On this day in history…
December 01
1783 – Jacques Charles & Nicolas Roberts make first untethered ascension with gas hydrogen balloon in Paris
1835 – Hans Christian Andersen publishes his 1st book of fairy tales
1878 – 1st White House telephone installed
1903 – “The Great Train Robbery”, the 1st Western film, released
1913 – Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (car every 2:38)
1929 – Game of Bingo invented by Edwin S Lowe
1953 – Hugh Hefner publishes 1st edition of Playboy magazine, featuring Marilyn Monroe as the magazine’s 1st centerfold
1959 – The 1st colour photograph of Earth received from outer space
1967 – Queen Elizabeth inaugurates 98-inch (249-cm) Isaac Newton telescope
1988 – Benazir Bhutto named 1st female Prime Minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan)
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November 30
1487 – The German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot), is promulgated by Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria stating beer should be brewed from only three ingredients – water, malt and hops
1776 – Captain Cook begins 3rd & last trip to Pacific (South Sea)
1872 – First international soccer game, Scotland-England 0-0 (Glasgow)
1886 – The Folies Bergère stages its first revue.
1902 – American Old West: Second-in-command of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang, Kid Curry Logan, is sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labor.
1974 – Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy, Australopithecus) is discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression.
1983 – Police free kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in Amsterdam
1986 – Ivan Lendl is 1st tennis player to earn over $10 million, lifetime
1998 – Deutsche Bank announces a $10 billion USDdeal to buy Bankers Trust, thus creating the largest financial institution in the world.
2013 – 14th Rugby League World Cup: Australia beats New Zealand 34-2
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November 29
1775 – Sir James Jay invents invisible ink
1791 – Chatham Islands sighted by HMS Chatham commanded by William Broughton
1825 – 1st Italian opera in US, “Barber of Seville” premieres (NYC)
1870 – Compulsory education proclaimed in England
1877 – US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time
1935 – Michael Savage becomes 1st Labour premier of NZ
1935 – Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his famous thought experiment ‘Schrödinger’s cat’, a paradox that illustrates the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics
1944 – John Hopkins hospital performs 1st open heart surgery
1944 – The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
1989 – India president Rajiv Gandhi resigns
2001 – UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution extending the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq for another six-month period
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November 28
1520 – Ferdinand Magellan begins crossing Pacific Ocean
1717 – Blackbeard attacks a French merchant vessel called “La Concorde”, which he would capture and rename as the “Queen Anne’s Revenge”
1720 – Anne Bonny and Mary Read are tried, found guilty of pirating, and sentenced to death in Spanish Town, Jamaica, although their discovered pregnancies won them stays of execution
1814 – The Times of London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signalling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience.
1893 – Women vote in a national election for the first time: the New Zealand general election.
1922 – Capt Cyril Turner (RAF) gives 1st skywriting exhibition (NYC) Turner spelled out “Hello USA. Call Vanderbilt 7200.” 47,000 called
1931 – Bradman scores 226, the 1st Test Cricket century at Gabba, v South Africa
1974 – John Lennon’s last concert appearance (Elton John concert in Madison Square Garden NYC)
1988 – Picasso’s “Acrobat & Harlequin” sells for $38.46 million
2012 – “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” 1st of the Hobbit film series, directed by Peter Jackson, starring Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen, premieres in Wellington New Zealand
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November 27
1587 – Dutch county of Groningen flooded by failure of dyke
1703 – The first Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed in the Great Storm
1826 – John Walker invents friction match in England
1895 – Alfred Nobel’s will establishes the Nobel Prize
1948 – Honda 1st opens in America
1970 – Pope Paul VI wounded in chest during a visit to Philippines by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest
1990 – British Conservative Party chooses John Major to succeed Margaret Thatcher as leader ( and hence as Prime Minister)
1999 – The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand’s history.
2001 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
2014 – Cricketer Phillip Hughes dies two days after being struck on the head by a bouncer
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November 26
1716 – 1st lion exhibited in America (Boston)
1778 – Captain Cook discovers Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii)
1789 – 1st national Thanksgiving in USA
1842 – The University of Notre Dame is founded.
