Today in History

A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills over 110 people.

The Mexican criminal syndicate Los Zetas kills 72 illegal immigrants from Central and South America in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) “sonic cannon,” a non-lethal device that utilizes intense sound, is used in the United States for the first time, to disperse protestors at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Penn.

Many stock exchanges worldwide suffer the steepest declines in their histories; the day becomes known as “Bloody Friday.”

Pluto is downgraded to a dwarf planet when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines “planet.”

Chad declares a state of war against Sudan in the wake of the Dec. 18 attack on the town of Adre, in which approximately 100 people were killed.

Chechnyan suicide bombers blow up two airliners near Moscow, killing 89 passengers.

The supersonic Concorde jet made its last commercial passenger flight from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport, traveling at twice the speed of sound.

NATO planes, including stealth aircraft, attack Serbian forces in Kosovo.

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty signed by representatives of 71 nations at the UN; at present, five key nations have signed but not ratified it and three others have not signed.

Ireland votes 50.28% to 49.72% to end its 70-year-old ban on divorce.

Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) create initial accord regarding partial self-rule for Palestinians living on the West Bank, the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities.

Sihanouk is reinstalled as king of Cambodia.

US Congress passes the Brady Bill requiring a 5-day waiting period for handgun sales; the bill is named for Pres. Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was left partially paralyzed by a bullet during an assassination attempt on Reagan.

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Ukraine declares its independence from USSR.

Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Pete Rose from baseball for gambling.

Thousands demonstrate in Madrid against the NATO presence in Spain.

A draft of Air Force history reports that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.

 Mark David Chapman sentenced to 20 years to life for murdering former Beatles band member John Lennon.

Poland’s government legalizes the Solidarity trade union.

The United States admits that thousands of troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange.

Greece announces the discovery of the tomb of King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

The principal leaders of Greece’s 1967 coup—Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos, and Nikolaos Maarezos—sentenced to death for high treason, later commuted to life in prison.

Ryan Seacrest, radio personality, TV host; host of American Idol TV talent competition.

Stephenie Meyer, author best known for her young-adult, vampire romance series Twilight.

Hanoi bars all peace talks with the United States until U.S. air raids over North Vietnam stop.

Ricky Martin, Puerto Rican pop musician, actor, author; was a member of the boy group Menudo before launching a successful solo career (“Livin’ la Vida Loca”).

Nine GIs are killed and nine are wounded by friendly fire in Vietnam.

Paul Ray Smith, US Army Sergeant, received Medal of Honor posthumously during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.

The Greek Junta frees ex-Premier Papandreou.

A Soviet research vehicle soft-lands on the moon.

Reginald “Reggie” Miller, professional basketball player who set record for most career 3-point field goals (later superseded by Ray Allen); Olympic gold medalist.

The U.S. headquarters in Saigon is hit by a bomb killing two officers.

New York’s Idlewild Airport is renamed JFK Airport in honor of the murdered President Kennedy.

The University of Mississippi agrees to admit James Meredith as the first black university student, sparking more rioting.

The United Nations adopts bans on nuclear arms over American protests.

The Enterprise, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, is launched.

Khrushchev rejects the Western plan for the Big Four meeting on Germany.

Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, US Army’s Deputy Director of Operations during the Iraq War that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein; presently (2013) commander of Third Army.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students entering its newly integrated high school.

African Americans defy a city law in Tallahassee, Florida, and occupy front bus seats.

Scott Fischer, mountain climber and guide; first American to reach the summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain.

Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States.

John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announce their engagement.

Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that if elected, he will go to Korea.

Oscar Hijuelos, novelist (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love).

UN troops begin an assault into the rest of North Korea, hoping to end the Korean War by Christmas.

Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded Monica Lewinsky’s confidential phone calls about Lewinsky’s affair with then-President Bill Clinton.

Spider Robinson, Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction author (Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon; Melancholy Elephants); received Robert A. Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in 2008.

An estimated 20,000 communists, led by guerrilla General Markos Vafthiades proclaim the Free Greek Government in northern Greece. They issue a call to arms to establish the regime throughout the nation.

Ted Bundy, serial killer; he confessed to 30 murders between 1974-78, but the total could be much higher.

Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime minister president, is executed by firing squad for collaboration with the Nazis.

American B-29s flying from Saipan bomb Tokyo.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed the Allied Supreme Commander, even though almost everyone believed the position would go to American Chief of Staff George C. Marshall.

Frank Delany, Irish author, journalist, broadcaster; best known for his novel Ireland and non-fiction book Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea.

Dr. William H. Dobelle, biomedical researcher who developed technology that restored limited sight to blind patients.

France signs an armistice with Italy.

In Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo execute 120 students who are accused of anti-Nazi plotting.

Mexico seizes oil land adjacent to Texas.

Jim Henson, puppeteer who created the “Muppets” in 1954 and television’s Sesame Street.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, called Mahatma or “Great Soul,” resigns from Congress in India.

Ronald and Reginald Kray, gangsters whose gang, The Firm, was the most infamous organized crime group in London’s East End in the 1950s and ’60s.

Al (Alphonse) Capone, the prohibition-era Chicago gangster, is sent to prison for tax evasion.

The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.), singer, songwriter, musician; an early star of rock ‘n’ roll (“Chantilly Lace”), he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the pilot, Roger Peterson.

Mary Higgins Clark, author of suspense novels (Where are the Children, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting).

William Trevor, Irish short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Boarding House).

Federal officials battle 1,200 inmates after prisoners in Folsom Prison revolt.

Dario Fo, Italian actor and playwright.

William F. Buckley, Jr., journalist, founder of National Review.

US Army Major General George S. Patton IV, son of Gen. George Patton of World War II fame.

Ava Gardner, film actress (The Barefoot Contessa, The Sun Also Rises).

Herbert Hoover becomes Secretary of Commerce.

Bella Abzug, the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, ‘beat’ poet.

The Kaiser warns Russia that he will use “iron fist” and “shining sword” if peace is spurned.

Henry Ford awards equal pay to women.

Bulgaria mobilizes troops on the Serbian border.

Over 577,000 Allied soldiers are to spend Christmas as prisoners in Germany.

Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.

Garson Kanin, writer and director (Born Yesterday).

Sonny Terry, blues performer.

The Japanese army invades Korea.

August Derleth, writer (Still is the Summer Night, The Shield of the Valiant).

Japan officially agrees to restrict emigration to the U.S.

William Joyce, ‘Lord Haw-Haw,’ British traitor, Nazi propagandist.

Howard Hughes, American industrialist, aviator, film producer, and director.

Moss Hart, American playwright who, with George S. Kaufman, wrote plays such as You Can’t Take it with You and The Man who came to Dinner.

Arthur Vineberg, Canadian heart surgeon.

The first Congress of Professional Photographers convenes in Paris.

Anna Edson Taylor, 43, is the first woman to go safely over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch.

Zelda Sayre, writer (Save Me the Waltz).

Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (Ficciones).

Malcolm Cowley, poet, translator, literary critic and social historian.

The first comic strip appears in the Sunday color supplement of the New York Journal called the ‘Yellow Kid.’

Francis Scott Key (F. Scott) Fitzgerald, novelist best known for The Great Gatsby.

Richard Cushing, the director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

E. Franklin Frazier, first African-American president of the American Sociological Society.

George Sisler, baseball player.

Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera.

Jean Rhys, writer (Wide Sargasso Sea).

Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Mary Ellen Chase, New England writer.

Margaret Anderson, editor, founder of The Little Review.

Chester Nimitz, U.S. admiral who commanded naval forces in the Pacific during WWII.

Otto von Bismarck cables Cape Town, South Africa that it is now a German colony.

Victor Francis Hess, physicist.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth, pioneer in time-motion studies.

Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

Joseph Glidden receives a patent for barbed wire.

George Claude, French engineer, inventor of the neon light.

Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron.

Scott Joplin, composer.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, French post-impressionist painter.

In the Battle Above the Clouds, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s forces take Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A Christmas present arrives a day early for the Federal troops at Columbus, Kentucky, in the way of artillery on board the USS New Era.

The USS Gem of the Sea destroys the British blockade runner Prince of Wales off the coast at Georgetown, S.C.

Cass Gilbert, architect.

Henri Philippe Pétain, French Marshall, WWI hero, Nazi collaborator.

Andrew Mellon, U.S. financier and philanthropist.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden.

Brooks Adams, American historian, son of Charles Francis Adams (The Law of Civilization and Decay).

Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London.

General Zachary Taylor captures Monterey.

Samuel Morse taps out the first telegraph message.

Branwell Bronte, the brother of the Bronte sisters and the model for Hindley Earnshaw in Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights, dies of tuberculosis. Emily and Anne die the same year.

John Phillip Holland, inventor of the modern submarine.

The match is patented.

William Morris, English craftsman, poet and socialist.

A patent is granted for the first soda fountain.

Carlo Collodi, the creator of Pinocchio.

Mexico gains independence from Spain.

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1836-1901).

Anthony Trollope, British novelist.

A treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, ending the War of 1812, is signed at Ghent, Belgium. The news does not reach the United States until two weeks later (after the decisive American victory at New Orleans).

Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman.

