OnThisDay

On This Day…

1497 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to the first voyage from Europe to reach India. 1718 - The pirate Blackbeard was killed off…

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164 BC - During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah. 1620 - Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, [O.S. Nov 11].…

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284 - Roman soldier Diocletian proclaimed Emperor by the army. 762 - Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire. 1695 - Zumbi last leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in…

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1530 - The Recess document resulting from the Diet of Augsburg signed by Charles V and catholic princes. 1620 - The Mayflower reaches Cape Cod and explores the coast. 1794…

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1477 - First English dated printed book "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers" by William Caxton. 1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, replacing earlier basilica, the world's largest Christian basilica. 1903 - Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla,…

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1558 - Elizabeth I aged 25 ascends the English throne upon the death of her half-sister Queen "Bloody" Mary. 1800 - Congress holds its 1st session in Washington D.C. in…

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534 - Second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus published. 1532 - Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa after a surprise ambush at Cajamarca in the Peruvian…

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1492 - Christopher Columbus notes 1st recorded reference to tobacco. 1884 - European Colonization and trade in Africa is officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing European powers "Scramble…

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1680 - Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch's Comet/Newton's Comet). 1851 - Harper & Brothers published Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby Dick. 1896 - Power plant at Niagara…

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1789 - Benjamin Franklin writes "Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes". 1933 - 1st modern sit-down strike by Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota. 1956 - US Supreme…

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764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an for 15 days, capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. 1833 - The great Leonid meteor shower, in which hundreds of thousands of meteors were…

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1675 - German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function. 1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army enters…

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911 - Conrad I was elected German king at Forchheim, after the death of Louis the Child, the last of the East Frankish Carolingians. 1444 - Turkish forces defeated the…

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1813 - Chilpancingo congress declares Mexico independent of Spain. 1860 - Abraham Lincoln (Rep-R-Ill) elected 16th American President. 1888 - Benjamin Harrison of the Republican Party was elected U.S. president…

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1605 - Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up King James I and the British Parliament. Guy Fawkes was caught, tortured and later executed along with seven others. 1935 - Parker Brothers launches the game…

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1793 - French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined 1838 - The Times of India, world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of…

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1875 - Verney Cameroon reaches Benguela in Angola, from Africa's east coast, 1st European to cross equatorial Africa. 1936 - The British Broadcasting Corporation officially launched its first television channel, which was also the…

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835 - All Saints Day made compulsory by Pope Gregory IV throughout Frankish Kingdom 1512 - The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, one of Italian artist Michelangelo’s finest works,…

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Today - Halloween, celebrated this day, is now observed largely as a secular holiday, it is, as the eve of All Saints' Day, also a religious holiday among some Christians. 1485 -…

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939 - Athelstan, the first king to rule over all of England, died. 1932 - American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath—whose best-known works are preoccupied with alienation, death, and self-destruction—was born. 1955 - "Rebel…

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1950 - China entered the Korean War on the side of North Korea against South Korea and the United Nations (UN), the United States is the UN's principal participant. 1966 - Jimi Hendrix Experience play their first UK gig as a private showcase at The…

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1861 - The first transcontinental telegram was sent via the telegraph in the United States, effectively bringing to an end the Pony Express. 1945 - The charter for the United Nations—the world's premier international organization, established at…

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1797 - The first parachute jump of note is made by André-Jacques Garnerin from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet above Paris. 1879 - Thomas Edison perfects carbonized cotton filament light…

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1812 - Napoleon began his disastrous retreat from Russia. 1781 - On this day in 1781, Britain's Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, handing a huge victory to American Gen. 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy…

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1775 - African-American poet Phillis Wheatley freed from slavery. 1867 - Alaska Purchase: the US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia, having paid $7.2 million. 1878 - Edison makes electricity available for household use.…

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1912 - Following the example of Montenegro, their smaller ally in the tumultuous Balkan region of Europe, Serbia and Greece declare war on the Ottoman Empire, beginning the First Balkan…

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1793 - Nine months after the execution of her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France, Marie Antoinette follows him to the guillotine. 1846 - William Thomas Green Morton first demonstrated the…

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1581 - Commissioned by Catherine De Medici, the 1st ballet "Ballet Comique de la Reine" is staged in Paris. 1878 - Edison Electric Light Company incorporated. 1924 - US President Calvin Coolidge declares Statue of…