1859 – Last weekly installment of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale Of Two Cities” is published in literary periodical All the Year Round
1885 – 1st meteor photograph
1922 – English archaeologist Howard Carter opens Tutankhamun’s virtually intact tomb in Egypt
1932 – Bradman completes 10,000 runs in first-class cricket, 126 innings
1942 – “Casablanca” directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman premieres at Hollywood Theatre, NYC
1962 – Fab Four have their first recording session under name The Beatles
1995 – New Zealand score 8-348 in 49 overs v India in Nagpur ODI
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November 25
1500 – Governor De Bobadilla of Santo Domingo captures Columbus
1715 – First English patent granted to an American, for processing corn
1834 – Delmonico’s, one of NY’s finest restaurants, provides a meal of soup, steak, coffee & half a pie for 12 cents
1867 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite
1947 – New Zealand accedes to Statute of Westminster, becomes a dominion
1949 – “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” appears on music charts
1957 – US President Dwight Eisenhower suffers a mild stroke, impairing his speech
1963 – JFK laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
1984 – William Schroeder is second person to receive Jarvik-7 artificial heart
2014 – Lionel Messi becomes the UEFA Champions League all-time top scorer
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November 24
1434 – River Thames in London freezes over
1639 – 1st observation of transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree – helped establish size of the Solar System
1759 – Destructive eruption of Vesuvius
1859 – Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species”
1922 – Italian parliament gives Benito Mussolini dictatorial powers “for 1 year”
1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
1947 – The US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities finds “Hollywood 10” in contempt because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists
1954 – Air Force One, 1st US Presidential airplane, christened
1966 – The Beatles began recording sessions for “Sergeant Pepper”
1991 – Monica Seles, sets female tennis record winning $2,457,758 in a year
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November 23
800 – Charlemagne arrives at Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.
1334 – St Clemens Flood: Dike breaks at Flemish/Zeeuwse/Dutch coast
1644 – Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship, written by John Milton is published.
1835 – Henry Burden patents Horseshoe manufacturing machine
1869 – In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched – one of the last clippers ever to be built, and the only one still surviving to this day.
1890 – King William III of the Netherlands dies (b. 1817) without a male heir and a special law passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to inherit.
1897 – Pencil sharpener patented by J L Love
1921 – Pres Harding signs Willis Campell Act (anti-beer bill) forbidding doctors prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes
1960 – Tiros 2, a weather satellite is launched
1963 – “Doctor Who” the long-running British sci-fi series debuts
2005 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, elected president of Liberia, is the first woman to lead an African country.
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November 22
1573 – The Brazilian city of Niterói is founded.
1574 – Discovery of the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile.
1842 – Mount St Helens in Washington erupts
1886 – Victoria Street Cable Tram route begins in Melbourne, Australia
1903 – Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt are engaged
1941 – NZ troops conquer Ft Capuzzo Libya
1963 – American President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas
1969 – Isolation of single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University
1989 – Conjunction of Venus, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn & Moon
1990 – Margaret Thatcher announces her resignation as British Prime Minister
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November 21
164 BC – Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
1791 – Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic.
1794 – Honolulu Harbor discovered
1877 – Tom Edison announces his “talking machine” invention (phonograph) – first machine to play and record sound
1905 – 1st game ever played in the Australian Tennis Open
1953 – Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce the “Piltdown Man” skull, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax.
1959 – Jack Benny (violin) & Richard Nixon (piano) play their famed duet
1977 – First flight of Concorde (London to New York)
1980 – John & Yoko pose nude for photographer Allan Tannenbaum
1989 – Law banning smoking on most domestic flights signed by President Bush
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November 20
1431 – First meeting of Order of the Golden Fleece
1805 – Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” premieres in Vienna
1866 – Pierre Lalemont patents rotary crank bicycle
1920 – Nobel Peace Prize awarded to US president W Wilson
1929 – Salvador Dali’s first one-man show
1959 – UN adopts Universal Declaration of Children’s Rights
1969 – Pele scores his 1,000th soccer goal
1983 – 100 million watch ABC-TV movie “Day After” about nuclear war
1984 – McDonald’s made its 50 billionth hamburger
1992 – Queen Elizabeth’s home Windsor Castle catches fire
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November 19
1493 – Christopher Columbus discovers Puerto Rico, on his 2nd voyage
1620 – Mayflower reaches Cape Cod & explores the coast
1850 – Alfred Tennyson becomes British Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth
1863 – US President Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address beginning; “Four score & seven years ago…”
1933 – Women allowed to vote in Spain
1969 – Apollo 12’s Conrad & Bean become 3rd & 4th humans on Moon
1975 – “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” based on book by Ken Kesey, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher is released (Best Picture 1976)
1997 – In Des Moines, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive. They would go on to become the first set of septuplets to survive infancy, with all seven alive in 2007.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
2010 – New Zealand suffers its worst mining disaster since 1914 when the first of four explosions occurs at the Pike River Mine; 29 people are killed
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November 18
326 – Old St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated. Stood 4th – 16th century. Replaced by current St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
1307 – William Tell reputedly shoots apple off his son’s head
1820 – Antarctica sighted by US Navy Capt Nathaniel B Palmer
1835 – Charles Darwin travels to Tahiti
1902 – Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names teddy bear after US President Teddy Roosevelt
1932 – 1st tie for Best Actor Academy Award Wallace Beery & Fredric March
1936 – Main span of Golden Gate Bridge joined
1959 – “Ben-Hur” directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston premieres in New York City (Best Picture 1960)
1963 – Bell Telephone introduces push button telephone
1970 – Linus Pauling declares large doses of Vitamin C could ward off colds
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November 17
1558 – Elizabeth I aged 25 ascends English throne upon death of her half sister “Bloody” Mary
1855 – David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe.
