescent lamp
- 27/01/1888 - National Geographic Society organizes (Wash DC)
- 27/01/1926 - US Senate agrees to join World Court
- 27/01/1941 - Peruvian agent Rivera-Schreiber warns of Jap assault on Pearl Harbor
- 27/01/1944 - Leningrad liberated from Germany in 880 days with 600,000 killed
- 27/01/1945 - Russia liberates Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camp (Poland)
- 27/01/1973 - US and Vietnam sign cease-fire, ending longest US war and milt draft -- William Rogers and Nguyen Duy Trinh sign US-N Vietnam treaty
- 27/01/1977 - Pres Carter pardons most Vietnam War draft evaders (10,000)
- 27/01/1977 - 1st broadcast of "Roots" mini-series on ABC TV
- 27/01/1988 - Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves nomination of Judge Anthony M Kennedy to US Supreme Court
- 27/01/1992 - Pres candidate Bill Clinton (D) and Genifer Flowers accuse each other of lying over her assertion they had a 12-year affair
- 28/01/1547 - 9-year-old Edward VI succeeds Henry VIII as king of England
- 28/01/1581 - James VI signs 2nd Confession of Faith in Scotland
- 28/01/1858 - John Brown organized raid on Arsenal at Harper's Ferry
- 28/01/1865 - Pres Jefferson Davis names 3 peace commissioners
- 28/01/1878 - Yale Daily News published, 1st college daily newspaper
- 28/01/1915 - 1st US ship lost in WW I, William P Frye (carrying wheat to UK)
- 28/01/1915 - US Pres Wilson refuses to prohibit immigration of illiterates
- 28/01/1916 - 1st Jewish Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, appointed by Wilson
- 29/01/1834 - Pres Jackson orders 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute
- 29/01/1850 - Henry Clay introduces a comprise bill on slavery to US Senate
- 29/01/1861 - Kansas becomes 34th state
- 29/01/1863 - Battle at Bear River, Washington: US army vs indians
- 29/01/1864 - Battle of Moorefield, WV (Rosser's Raid)
- 29/01/1879 - Custer Battlefield National Monument, Mont established
- 29/01/1916 - 1st bombings of Paris by German Zeppelins takes place
- 29/01/1919 - Secretary of state proclaims 18th amendment (prohibition)
- 29/01/1944 - 285 German bombers attack London
- 29/01/1980 - 6 Iranian held US hostages escape with help of Canadians
- 29/01/1984 - Pres Reagan formally announces he will seek a 2nd term
- 30/01/1349 - Jews of Freilsburg Germany are massacred
- 30/01/1487 - Bell chimes invented
- 30/01/1647 - King Charles I handed over to English parliament
- 30/01/1781 - Articles of Confederation ratified by 13th state, Maryland
- 30/01/1797 - Congress refuses to accept 1st petitions from American blacks
- 30/01/1798 - Rep Matthew Lyon (Vt) spits in face of Rep Roger Griswold (Ct) in US House of Representatives, after an argument
- 30/01/1800 - US population: 5,308,483; Black population 1,002,037 (18.9%)
- 30/01/1815 - Burned Library of Congress reestablished with Jefferson's 6500 vols
- 30/01/1835 - Richard Lawrence misfires at Pres Andrew Jackson in Washington DC
- 30/01/1913 - House of Lords rejects Irish Home Rule Bill
- 30/01/1933 - Adolph Hitler named German Chancellor, forms govt with Von Papen
- 30/01/1939 - Hitler calls for extermination of European Jews
- 30/01/1956 - Martin Luther King Jr's home bombed
- 30/01/1957 - US Congress accepts "Eisenhower-doctrine"
- 30/01/1961 - JFK asks for an Alliance for Progress and Peace Corp
- 30/01/1972 - Bloody Sunday: Brit soldiers shoot on catholics in Londonderry, 13 die
- 30/01/1973 - Jury finds Watergate defendants Liddy and McCord guilty on all counts
- 30/01/1976 - George Bush becomes 11th director of CIA (until 1977)
- 30/01/1989 - 5 pharoah sculptures from 1470 BC found at temple of Luxor
- 31/01/1863 - 1st black Civil War regiment, SC Volunteers, mustered into US army
- 31/01/1865 - Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America (121-24)
- 31/01/1865 - Gen Robert E Lee named Commander-in-Chief of Confederate Armies
- 31/01/1871 - Millions of birds fly over western SF, darkens sky
- 31/01/1950 - Pres Truman OKs building of hydrogen bomb
- 31/01/1968 - Viet Cong's Tet offensive begins
This Week in History... December 2009
- 01/12/1641 - Mass becomes 1st colony to give statutory recognition to slavery
- 01/12/1824 - House of Reps begins to end election deadlock between JQ Adams
- 01/12/1864 - Raid at Stoneman: Knoxville, TN to Saltville, VA
- 01/12/1878 - 1st White House telephone installed
- 01/12/1909 - 1st Israeli kibbutz founded, Deganya Alef
- 01/12/1919 - Lady Nancy Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of British Parliament
- 01/12/1943 - FDR, Churchill and Stalin agree to Operation Overlord (D-Day)
- 01/12/1969 - US govt holds its 1st draft lottery since WW II
- 02/12/1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte crowned emperor of France in Paris by Pope Pius VII
- 02/12/1812 - James Madison re-elected president of US, E Gerry vice-pres
- 02/12/1823 - President James Monroe declares his "Monroe Doctrine"
- 02/12/1840 - William H Harrison elected president of US
- 02/12/1848 - Franz Josef I becomes emperor of Austria and King of Hungary
- 02/12/1852 - 2nd French empire established; Louis Napoleon becomes emperor
- 02/12/1961 - Fidel Castro declares he's a Marxist, and will lead Cuba to Communism
- 02/12/1968 - Pres Nixon names Henry Kissinger security advisor
- 03/12/1828 - Andrew Jackson elected 7th president of US
- 03/12/1847 - Frederick Douglass publishes 1st issue of his newspaper "North Star"
- 03/12/1868 - Trial of Jefferson Davis starts; 1st blacks on US trial jury
- 03/12/1878 - Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah Israel
