Week of December 19 in History

December 19 is the 353rd day of the year. There are 12 days remaining until the end of the year. 

December 19 is United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation. 

• 1606 – Three ships departed England carrying settlers who founded Jamestown, Virginia, the first colony in America.
• 2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa was recorded at Tosontsengel, Mongolia.

December 20 is the 354th day of the year. There are 11 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 20 is International Human Solidarity Day.

• 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase was completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
• 1860 – South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States.
• 1951 – The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho became the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity, it powered four light bulbs.
• 1968 – John Steinbeck, American author and Nobel Prize laureate, died. He was born in 1902.
• 1996 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, died. He was born in 1934.
• 2007 – The painting “Portrait of Suzanne Bloch” (1904) by artist Pablo Picasso was stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art.

December 21 is the 355th day of the year. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1620 – The Mayflower pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 
• 1913 – The first crossword puzzle was published in the New York World.
• 1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premiered.
• 1962 – Rondane National Park was established as Norway’s first national park.
• 1969 – The Gay Activists Alliance was formed in New York City.
• 1968 – Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew performed the first manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave Earth's gravity.

December 22 is the 356th day of the year. There are nine days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1807 – The US Congress passed the Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries.
• 1864 – Savannah, GA fell to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his “March to the Sea.” 
• 1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel, between Manhattan and New Jersey, opened to traffic.
• 1956 – The first gorilla, Colo, to be bred in captivity was born in the Columbus, OH zoo.
• 1965 – The first speed limit, 70 mph, was imposed on all rural roads in the UK.
• 1989 – Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
• 2010 – The US’ Don’t Ask Don’t Tell 17-year-old military policy was repealed.

December 23 is the 357th day of the year. There are eight days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1783 – George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in Annapolis, Maryland.
• 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was published anonymously.
• 1913 – The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve.
• 1919 – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 became law in the UK. Marriage was no longer legally considered a bar to a woman's ability to work.
• 1938 – The first modern coelacanth, believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period, was discovered in South Africa.
• 1947 – The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
• 1982 – The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it identified dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil of Times Beach, Missouri
• 1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.

December 24 is the 358th day of the year. There are seven days remaining until the end of the year. 

December 24 is Christmas Eve.

• 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.
• 1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the US Military Academy began and ended the next morning.
• 1851 – The Library of Congress burned, destroying 35,000 books.
• 1865 – Several U.S. Civil War Confederate veterans formed the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1906 – Canadian Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast.
• 1955 – NORAD tracked Santa for the first time in what would become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.
• 1968 – The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so.
• 1973 – The District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed by Congress, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect officials

December 25 is the 359th day of the year. There are six days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1223 – St. Francis of Assisi assembled the first Nativity scene.
• 1642 – Isaac Newton, English scientist, was born. He died in 1727.
• 1776 – George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware River to attack the British mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey.
• 1818 – The first performance of Silent Night occurred in the church of St. Nikolaus in Austria.
• 1821 – Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born. She died in 1912. 
• 1868 – US President Andrew Johnson granted unconditional pardon to all Confederate soldiers. 
• 1977 – Menachem Begin, Israel PM, met with Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt in Egypt.
• 1990 – The 1st successful trial run of what would become the World Wide Web (www) was run.

Week of December 12 in History

December 12 is the 346th day of the year. There are 19 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1745 – John Jay, first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, was born. He died in 1829.
• 1787 – Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the US Constitution. 
• 1941 – Adolf Hitler announced extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery.
• 1944 - Regina Jonas, first woman Rabbi, died in Auschwitz. She was born in 1902.

December 13 is the 347th day of the year. There are 18 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1636 - The United States National Guard was founded by MA Bay Colony.
• 1769 – Dartmouth College was founded.
• 1818 – Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States, was born. She died in 1882.
• 1938 – The Neuengamme concentration camp opened in Hamburg, Germany.
• 1961 – Grandma Moses, American painter, died. She was born in 1860.
• 2006 – The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, was declared extinct.

December 14 is the 348th day of the year. There are 17 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1799 – George Washington, first President of the United States, died. He was born in 1732.
• 1819 – Alabama became the 22nd US state.
• 1943 – John Harvey Kellogg, American breakfast food manufacturer, died. He was born in 1852.
• 1946 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish its headquarters in New York City.
• 1962 – NASA’s Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
• 1964  – In Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the US Supreme Court ruled that Congress can use the Constitution’s Commerce Clause power to fight discrimination.
• 1972 – Eugene Cernan became the last person to walk on the moon in the 20th century.
• 1994 – Construction began on the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest power station, located on the Yangtze River.