1863 – Lincoln begins 1st draft of his Gettysburg Address
1888 – Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony premieres in St Petersburg
1928 – Notre Dame finally lost a football game after nearly 25 years
1970 – British newspaper Sun puts 1st pinup girl on page 3 (Stephanie Rahn)
1970 – Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.’
2005 – Italy’s choice of national anthem, Il Canto degli Italiani, becomes official in law for the first time, almost 60 years after it was provisionally chosen following the birth of the republic.
2006 – Official naming of element 111, Roentgenium (Rg).
2014 – The Church of England adopts legislation enabling the appointment of female bishops
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November 16
1801 – First edition of New York Evening Post
1824 – NY City’s Fifth Avenue opens for business
1835 – Charles Darwin’s voyage published in Cambridge Philosophical Society
1840 – New Zealand officially becomes British colony
1920 – Australia’s Qantas airways founded in Winton, Queensland as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited
1939 – Al Capone freed from Alcatraz jail
1945 – UNESCO is founded.
1963 – Touch-tone telephone introduced
1988 – Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto’s PPP wins 1st free Pakistani elections in 11 years
2010 – Engagement announced between Prince William and Catherine [Kate] Middleton at Clarence House, London
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November 15
1492 – Christopher Columbus notes 1st recorded reference to tobacco
1532 – Pope Clemens VII tells Henry VIII to end relationship with Anna Boleyn
1813 – Tax revolt in Amsterdam
1835 – Charles Darwin reaches Tahiti on board HMS Beagle
1837 – Isaac Pitman introduces his shorthand system
1899 – Morning Post reporter Winston Churchill captured by Boers in Natal
1939 – US Social Security Administration approves 1st unemployment check
1947 – Bradman scores his 100th 100, 172 v Indians at the SCG
1961 – UN bans nuclear arms
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November 14
1380 – King Charles VI of France crowned at age 12
1666 – Samuel Pepys reports on 1st blood transfusion (between dogs)
1680 – Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch’s Comet/Newton’s Comet)
1732 – First professional librarian in North America, Louis Timothee, hired.
1834 – William Thomson enters Glasgow University at 10 yrs 4 months
1851 – “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville published
1889 – New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) began her attempt to surpass fictitious journey of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg by traveling around world in less than 80 days She succeeded, finishing the trip in January in 72 days and 6 hours
1896 – Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation
1908 – Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light
1968 – First European lung transplant
1994 – 1st trains for public run in Channel Tunnel under English Channel
1997 – Disney’s “Lion King” sets Broadway record of $2,700,000 daily sale
November 13
1789 – Ben Franklin writes “Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes”
1841 – James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnosis.
1907 – French cyclist Paul Cornu flies 1st helicopter (twin rotor)
1913 – 1st modern elastic brassiere patented by Mary Phelps Jacob
1938 – America’s first saint, Mother Frances Cabrini, beatified
1979 – Ronald Reagan in New York announces his candidacy for US President
1990 – In Aramoana, New Zealand, Resident David Gray shoots dead 13 people, in the Aramoana Massacre.
1997 – “Lion King” opens at New Amersterdam Theater NYC
2002 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq agrees to the terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.
2014 – Rohit Sharma of India sets a new record of 264 runs against Sri Lanka in an ODI innings in cricket
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November 12
1555 – The English Parliament re-establishes Catholicism.
1793 – Jean Sylvain Bailly, the first Mayor of Paris, is guillotined.
1833 – The great Leonid Meteor shower was recorded
1847 – Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic.
1894 – Lawrence Hargrave, Australian aeronautical pioneer and inventor of the box kite, linked four huge box kites together and flew – but remained attached to the ground by piano wire
1910 – 1st movie stunt: man jumps into Hudson river from a burning balloon
1933 – First known photo of so-called Loch Ness monster is taken
1948 – The first mobile betatron (particle accelerator) begins operation at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland
1974 – A salmon is discovered in the River Thames, England, for the first time since 1833
2003 – With 501 km/h (311 mph) Shanghai Transrapid sets up a new world record for commercial railway systems
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November 11
1790 – Chrysanthemums are introduced to England from China
1880 – Australian Bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol
1909 – Construction of US navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, begins
1920 – Great Britain’s monument to her war dead, the Cenotaph in Whitehall, designed by Edwin Lutyens, unveiled
1923 – Eternal flame lit for tomb of unknown solder, Arc de Triumph
1925 – Robert A. Millikan announces discovery of cosmic rays
1926 – U.S. Route 66 is established.