- 03/12/1953 - Eisenhower criticizes McCarthy for saying communists are in Rep party
- 04/12/1563 - Council of Trent holds last session, after 18 years
- 04/12/1619 - America's 1st Thanksgiving Day (Va)
- 04/12/1816 - James Monroe (VA), elected 5th pres, defeating Federalist Rufus King
- 04/12/1833 - American Anti-Slavery Society formed by Arthur Tappan in Phila
- 04/12/1836 - Whig party holds its 1st national convention, Harrisburg, Pa
- 04/12/1844 - James K Polk elected 11th president of US
- 04/12/1851 - Pres Louis Napolean Boaparte forces crush a coup d'etat in France
- 04/12/1918 - Pres Wilson sails for Versailles Peace Conference in France, 1st chief executive to travel outside US while in office
- 04/12/1943 - -Dec 6] 2nd conference of Cairo: FDR, Churchill and Turkish President Inonu
- 05/12/1349 - 500 Jews of Nuremberg massacre during Black Death riots
- 05/12/1496 - Jews are expelled from Portugal by order of King Manuel I
- 05/12/1792 - George Washington re-elected US pres
- 05/12/1804 - Thomas Jefferson re-elected US pres/George Clinton vice-pres
- 05/12/1831 - Former Pres John Q Adams takes his seat as member of House of Reps
- 05/12/1832 - Andrew Jackson re-elected president of US
- 05/12/1837 - Uprising under William Lyon Mackenzie in Canada
- 05/12/1935 - National Council of Negro Women forms by Mary McLeod Bethune (NYC)
- 05/12/1955 - Historic bus boycott begins in Montgomery Alabama by Rosa Parks
- 06/12/1820 - US president James Monroe re-elected
- 06/12/1849 - Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland
- 06/12/1862 - Pres Lincoln orders hanging of 39 Santee Sioux indians
- 06/12/1865 - 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery
- 06/12/1876 - US Electorial College picks Rep Hayes as pres (although Tilden won)
- 06/12/1904 - Theodore Roosevelt confirms Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary)
- 06/12/1923 - 1st presidential address broadcast on radio (Pres Calvin Coolidge)
- 06/12/1973 - Gerald Ford sworn-in as 1st unelected VP, succeeds Spiro T Agnew
- 07/12/1787 - Delaware becomes 1st state to ratify constitution
- 07/12/1808 - James Madison elected US pres/George Clinton vice-pres
- 07/12/1836 - Martin Van Buren elected 8th president
- 07/12/1877 - Thomas A Edison demonstrates the gramophone
- 07/12/1917 - US becomes 13th country to declare war on Austria during World War I
- 07/12/1941 - Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (a date that will live in infamy)
- 07/12/1987 - Gorbachev arrives in US for a summit meeting
- 08/12/1776 - George Washington's retreating army crosses Delaware River from NJ
- 08/12/1863 - Abraham Lincoln announces plan for Reconstruction of South
- 08/12/1863 - Pres Lincoln offers amnesty for confederate deserters
- 08/12/1886 - American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed by 26 craft unions Samuel Gompers elected AFL president
- 08/12/1987 - President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev sign a treaty eliminating medium range nuclear missiles
- 09/12/1958 - Robert H W Welch Jr and 11 other men meet in Indianapolis to form anti-Communist John Birch Society
- 09/12/1961 - SS Col Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes in Israel
- 10/12/1520 - Martin Luther publicly burned papal edict demands he recant
- 10/12/1864 - General Sherman's armies reach Savannah and 12 day siege begins
- 10/12/1869 - Women suffrage (right to vote) granted in Wyoming Territory (US 1st)
- 10/12/1898 - Spanish-American War ends; US acquires Philippines, PR and Guam
- 10/12/1906 - Pres Theodore Roosevelt (1st American) awarded Nobel Peace Prize
- 10/12/1915 - Pres Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Galt
- 10/12/1919 - Nobel peace prize awarded to US president Wilson
- 10/12/1931 - Jane Addams (1st US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize
- 10/12/1936 - King Edward VIII abdicates throne to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson
- 10/12/1978 - In Oslo, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accept 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
- 10/12/1520 - Martin Luther publicly burned papal edict demands he recant
- 10/12/1864 - General Sherman's armies reach Savannah and 12 day siege begins
- 10/12/1869 - Women suffrage (right to vote) granted in Wyoming Territory (US 1st)
- 10/12/1898 - Spanish-American War ends; US acquires Philippines, PR and Guam
- 10/12/1906 - Pres Theodore Roosevelt (1st American) awarded Nobel Peace Prize
- 10/12/1915 - Pres Woodrow Wilson marries Edith Galt
- 10/12/1919 - Nobel peace prize awarded to US president Wilson
- 10/12/1931 - Jane Addams (1st US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize
- 10/12/1936 - King Edward VIII abdicates throne to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson
- 10/12/1978 - In Oslo, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accept 1978 Nobel Peace Prize
- 11/12/1620 - 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (12/21 NS)
- 11/12/1792 - France's King Louis XVI went on trial, accused of treason
- 11/12/1816 - Indiana becomes 19th state
- 11/12/1901 - Marconi sends 1st transatlantic radio signal, Cornwall to Nfld
- 11/12/1906 - US president Roosevelt attacks abuses in the Congo
- 11/12/1909 - Colored moving pictures demonstrated at Madison Square Garden, NYC
- 11/12/1916 - David Lloyd George forms British war govt
- 11/12/1917 - 13 black soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot
- 11/12/1931 - Brit Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, NZ, South Africa, Ireland, Newfoundland
- 11/12/1936 - King Edward VIII marries Mrs Wallis Simpson; abdicates throne Duke of York becomes King George VI
- 11/12/1941 - Japanese attack Wake Island (only failed WW II-landing)
- 11/12/1961 - JFK provides US miltary helicopters and crews to South Vietnam
- 11/12/1961 - Adolf Eichmann is found guilty of war crimes, in Israel
- 13/12/1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England to go around world
- 13/12/1769 - Dartmouth College in New Hampshire received its charter
- 13/12/1774 - 1st incident of Revolution-400 attack Ft William and Mary, NH
- 13/12/1843 - "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens published, 6,000 copies sold
- 13/12/1862 - Battle of Fredericksburg, VA (Marye's Heights)
- 13/12/1903 - Wright Bros make 1st flight at Kittyhawk
- 13/12/1918 - Wilson, becomes 1st to make a foreign visit as president (France)
- 13/12/1920 - League of nations establishes Intl Court of Justice in The Hague
- 13/12/1949 - Knesset votes to transfer Israel's capital to Jerusalem
- 13/12/1966 - 1st US bombing of Hanoi
- 14/12/1774 - Mass militiamen successfully attacked arsenal of Ft William and Mary
- 14/12/1819 - Alabama admitted to Union as 22nd state
- 14/12/1863 - Battle of Bean's Station-Confederacy repulses Union in Tenn
- 15/12/1791 - Bill of Rights ratified when Virginia gave its approval
- 15/12/1791 - 1st US law school established at University of Pennsylvania
- 15/12/1874 - 1st reigning king to visit US (of Hawaii) received by Pres Grant
- 15/12/1877 - Thomas Edison patents phonograph
- 15/12/1916 - French defeat Germans in WW I Battle of Verdun
- 15/12/1938 - Groundbreaking begins for Jefferson Memorial in Wash DC
- 15/12/1939 - "Gone With the Wind" premieres in Atlanta
- 15/12/1948 - Former state dept official Alger Hiss indicted in NYC for perjury
- 15/12/1964 - Canada adopts maple leaf flag
- 16/12/1431 - King Henry VI of England crowned king of France
- 16/12/1631 - Mount Vesuvious, Italy erupts, destroys 6 villages and kills 4,000
- 16/12/1653 - Oliver Cromwell sworn in as English Lord Protector
- 16/12/1689 - English Parliament adopts Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution
- 16/12/1773 - Big tea party in Boston harbor-indians welcome (Boston Tea Party)
- 16/12/1864 - Battle of Nashville ends after 4400 casualities
- 16/12/1944 - Battle of Bulge begins in Belgium
- 16/12/1950 - Truman proclaims state of emergency against "Communist imperialism"
- 16/12/1980 - Pres-elect Reagan announces Alexander Haig as secretary of state
- 18/12/1777 - 1st national Thanksgiving Day, commemorating Burgoyne's surrender
- 18/12/1787 - New Jersey becomes 3rd state to ratify constitution
- 18/12/1799 - George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon
- 18/12/1813 - British take Ft Niagara in War of 1812
- 18/12/1859 - South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth"
- 18/12/1862 - Battle at Lexington, Tennessee (Forrest's Second Raid)
- 18/12/1865 - 13th Amendment ratified, slavery abolished
- 18/12/1892 - "Nutcracker Suite," Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet, premieres
- 18/12/1915 - Pres Wilson, widowed the year before, marries Edith Bolling Galt
- 18/12/1966 - Dr Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" airs for 1st time on CBS
- 19/12/1732 - Benjamin Franklin under the name Richard Saunders begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"
- 19/12/1776 - Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls"
- 19/12/1777 - Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge, Pa for winter
- 19/12/1828 - South Carolina declares right of states to nullify federal laws
- 19/12/1843 - Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol," in England
- 19/12/1861 - Battle of Black Water
- 19/12/1930 - James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP
- 19/12/1946 - War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
- 20/12/1606 - Virginia Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown Va
- 20/12/1669 - 1st jury trial in Delaware; Marcus Jacobson condemned for insurrection and sentenced to flogging, branding and slavery
- 20/12/1803 - Louisiana Purchase formally transferred from France to US for $27M
- 20/12/1860 - SC votes 169-0 for Ordinace of Secession, 1st state to secede
- 20/12/1862 - -Jan 3rd] Vicksburg campaign
- 20/12/1864 - -Dec 27th] Battle of Ft Fisher, NC
- 20/12/1893 - 1st state anti-lynching statue approved, in Georgia
- 20/12/1919 - US House of Representatives restricts immigration
- 20/12/1922 - 14 republics form Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics (USSR)
- 20/12/1956 - Montgomery, Ala, removed race-based seat assignments on its buses
- 20/12/1989 - US troops invade Panama and oust Manuel Noriega, but don't catch him
- 21/12/1620 - 103 Mayflower pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock [OS=Dec 11]
- 21/12/1784 - John Jay becomes 1st US secretary of state (foreign affairs)
- 21/12/1864 - Gen Sherman conquers Savannah
- 21/12/1866 - Cheyennes, Arapho's, Sioux, Fetterman Massacre
- 21/12/1919 - J Edgar Hoover deports anarchists/feminist Emma Goldman to Russia
- 21/12/1946 - Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," premieres
- 21/12/1954 - Dr Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn is murdered (he is accused of crime)
- 21/12/1962 - US and Cuba accord, releases bay of pigs captive
- 22/12/1783 - Washington resigns his military commission [or 12-23?]