Joel Barlow, aged 58, American poet and lawyer, dies from exposure near Vilna, Poland, during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Barlow was on a diplomatic mission to the emperor for President Madison.

Theodore Parker, anti-slavery movement leader.

Christopher Kit Carson, one of the most famous mountain men and scouts in the West.

U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates.

Chief Justice John Marshall, by refusing to rule on the case of Marbury vs. Madison, asserts the authority of the judicial branch.

Alexandre Dumas, French author (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers).

The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation.

Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation.

Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes “La Marseillaise”. It will become France’s national anthem.

Robespierre expels all Jacobins opposed to the principles of the French Revolution.

Congress passes the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing a strong federal court system with the powers it needs to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution and federal law. The new Supreme Court will have a chief justice and five associate justices.

Sarah Josepha Hale, magazine editor and poet whose book Poems for Our Children included “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (the first words to be recorded in sound)

Jean-Louis Nicollet, French explorer.

Zachary Taylor, general during the Mexican War, 12th President of the United States.

Simon Bolivar, South American soldier and statesman.

King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.

Arthur Wellesley, general during the Napoleonic Wars, Duke of Wellington.

At Fort Ontario, Canada, Ottawa chief Pontiac and William Johnson sign a peace agreement.

Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring the colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.

Boston lawyer James Otis denounces “taxation without representation,” calling for the colonies to unite in opposition to Britain’s new tax measures.

A British expedition against the French held Fort Niagara in Canada ends in failure.

Benjamin Rush, American medical pioneer and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary.

The Methodist Church is established.

Pierre de Beaumarchais, French dramatist (The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro).

Czar Peter the Great caps his reforms in Russia with the “Table of Rank” which decrees a commoner can climb on merit to the highest positions.

In Germany, the supremely talented Johann Sebastian Bach publishes the Six Brandenburg Concertos.

The banking houses of Paris close in the wake of financial crisis.

Horace Walpole, author, creator of the Gothic novel genre.

Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, noted for his social reforms and leading Prussia in military victories.

Admiral George Rooke takes Gibraltar from the Spanish.

Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac establishes Fort Pontchartrain for France at present-day Detroit, Michigan.

The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are specifically excluded from exemption.

King Philip’s War begins.

The colony of New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, is founded.

Charles II of England awards land known as Carolina in North America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.

The signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ends the German Thirty Years’ War.

Margaret Brent, demands a voice and a vote for herself in the Maryland colonial assembly.

Representatives from three Connecticut towns band together to write the Fundamental Orders, the first constitution in the New World.

The Ottomans under Murad IV recapture Baghdad from Safavid Persia.

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch naturalist.

After years of unprofitable operation, Virginia’s charter is revoked and it becomes a royal colony.

John Graunt, statistician, founder of demography.

Sir Thomas Gates institutes “laws divine moral and marshal, ” a harsh civil code for Jamestown.

Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers found the colony of Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the coast of Virginia.

Queen Elizabeth I dies which will bring into power James VI of Scotland.

Some 50,000 people are put to death in the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew’ as Charles IX of France attempts to rid the country of Huguenots.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is imprisoned and forced to abdicate her throne to her 1-year-old son James VI.

Mary, Queen of Scotland, marries the French dauphin, Francis.

Charles V’s troops defeat the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the Battle of Muhlberg.

William Gilbert, English physician and scientist.

Nicolaus Copernicus publishes proof of a sun-centered solar system. He dies just after publication.

The English defeat the Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss in England.

Ferdinand of Hapsburg and John Zapolyai, the two kings of Hungary, conclude the peace of Grosswardein.

Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V.

In the first of the Franco-Habsburg Wars, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V captures the French king Francis I at the Battle of Pavia, Italy.

Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America.

Henry VIII is crowned King of England.

On their way to India, a group of Portuguese explorers sack the city-state of Kilwa.

Gerolamo Cardano, mathematician, author of Games of Chance, the first systematic computation of probabilities.

Charles V, king of Spain and the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope.

Explorer John Cabot lands in North America in present-day Canada.

Matthias Corvinus, the son of John Hunyadi, is elected king of Hungary.

The English fleet defeats the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.

Scottish forces, led by Robert the Bruce, win an overwhelming victory against English King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn.

King John of England opposes Innocent III on his nomination for archbishop of Canterbury.

King John of England.

St. Nicholas I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

Pepin the Short of Gaul dies. His dominions are divided between his sons Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman.

Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, falls to Genseric and the Vandals.

German barbarians sack Rome.

Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal destroy a Roman army under consul Gaius Flaminius in a battle at Lake Trasimene in central Italy.

Mount Vesuvius erupts destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements.

Shortly after declaring himself a god, Caligula is assassinated by two Praetorian tribunes.