December 15 is the 349th day of the year. There are 16 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1791 – The US Bill of Rights became law when ratified by Virginia.
• 1939 – Gone with the Wind premièred in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1945 – General Douglas MacArthur ordered that Shinto be abolished as the state religion of Japan
• 1973 – The American Psychiatric Association voted 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II.
• 1978 – US President Jimmy Carter announced that the US would recognize the People’s Republic of China.

December 16 is the 350th day of the year. There are 15 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1707 – The last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan occurred.
• 1773 – The Sons of Liberty dumped crates of tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.
• 1775 – Jane Austen, English author of Sense and Sensibility (1811), was born. She died in 1817.
• 1917 – Sir Arthur C. Clarke, English author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was born. He died in 2008.

December 17 is the 351st day of the year. There are 14 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (United States).

December 17 is Wright Brothers Day, a US federal observance by Presidential proclamation.

• 1790 – Discovery of the 24-ton Aztec calendar stone in Mexico City.
• 1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky to curb the black market that he thought the Jews must be responsible for. It was revoked by President Lincoln.
• 1903 - The Wright Brothers made their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
• 1997 – The United Kingdom passed its Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, which extends the state's gun ban to include all handguns, except antique and show weapons.

December 18 is the 352nd day of the year. There are 13 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 18 is International Migrants Day.

• 1620 – The Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts  with 102 pilgrims on board.
• 1787 – New Jersey became the third US state.
• 1888 – Richard Wetherill discovered the ancient Indian ruins of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, Colorado.
• 1918  – The U.S. House of Representatives approved the 18th Amendment and Prohibition.
• 1958 – The US launched the world's first communications satellite.
• 1971 – Capitol Reef National Park was established in Utah.

Week of December 5 in History

December 5 is the 339th day of the year. There are 26 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1485 – Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull that led to one of the most oppressive witch hunts in European history.
• 1766 – In London, James Christie held his first sale.
• 1776 – Phi Beta Kappa was founded at The College of William and Mary as the first American college fraternity.
• 1791 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer, died. He was born 1756. 
• 1926 – Claude Monet, French impressionist painter, died. He was born in 1840. 
• 1932 –Albert Einstein was granted an American visa.
• 1933 – Prohibition ended when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment. 
• 1955 – The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO .
• 1977 – Egypt broke diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq, and South Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the Declaration of Tripoli against Egypt.
• 2005 – The Civil Partnership Act went into effect in the UK, and the first civil partnership was registered.

December 6 is the 340th day of the year. There are 25 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 6 is National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women  in Canada.

• 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published. #firsts #Britannica #publishers
• 1790 – The U.S. Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1849 – American abolitionist Harry Tubman escaped from slavery. #slavery #abolitionists 
• 1865 – The 13th Amendment, banning slavery, was ratified.
• 1877 – The first edition of the Washington Post was published.
• 1877 – Thomas Edison created the first recording of a human voice, reciting the poem, Mary Had a Little Lamb.
• 1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was completed
• 1897 – London became the world's first city to have licensed taxicabs.
• 1947 – The Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated.
• 1967 – The first human heart transplant in the United States was performed by Adrian Kantrowitz.
• 2006 – NASA revealed photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor that suggests the presence of liquid water on Mars.

December 7 is the 341st day of the year. There are 24 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 7 is International Civil Aviation Day.

December 7 National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the US.

• 1732– The Royal Opera House opened at Covent Garden, London.
• 1787 – Delaware became the first state to ratify the US Constitution.
• 1941 – The Japanese Navy attacked the US at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
• 1941 – 2,400 people died in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• 1963 – Instant replay was used for the first time, in an Army-Navy game.
• 1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched. 

December 8 is the 342nd day of the year. There are 23 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1660 – Margaret Hughes became the 1st actress to appear on an English public stage.
• 1765 – Eli Whitney, American inventor of the cotton gin, was born. He died in 1825. 
• 1894 – E.C. Segar, American creator of Popeye, was born. He died in 1938.
• 1919 - Julia Robinson, American mathematician and first woman president of the American Mathematical Society, was born. She died in 1985.
• 1993 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
• 2010– SpaceX became the first privately held company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.

December 9 is the 343rd day of the year. There are 22 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 9 is the International Anti-Corruption Day.

• 1793 – New York City’s first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, was established by Noah Webster.
• 1851 – The first YMCA in North America was established in Montreal, Canada. 
• 1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installed his mechanical tabulator at the US War Department.
• 1906 – Grace Hopper, American computer pioneer, was born. She died in 1992.
• 1946 – The second Nuremberg Trials begin prosecuting Nazi doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
• 1953 – General Electric announced that all Communist employees would be fired.
• 1961 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel ended with verdicts of guilty on 15 criminal charges.
• 1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park was established in AZ.
• 1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus was certified, making smallpox the first human disease driven to extinction.

December 10 is the 344th day of the year. There are 21 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 10 is International Human Rights Day.