- 22/12/1807 - Congress passes Embargo Act, to force peace between Britain and France
- 22/12/1882 - 1st string of Christmas tree lights created by Thomas Edison
- 22/12/1941 - Winston Churchill arrives in Washington for a wartime conference
- 22/12/1943 - WEB Du Bois elected 1st black member, Natl Inst of Arts and Letters
- 22/12/1980 - Pres-elect Reagan appoints J Kirkpatrick (UN) and James Watt (Interior)
- 23/12/1776 - Thomas Paine writes "These are the times that try men's souls"
- 23/12/1779 - Benedict Arnold court-martialed for improper conduct
- 23/12/1788 - Maryland votes to cede a 10ý mile area for Dist of Columbia
- 23/12/1793 - Thomas Jefferson warned of slave revolts in West Indies
- 23/12/1862 - Union Gen Ben "Beast" Butler is proclaimed a "felon, outlaw and common enemy of mankind" by Jefferson Davis
- 23/12/1888 - Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear
- 23/12/1913 - President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Reserve Act into law
- 23/12/1943 - Gen Montgomery told he is appointed commandant for D-day
- 23/12/1961 - Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food and medical supplies
- 24/12/1818 - "Silent Night" composed by Franz Joseph Gruber; 1st sung next day
- 24/12/1851 - Fire devastates Library of Congress in Wash, destroys 35,000 volumes
- 24/12/1865 - Several Confederate veterans form Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tn
- 24/12/1935 - National Council of Negro Women forms
- 24/12/1943 - FDR appoints Gen Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces
- 24/12/1992 - Pres Bush pardons Caspar Weinberger of Iran-contra affair
- 24/12/1997 - 1st time a Channukah candle is officially lit in Vatican City
- 25/12/0001 - 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus
- 25/12/0337 - Earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
- 25/12/0352 - 1st definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th
- 25/12/1621 - Gov William Bradford of Plymouth forbids game playing on Christmas
- 25/12/1651 - Massachusetts General Court ordered a fine (five shillings) for "observing any such day as Christmas"
- 25/12/1776 - Washington crosses Delaware and surprises and defeats 1,400 Hessians
- 25/12/1818 - 1st known Christmas carol ("Silent Night, Holy Night") sung (Austria)
- 25/12/1837 - Battle of Okeechobee-US forces defeat Seminole Indians
- 25/12/1862 - 40,000 watch Union army men play baseball at Hilton Head, SC
- 25/12/1868 - Despite bitter opposition, Pres A Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all persons involved in Southern rebellion (Civil War)
- 25/12/1896 - "Stars and Stripes Forever" written by John Philip Sousa
- 25/12/1914 - Legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place (Brits and Germans)
- 25/12/1938 - George Cukor announces Vivien Leigh will play Scarlett O'Hara
- 25/12/1939 - Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th reindeer
- 25/12/1977 - Israeli PM Menachem Begin meets Egyptian Pres Sadat in Egypt
- 25/12/1983 - 1st live telecast of Christmas Parade
- 25/12/1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigned as Pres of USSR
- 31/12/1879 - Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.
- 31/12/1946 - President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
- 31/12/1961 - The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
This Week in History... December 1-6, 2009
This Week in History... December 7-13, 2009
This Week in History... December 15-20, 2009
This Week in History... December 21-27, 2009
This Week in History... December 28-31, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
On This Week in History...November 2009
- 01/11/1512 - Michelangelo's paintings on ceiling of Sistine Chapel, 1st exhibited
- 01/11/1765 - Stamp Act goes into effect in British colonies
- 01/11/1783 - Continental Army dissolved; George Washington's "Farewell Address"
- 01/11/1800 - 1st president to live in white house (John Adams)
- 01/11/1861 - Gen George B McClellan made general in chief of Union armies
- 01/11/1866 - 1st Civil Rights Bill passes
- 01/11/1878 - Edward Scripps and John Sweeney found Penny Press (Cleveland Press)
- 01/11/1917 - In WW I, the 1st US soldiers are killed in combat
- 01/11/1954 - US Senate admonishes Joseph Mccarthy because of slander campaign
- 01/11/1962 - Cuban missile crisis ends, JFK says USSR is dismantling missile bases
- 01/11/1983 - Pres Reagan established Dr Martin Luther King Jr holiday
- 02/11/1772 - Boston: anti-English Committee of Correspondence forms
- 02/11/1811 - Battle of Tippecanoe: Gen Jackson vs indians
- 02/11/1824 - Popular presidential vote 1st recorded; Jackson beats J Q Adams
- 02/11/1852 - Franklin Pierce elected as president of US
- 02/11/1917 - Balfour Declaration proclaims support for a Jewish state in Palestine
- 02/11/1948 - Pres Truman re-elected in an upset over Republican Thomas Dewey
- 02/11/1954 - JS Thurmond is 1st senator elected by write-in vote (SC)
- 02/11/1962 - JFK announces Cuban missile bases were being dismantled
- 03/11/1394 - Jews are expelled from France by Charles VI
- 03/11/1529 - London] 1st sitting of the Reformation Parliament
- 03/11/1796 - John Adams elected president
- 03/11/1868 - Ulysses Grant (R) wins presidential election over Horatio Seymour (D)
- 03/11/1868 - 1st black elected to Congress (John W Menard, Louisiana)
- 03/11/1883 - US Supreme Court decides Native Americans can't be Americans
- 03/11/1883 - US Supreme Court decides Native Americans can't be Americans
- 03/11/1936 - President FDR (D) wins landslide victory over Alfred M Landon (R)
- 03/11/1948 - Chicago Tribune reports: "Dewey beats Truman"
- 03/11/1964 - LBJ (D) soundly defeats Barry Goldwater (R) for pres