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1066 - Battle of Hastings: William the Conqueror and his Norman army defeat the English forces of Harold II who is killed in the battle. 1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"…

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1492 - Christopher Columbus' expedition makes landfall on a Caribbean island he names San Salvador (likely Watling Island, Bahamas). The explorer believes he has reached East Asia (OS 21 Oct) 1915 - Ford…

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1899 - The South African (Boer) War began between Great Britain and the two Boer (Afrikaner) republics—the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State. 1944 - "Laura" directed by Otto Preminger starring Gene Tierney and Dana…

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1944 - On this day in 1944, 800 Gypsy children, including more than a hundred boys between 9 and 14 years old are systematically murdered. Auschwitz was really a group…

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1855 - American inventor Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor. 1930 - 1st transcontinental flight by a woman completed, Laura Ingalls. 1967 - Socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39,…

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1927 - "The Second Hundred Years" silent short film released starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - 1st Laurel and Hardy film with them appearing as a team. 1967 - A prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution and…

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1949 - On this day in 1949, a constitution went into effect in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany that formed the country of East Germany, which existed alongside West Germany until 1990, when the two…

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1889 - Moulin Rouge opens in Paris. 1889 - Thomas Edison shows his 1st motion picture. 1948 - Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey finds the first partial fossil skull of Proconsul africanus, an ancestor of apes and humans on…

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1789 - French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand…

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1883 - The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to Istanbul. 1927 - Sculpting begins on the face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota. 1957 - On…

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1778 - Captain James Cook anchors at Alaska 1941 - "The Maltese Falcon" directed by John Huston and based off Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, premieres in New…

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1836 - Naturalist Charles Darwin returned to England this day in 1836 after a five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, on which he gathered the specimens and observations that led to his theory of evolution by natural…

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1867 - Karl Marx' "Das Kapital" published 1868 - "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott is published in America by Roberts Brothers of Boston 1888 -National Geographic magazine publishes for the 1st time. 1920…

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On This Day…

1542 - Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, known as the “discoverer” of California, landed this day in 1542 near what is now San Diego and became the first European to set foot on the…

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On This Day…

1905 - The physics journal Annalen der Physik publishes Albert Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc². 1912 - W. C. Handy publishes "Memphis…

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On This Day…

1849 - Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist and pioneer in psychology (Nobel Prize 1904), born in Ryazan, Russia. 1946 - 1st edition of Tintin (Kuifje), publishes until June 1993 1960 - The first in a…

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1820 - French Physicist Francois Arago announces electromagnetism in his discovery that a copper wire between the poles of a voltaic cell could laterally attract iron filings to itself. 1906 - Leonardo…

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1692 - Last people hanged for witchcraft (8) in the US, 20 hanged overall during Salem Witch Trials. 1792 - The French First Republic formed by the National Convention, stripping French king of…

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1840 While experimenting with gallic acid, a chemical he was informed would increase the sensitivity of his prepared paper, William Henry Fox Talbot discovered that the acid can be used to develop a…

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1863 – Jacob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist and editor of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, dies at 78. 1870 – Italian troops occupied Rome, leading to the eventual incorporation of Rome into…

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1893 – New Zealand becomes the first country to grant all women the right to vote. 1940 – Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz in order to…

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1821 Central Americans granted independence. Central American notables accepted a plan drafted by the Mexican caudillo Agustin de Iturbide that brought independence from Spain to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,…

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1812 Great Fire of Moscow begins as Napoleon approaches the city and retreating Russians burn it – fire continues to burn for five days. 1849 Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov,…

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1224 Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata after a vision praying on Mount Verna. 1906 1st airplane flight in Europe 1947 T-Bone Walker records his biggest hit ‘’Call it…

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1940 4 teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux France, discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as Lascaux Cave Paintings. 1977 South African activist Steve Biko died from injuries…

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1885 English writer D.H.Lawerence is born. 1875 First newspaper cartoon slip. 1940 George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer. 1942 Enid Blyton publishes ‘’Five on a Treasure…

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1897 George Smith becomes the first person to be arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. 1919 Austria and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of…

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1836 Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his influential essay "Nature" in the US, outlining his beliefs in transcendentalism 1941 American singer and songwriter Otis Redding, one of the great soul stylists…

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