• 1868 – The first traffic lights were installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they used semaphore arms and were illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps. 
• 1884 – Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
• 1901 – The first Nobel Prizes were awarded.
• 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to win a Nobel Prize (Peace).
• 1936 – Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication.
• 1955 – The Mighty Mouse Playhouse premiered on television.

December 11 is the 345th day of the year. There are 20 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 11 is International Mountain Day. 

• 1863 – Annie Jump Cannon, American astronomer, was born. She died in 1941.
• 1917 – British General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem, and declared martial law.
• 1936 – Edward VIII’s abdication as King of the United Kingdom became effective.
• 1941 – Germany and Italy declared war on the US following its declaration of war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• 1946 – The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was established.
• 1972 – Apollo 17  was the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

Week of October 24 in History

I fell in love with history in the ninth grade in a World History class when the teacher taught Egyptian history (thank you, Miss Fischer!), and made it come alive. I have been collecting historical bits of information for years. A year ago, I began tweeting historical facts every day. This blog entry is like the “best of” the events, births, and deaths that occurred during this week. If you want to read even more of these events on a daily basis. Follow me on Twitter at @kay_bigelow

October 24

October 24 is the 297th day of the year. There are 68 days remaining until the end of the year.

October 24 is United Nations Day (International). 

October 24 is World Development Information Day (International).

• 1260 – The Cathedral of Chartres was dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France. The cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. 
• 1851 – The moons Umbriel and Ariel were discovered orbiting Uranus by William Lassell.
• 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the US was completed, effectively ending the 18-month-old Pony Express.
• 1901 - Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
• 1911 – Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
• 1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashed on what is now called Black Thursday.
• 1945 – The United Nations was founded.
• 1947 – Walt Disney testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), naming employees he believed to be communists.
• 1949 – The cornerstone of the UN Headquarters was laid in New York City.
• 1954 – President Eisenhower pledged US support to South Vietnam.
• 1991 – Gene Roddenberry.  American creator of“Star Trek, died. He was born in 1921.
• 2005 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist, died. She was born in 1913.
• 2006 – Enolia McMillan, American civil rights activist and first woman president of the NAACP, died. She was born in 1904.
• 2008 – Stock exchanges around the world saw the worst declines in their history, losing 10% of their values in most indices. The day is called “Black Friday.”

October 25

October 25 is the 298th day of the year. There are 67 days remaining until the end of the year. 

• 1400 – Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet, was born. 
• 1838 – Georges Bizet, French composer, was born. He died in 1875.
• 1861 – The Toronto Stock Exchange opened.
• 1941 – Anne Tyler, American author of 21 books, was born. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for Breathing Lesson.

October 26

October 26 is the 299th day of the year. There are 66 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1774 – The first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1825 – The Erie Canal opened, providing a passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie.
• 1854– C.W. Post, American breakfast cereal (Grape Nuts) magnate, was born. He died in 1914.
• 1861 – The Pony Express officially ceased operations.
• 1861 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place at Tombstone, Arizona.
• 1902 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American feminist and suffragette. She was born in 1815.
• 1947 – Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Secretary of State, was born.
• 1957 - Gerty Theresa Cori died. She was an American biochemist who became the third woman—and first American woman—to win a Nobel Prize in science, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She was born in 1896.
• 1959 – The world saw the far side of the Moon for the first time.
• 1977 – The last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccinations.
• 1999 – Britain’s House of Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain's upper chamber of Parliament.
• 2001 – The United States passed the USA Patriot Act into law.

October 27

October 27 is the 300th day of the year. There are 65 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1682 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was founded. 
• 1858 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born. He died in 1919.
• 1904 – The first underground New York City subway line opened.
• 1994 – The US prison population topped 1 million for the first time.

October 28

October 28 is the 301st day of the year. There are 64 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1538 – The first university in the New World was established in the Dominican Republic.
• 1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony established the first college in America, later known as Harvard University. 
• 1886 – The Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland.
• 1955 – Bill Gates, American software executive, was born.
• 1965 - Pope Paul VI issued the “Nostra Aetate,” which absolved the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Pope Innocent III’s 760 year-old declaration.

October 29

October 29 is the 302nd day of the year. There are 63 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1863 – The International Red Cross is formed by 18 countries meeting in Geneva.
• 1886 – The first ticker-tape parade took place in New York City when office workers threw ticker tapes into the streets as the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.
• 1938 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia & first woman head of state in Africa, was born.
• 1964 – A collection of gems, including the 565 carat Star of India, was stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
• 1966 – The National Organization for Women was founded.
• 1969 – The US Supreme Court ruled that school districts had to end segregation “now and hereafter.”
• 1969 – The first computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
• 2008 – Delta Air Lines merged with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline.

October 30

• October 30 is the 303rd day of the year. There are 62 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1945 – Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first Black player in major league baseball.