- 03/11/1970 - Pres Nixon promises gradual troop removal of Vietnam
- 03/11/1992 - Bill Clinton (D) wins US presidential election over Pres Bush (R)
- 04/11/1841 - 1st wagon train arrives in California
- 04/11/1864 - Confederate assault on Johnsonville, Tennessee
- 04/11/1939 - US allows "cash and carry" arms sales during WW II
- 04/11/1952 - Eisenhower (R) elected 34th pres beating Adlai Stevenson (D)
- 04/11/1956 - Israel captures Straits of Tiran and reach Suez Canal Egypt
- 04/11/1980 - Ronald Reagan (R) defeats Pres Jimmy Carter (D)
- 05/11/1639 - 1st post office in the colonies is set up in Massachusetts
- 05/11/1854 - Crimean War: British and French defeat Russian force of 50,000
- 05/11/1871 - Susan B Anthony arrested in Rochester NY and fined $100 for trying to vote for Ulysses S Grant
- 05/11/1872 - Ulysses S Grant re-elected US president
- 05/11/1895 - US state Utah accepts female suffrage
- 05/11/1912 - Woodrow Wilson (D) defeats Theodore Roosevelt (Prog) and Pres Taft (R)
- 05/11/1917 - Supreme Court decision (Buchanan v Warley) strikes down Lousiville Ky ordiance requiring blacks and whites to live in separate areas
- 05/11/1940 - Pres FDR (D) wins unprecedented 3rd term beating Wendell Willkie (R)
- 05/11/1946 - John F Kennedy (D-Mass) elected to House of Representatives
- 05/11/1968 - Nixon (R) beats VP Humphrey (D) and George C Wallace for presidency
- 06/11/1860 - Abraham Lincoln (Rep-R-Ill) elected 16th pres
- 06/11/1861 - Jefferson Davis elected to 6 year term as Confederate pres
- 06/11/1864 - Battle of Droop Mountain, WV (Averell's Raid)
- 06/11/1871 - Pres Grant re-elected
- 06/11/1879 - Canada celebrates 1st Thanksgiving Day
- 06/11/1888 - Benjamin Harrison (R-Sen-Ind) beats Pres Grover Cleveland (D), 233 electoral votes to 168, Cleveland received slightly more votes
- 06/11/1900 - Pres William McKinley (R) re-elected, beating William Jennings Bryan
- 06/11/1917 - Bolshevik revolution begins with capture of Winter Palace
- 06/11/1928 - Herbert Hoover (R) beats Alfred E Smith (D) for pres
- 06/11/1940 - Franklin D Roosevelt re-elected president
- 06/11/1941 - USA lends Soviet Union $1 million
- 06/11/1941 - Japanese fleet readies assault on Pearl Harbor
- 06/11/1956 - Pres Eisenhower (R) re-elected defeating Adlai E Stevenson (D)
- 06/11/1962 - Nixon tells press he won't be available to kick around any more
- 06/11/1962 - Edward M Kennedy 1st elected (Sen-D-Mass)
- 06/11/1968 - Nixon elected 37th pres of US, defeating Hubert Humphrey
- 06/11/1973 - Abe Beame elected 1st Jewish mayor on NYC
- 06/11/1986 - Reagan signs landmark immigration reform bill
- 07/11/1637 - Anne Hutchinson banished from Mass bay colony as a heretic
- 07/11/1805 - Lewis and Clark 1st sights Pacific Ocean
- 07/11/1811 - Battle of Tippecanoe, gave Harrison a presidential slogan
- 07/11/1820 - James Monroe elected 5th US president
- 07/11/1848 - General Zachary Taylor elected as president of US
- 07/11/1864 - 2nd session of congress of Confederate States of America reconvenes
- 07/11/1876 - Pres Rutherford B Hayes and Samuel J Tilden claim presidential victory Tilden (D) wins election but Electoral college selects Hayes (R)
- 07/11/1916 - Woodrow Wilson (D) re-elected president
- 07/11/1917 - October Revolution (Oct 26 OS) in Russia, Lenin seizes power
- 07/11/1928 - Herbert Hoover (R) elected president
- 07/11/1944 - FDR wins 4th term in office, defeating Thomas E Dewey (R)
- 07/11/1955 - Supreme Court of Balt bans segregation in public recreational areas
- 07/11/1967 - LBJ signs a bill establishing Corporation for Public Broadcasting
- 07/11/1972 - Pres Nixon (R) re-elected defeating George McGovern (D)
- 07/11/1989 - NYC elects it's 1st black mayor (Dinkins)
- 08/11/1701 - William Penn presents Charter of Priviliges
- 08/11/1731 - In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin opens 1st US library
- 08/11/1837 - Mount Holyoke Seminary in Mass-1st US college founded for women
- 08/11/1861 - US removes Confederate officials from British steamer Trent
- 08/11/1864 - Abraham Lincoln (R) elected to his 2nd term as president
- 08/11/1892 - Grover Cleveland (D) elected president
- 08/11/1904 - Pres Theodore Roosevelt (R) defeats Alton B Parker (D)
- 08/11/1910 - 1st Washington State election in which women could vote
- 08/11/1929 - NYC Museum of Modern Art opens in Hecksher Building
- 08/11/1938 - 1st black woman legislator, Crystal Bird Fauset of Phila
- 08/11/1960 - JFK (Sen-D-Mass) beats VP Richard Nixon (R) for 35th US president
- 08/11/1966 - Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected governor of California
- 08/11/1988 - George Bush (R) beats Mike Dukakis (D) for presidency
- 09/11/1494 - Family de' Medici become rulers of Florence
- 09/11/1799 - Napoleon becomes dictator (1st consul) of France
- 09/11/1862 - US Grant issues orders to bar Jews from serving under him
- 09/11/1864 - Sherman issues preliminary plans for his "March to the Sea"
- 09/11/1906 - T Roosevelt is 1st pres to visit other countries (P Rico and Panama)
- 09/11/1924 - Miriam (Ma) Ferguson becomes 1st elected woman governor (of Texas)
- 09/11/1938 - Kristallnacht, (Crystal Night) - Germans break windows owned by Jews, Jews forced to wear Star of David
- 09/11/1984 - Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("3 Servicemen") completed
- 10/11/1891 - 1st Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting held (in Boston)
- 10/11/1911 - Andrew Carnegie forms Carnegie Corp (for scholarly and charitable works)
- 10/11/1933 - Black Blizzard snowstorm-duststorm rages from SD to Atlantic
- 10/11/1954 - Iwo Jima Memorial (servicemen raising US flag) dedicated in Arlington
- 11/11/1620 - 41 pilgrims land in Mass, sign Mayflower Compact (just and equal laws)
- 11/11/1640 - John Pym, earl of Strafford locked in Tower of London
- 11/11/1647 - Massachusetts passes 1st US compulsory school attendance law
- 11/11/1778 - Iroquois Indians in NY kill 40 in Cherry Valley Massacre
- 11/11/1790 - Chrysanthemums are introduced into England from China
- 11/11/1860 - 1st Jewish wedding in Buenos Aires Argentina
- 11/11/1864 - Sherman's troops destroy Rome, Georgia
- 11/11/1865 - Mary Edward Walker, 1st Army female surgeon, awarded Medal of Honor
- 11/11/1918 - Armistice Day-WW I ends (at 11 AM on Western Front)
- 11/11/1921 - Pres Harding dedicates Tomb of Unknown Soldier (Arlington Cemetary)
- 11/11/1939 - Kate Smith 1st sings Irving Berlin's "God Bless America"
- 11/11/1987 - Judge Anthony M Kennedy nominated to Supreme Court
- 13/11/1553 - English Lady Jane Grey/bishop Cranmer accused of high treason
- 13/11/1775 - American Revolutionary forces capture Montreal
- 13/11/1789 - Ben Franklin writes "Nothing . . . certain but death and taxes"
- 13/11/1839 - 1st US anti-slavery party, Liberty Party, convenes in NY
- 13/11/1875 - Harvard-Yale game is 1st college football contest with uniforms
- 13/11/1921 - US, France, Japan and British Empire sign a Pacific Treaty
- 13/11/1922 - Black Renaissance begins Harlem NY
- 13/11/1933 - 1st modern sit-down strike, Hormel meat packers, Austin, Minn
- 13/11/1956 - Supreme Court strikes down segregation of races on public buses
- 13/11/1979 - Ronald Reagan in NY announces his candidacy for president
- 13/11/1986 - US president Reagan confesses weapon sales to Iran
- 14/11/1732 - 1st US professional librarian, Louis Timothee, hired in Phila
- 14/11/1832 - 1st streetcar (horse-drawn) (John Mason) debuts in NYC; fare 12 cents rode on 4th Avenue between Prince and 14th Sts
- 14/11/1906 - Roosevelt becomes 1st US pres to visit a foreign country (Panama)
- 14/11/1908 - Albert Einstein presents quantum theory of light
- 14/11/1935 - Nazi's deprive German Jews of their citizenship
- 14/11/1942 - -Nov 15th) Japanese/US sea battle at Savo-Island in Guadalcanal)
- 14/11/1960 - Riot due to school integration in New Orleans
- 14/11/1968 - Yale University announces it is going co-educational
- 14/11/1968 - "National Turn in Your Draft Card Day" features draft card burning
- 15/11/1532 - Pope Clemens VII tells Henry VIII to end relationship with Anna Boleyn
- 15/11/1660 - 1st kosher butcher (Asser Levy) licensed in NYC (New Amsterdam)
- 15/11/1763 - Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon begin surveying Mason-Dixon Line between Pennsylvania and Maryland
- 15/11/1777 - Articles of Confederation adopted by Continental Congress
- 15/11/1791 - 1st Catholic college in US, Georgetown, opens
- 15/11/1864 - Union Major General Sherman burns Atlanta
- 15/11/1881 - American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded (Pittsburgh)
- 15/11/1920 - League of Nations holds 1st meeting, in Geneva
- 15/11/1936 - Nazi-Germany and Japan sign Anti-Komintern pact
- 15/11/1939 - FDR lays cornerstone of Jefferson Memorial in Wash DC
- 15/11/1939 - Nazis begin mass murder of Warsaw Jews
- 15/11/1969 - 250,000 peacefully demonstrate in Wash DC against Vietnam War
- 16/11/1764 - Native Americans surrender to British in Indian War of Chief Pontiac
- 16/11/1776 - British troops captured Fort Washington during American Revolution
- 16/11/1798 - Kentucky becomes 1st state to nullify an act of Congress
- 16/11/1811 - Earthquake in Missouri caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards
- 16/11/1824 - NY City's Fifth Avenue opens for business
- 16/11/1864 - Union Gen William T Sherman begins march to sea during Civil War
- 16/11/1907 - Oklahoma becomes 46th state
- 16/11/1933 - Roosevelt establishes diplomatic relations with USSR
- 16/11/1945 - Yeshiva College (Univesity), chartered in NY, 1st US Jewish College
- 16/11/1948 - Operation Magic Carpet - 1st plane from Yemen carrying Jews to Israel
- 16/11/1950 - US pres Truman proclaims emergency crisis caused by communist threat
- 16/11/1973 - Pres Nixon authorizes construction of Alaskan pipeline
- 17/11/1558 - Elizabeth I ascends English throne upon death of Queen Mary
- 17/11/1798 - -21) Snow storms in New England, 100s die
- 17/11/1800 - John Adams is 1st pres to move into the White House
- 17/11/1800 - Congress held 1st session in Wash DC in incompleted Capitol building
- 17/11/1863 - Lincoln begins 1st draft of his Gettysburg Address
- 17/11/1863 - -Dec 4th) Battle of Knoxville, TN
- 17/11/1869 - Suez Canal (Egypt) opens, links Mediterranean and Red seas
- 17/11/1937 - Britains Lord Halifax visits Germany, beginning of appeasement
- 17/11/1938 - Italy passes their own version of anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws
- 17/11/1962 - Pres Kennedy dedicates Dulles Intl Airport outside Wash DC
- 17/11/1969 - SALT-discussions open in Helsinki Finland
- 17/11/1973 - Pres Nixon tells AP "...people have got to know whether or not their pres is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook"
- 17/11/1993 - US House of Representatives approve Nafta
- 18/11/1793 - Louvre officially opens in Paris
- 18/11/1805 - Lewis and Clark reach Pacific Ocean, 1st Americans to cross continent
- 18/11/1805 - Female Charitable Society, first woman's club in America
- 18/11/1961 - JFK sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam
- 19/11/1620 - Mayflower reaches Cape Cod and explores the coast
- 19/11/1794 - Jay Treaty, 1st US extradition treaty, signed with Great Britain
- 19/11/1861 - Julia Ward Howe committed "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to paper
- 19/11/1863 - Lincoln delivers his address in Gettysburg; "4 score and 7 years..."
- 19/11/1874 - William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, of Tammany Hall (NYC) convicted of defrauding city of $6M, sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment
- 19/11/1919 - US Senate rejects (55-39) Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations
- 19/11/1950 - US General Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe
- 19/11/1985 - Pres Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for 1st time
- 20/11/1789 - New Jersey is 1st state to ratify Bill of Rights
- 20/11/1815 - Russia, Prussia, Austria and England signs Great Alliance
- 20/11/1862 - Armies of Mississippi/Kentucky merge as Army of Tennessee under Gen Braxton Bragg
- 20/11/1866 - Howard University founded (Wash, DC)
- 20/11/1866 - 1st natl convention of Grand Army of Republic (veterans' org)
- 20/11/1910 - Revolution broke out in Mexico, led by Francisco I Madero
- 20/11/1920 - Nobel Peace Prize awarded to US president W Wilson
- 20/11/1938 - 1st documented anti-semitic remarks over US radio (by Father Coughlin)
- 20/11/1945 - 24 Nazi leaders put on trial at Nuremberg, German
- 20/11/1947 - Britain's Princess Elizabeth, marries Duke Philip Mountbatten
- 20/11/1949 - Jewish population of Israel reaches 1,000,000
- 20/11/1959 - UN adopts Universal Declaration of Children's Rights
- 20/11/1975 - Ronald Reagan announced candidacy for Rep nomination for president
- 21/11/1620 - Pilgrim Fathers reach America: Provincetown Harbor, Mass
- 21/11/1620 - Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims in Cape Cod
- 21/11/1789 - North Carolina ratifies constitution, becomes 12th US state
- 21/11/1824 - 1st Jewish Reform congregation forms, Charleston, SC
- 21/11/1852 - Duke U, founded in 1838 as Union Institute chartered as Normal College
- 21/11/1877 - Tom Edison announces his "talking machine" invention (phonograph)
- 21/11/1946 - Harry Truman becomes 1st US president to travel in a submerged sub
- 21/11/1959 - Jack Benny (violin) and Richard Nixon (piano) play their famed duet
- 21/11/1963 - JFK flies to Texas
- 21/11/1973 - Pres Nixon's attorney, J Fred Buzhardt, reveals presence of 18 minute gap in a White House tape recording related to Watergate
- 21/11/1974 - Freedom of Information Act passed by Congress over Pres Ford's veto
- 22/11/1864 - Battle at Griswoldville, Georgia, ends after 650 casualties
- 22/11/1930 - 1st US football game broadcast to England (Harvard 13, Yale 0)
- 22/11/1930 - Elijah Muhammad forms Nation of Islam in Detroit
- 22/11/1943 - FDR, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek meet to discuss ways to defeat Japan
- 22/11/1963 - John F. Kennedy is assassinated while travelling through Dallas, Texas in an open-top convertible
- 22/11/1963 - Lyndon Baines Johnson sworn in as 36th US president
- 22/11/1990 - Margaret Thatcher announces her resignation as British Prime Minister
- 22/11/1992 - Wash Post reports Ore Senator Bob Packwood sexually harassed 10 women
- 22/11/1996 - OJ Simpson takes stand as hostile witness in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against him, saying it is "absolutely not true"
- 23/11/1765 - People of Frederick County Md refuse to pay England's Stamp tax
- 23/11/1783 - Annapolis Maryland, becomes US capital (until June 1784)
- 23/11/1863 - Battle of Chattanooga and Orchard Knob, TN begins
- 23/11/1864 - -25] Battle at Ball's Ferry Georgia (30 casualties)
- 23/11/1909 - Wright Brothers forms million dollar corp to manufacture airplanes
- 23/11/1921 - Pres Harding signs Willis Campell Act (anti-beer bill) forbidding doctors prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes
- 23/11/1936 - 1st issue of Life, picture magazine created by Henry R Luce
- 23/11/1939 - Nazi Gov of Poland Hans Frank requires Jews to wear a blue star
- 23/11/1942 - German 4th and 6th Army surrounded at Stalingrad
- 23/11/1963 - JFK's body, lay in repose in East Room of White House
- 23/11/1963 - LBJ proclaims Nov 25 a day of national mourning (for JFK)
- 24/11/1105 - Rabbi Nathan ben Yehiel of Rome completes Talmudic dictionary
- 24/11/1863 - Battle of Chattanooga, Columbia and Lookout Mt begins in Tennessee
- 24/11/1869 - American Woman's Suffrage Association forms (Cleveland)
- 24/11/1941 - "Life Certificates" issued to some Jews of Vilna, rest exterminated
- 24/11/1944 - US bombers based on Saipan, begin 1st attack on Tokyo
- 24/11/1948 - Ireland votes for independence from UK
- 24/11/1950 - UN troops begin an assault intending to end Korean War by Christmas
- 24/11/1963 - 1st live murder on TV-Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald
- 24/11/1974 - Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev signs SALT-2-treaty
- 25/11/1783 - Britain evacuates NYC, their last military position in US
- 25/11/1792 - Farmer's Almanac 1st published
- 25/11/1864 - Confederate plot to burn NYC, fails
- 25/11/1864 - Confederate retreat at Sandersville, Georgia
- 25/11/1867 - US Congress commission looks into "impeachment" of Pres Andrew Johnson
- 25/11/1913 - Woodrow Wilson's daughter Jessie marries in White House
- 25/11/1920 - 1st Thanksgiving Parade (Phila)
- 25/11/1941 - German Jews in Netherlands declared stateless (lose of nationality)
- 25/11/1955 - Race segregation forbidden on trains and buses between US states
- 25/11/1957 - Pres Eisenhower suffers a mild stroke, impairing his speech
- 25/11/1963 - JFK laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
- 25/11/1986 - Oliver North's sect, Fawn Hill, smuggles documents out of his office
- 25/11/1986 - Iran-Contra affair erupts, Pres Reagan reveals secret arm deal
- 26/11/1789 - 1st national Thanksgiving
- 26/11/1861 - West Virginia created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virg
- 26/11/1863 - -Dec 2] Mine Run campaign, VA
- 26/11/1864 - Confederate troops vacate Sandersville Georgia
- 26/11/1898 - -27) Snow/ice storm over US; 455 die
- 26/11/1940 - Nazi Germany began walling off the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw
- 26/11/1969 - Lottery for Selective Service draftees bill signed by President Nixon
- 26/11/1973 - Nixon's personal sec, Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of 18«-minute gap in a key Watergate tape
- 26/11/1985 - Random House buys Richard Nixons memoires for $3,000,000
- 27/11/1863 - -29] Battle at Fort Esperanza Texas
- 27/11/1868 - Battle at Washita-Gen Custer defeats Cheyennes
- 27/11/1972 - Pierre Trudeau forms Canadian government
- 27/11/1990 - Britain's conservatives chose John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher
- 27/11/1863 - -29] Battle at Fort Esperanza Texas
- 27/11/1868 - Battle at Washita-Gen Custer defeats Cheyennes
- 27/11/1972 - Pierre Trudeau forms Canadian government
- 27/11/1990 - Britain's conservatives chose John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher
- 28/11/1745 - -29] French troops attack indians of Saratoga, NY
- 28/11/1775 - 2nd Continental Congress formally establishes US Navy
- 28/11/1776 - Washington and his troops cross Delaware River
- 28/11/1795 - US pays $800,000 and a frigate as tribute to Algiers and Tunis
- 28/11/1861 - Confederate congress officially admits Missouri to Confederate Army
- 28/11/1862 - Battle at Cane Hill, Arkansas (475 casualties)
- 28/11/1864 - 3rd day of Battles at Waynesboro/Jones's Plantation, Georgia -- Battle of New Creek, WV (Rosser's Raid, Ft Kelly)
- 28/11/1871 - Ku Klux Klan trials began in Federal District Court in SC
- 28/11/1916 - 1st (German) air attack on London
- 28/11/1943 - FDR, Churchill and Stalin met at Tehran to map out strategy
- 28/11/1986 - Reagan administration exceeds SALT II arms limitations for 1st time
- 28/11/1990 - Margaret Thatcher resigns as Britain's PM, replaced by John Majors
- 29/11/1349 - Jews of Augsburg Germany massacred
- 29/11/1803 - Dessalines and Christophe declare St Domingue (Haiti) independent
- 29/11/1812 - Napoleon's Grand Army crosses Berezina River in retreat from Russia
- 29/11/1847 - Indians kill Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, 11 settle in Walla Walla Ore
- 29/11/1863 - Battle of Ft Sanders, TN (Ft Loudon), 8-900 casualities
- 29/11/1864 - Battle of Spring Hill, TN (Thomason's Station)
- 29/11/1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrates hand-cranked phonograph
- 29/11/1887 - US receives rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, Hawaii
- 29/11/1916 - US declares martial law in Dominican Republic
- 29/11/1932 - France signs non-agression pact with Soviet Union
- 29/11/1933 - 1st state liquor stores authorized (Pennsylvania)
- 29/11/1963 - LBJ sets up Warren Comm to investigate assassination of JFK
- 30/11/1630 - 16,000 inhabitants of Venice died this month of plague
- 30/11/1678 - Roman Catholics banned from English parliament
- 30/11/1782 - Britain signs agreement recognizing US independence
- 30/11/1803 - Spain cedes her claims to Louisiana Territory to France
- 30/11/1804 - Impeachment trial of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase begins
- 30/11/1864 - Battle of Franklin Tenn: Confederate attack fails, 7,700 casualities
- 30/11/1864 - Battle of Honey Hill SC (Broad River) 96 dead/665 wounded
- 30/11/1947 - Day after UN decree for Israel, Jewish settlements attacked
- 30/11/1967 - Sen Eugene McCarthy begins run for US presidency