1954 – Publication of “Two Towers” 2nd volume of “Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien by George Allen and Unwin in London
1975 – Australian PM Gough Whitlam removed from office by Governor General Sir John Kerr (1st elected PM removed in 200 yrs), and Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser sworn in as caretaker Prime Minister
1987 – van Gogh’s “Irises” sells for record $53.6 M at auction
1992 – The Church of England approves the ordination of female priests
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November 10
1775 – Congress forms US Marine Corps
1801 – Kentucky outlaws duelling
1847 – The passenger ship Stephen Whitney is wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster results in the construction the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.
1891 – Granville T Woods patents electric railway
1908 – 1st Gideon Bible put in a hotel room
1919 – 1st observance of National Book Week
1928 – Hirohito’s official coronation as Emperor of Japan
1951 – 1st long distance telephone call without operator assistance
1991 – South Africa’s 1st cricket international since 1970 – one-day v India
2001 – An agreement is reached at talks in Marrakech, Morocco, on rules for implementation of the Kyoto climate change treaty
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November 9
1494 – Family de’ Medici become rulers of Florence
1541 – Queen Catharine Howard confined in Tower of London
1620 – After a month of delays off the English coast and about two months at sea, the Mayflower spots land (Cape Cod)
1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte becomes dictator (1st consul) of France
1927 – Giant Panda discovered, China
1938 – Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany’s first large-scale physical act of anti-Jewish violence, begins.
1944 – Red Cross wins Nobel peace prize
1966 – John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at an avante-garde art exposition at Indica Gallery in London
1983 – Amsterdam brewer Freddie Heineken kidnapped
1985 – Richard Hadlee takes 9-52 v Australia at the Gabba
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November 8
1494 – Uprising against Piero de’ Medici in Florence Italy
1602 – The Bodleian Library at Oxford University is opened
1620 – Battle of White Mountain, Prague
1731 – In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin opens 1st US library
1789 – Bourbon Whiskey, 1st distilled from corn by Elijah Craig
1950 – 1st jet-plane battle ever, in Korean War
1960 – JFK (Sen-D-Mass) beats VP Richard Nixon (R) to become 35th US president
1965 – “Days of Our Lives” premieres on TV
1966 – Movie actor Ronald Reagan elected Governor of California
2011 – The potentially hazardous asteroid 2005 YU55 passed 0.85 lunar distances from Earth (about 324,600 kilometres or 201,700 miles), the closest known approach by an asteroid of its brightness since 2010 XC15 in 1976.
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November 7
680 – 3rd Council of Constantinople (6th ecumenical council) opens
1492 – The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.
1512 – Medici’s discharge Niccolo Machiavelli from Florence
1665 – 1st edition of “London Gazette”
1805 – Lewis and Clark sight Pacific Ocean
1872 – Cargo ship Mary Celeste sails from Staten Island for Genoa; mysteriously found abandoned 4 weeks later.
1932 – 1st broadcast of “Buck Rogers in the 25th century” on CBS-radio1969 – John & Yoko release their 2nd album “Wedding Album” in UK
1976 – “Gone With the Wind” televised
2000 – Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first former First Lady to win public office in the United States, although actually she still was the First Lady.
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November 6
1850 – 1st Hawaiian fire engine
1869 – 1st intercollegiate football (soccer) game (Rutgers 6, Princeton 4)
1897 – ‘Peter Pan’ opens in NY at Empire Theater
1917 – New York State adopts a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote in state elections
1928 – Swedes start a tradition of eating Gustavus Adolphus pastries to commemorate the king.
1940 – Franklin Roosevelt re-elected US President
1993 – Evander Holyfield beats Riddick Bowe in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
1996 – “The English Patient” based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje, directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche and Kristen Scott Thomas premieres in Los Angeles (Best Picture 1997)
2005 – “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, the 4th film based on the books by J. K. Rowling premieres in London. Goes on to become most successful film of the year, earning almost 900 million.
2012 – Barack Obama re-elected as US President
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November 5
1605 – Gunpowder Plot; attempt to blow up King James I while he opened Parliament. Plot discovered and Guy Fawkes caught and tortured. He and seven others were later executed
1630 – Spain & England sign peace treaty
1789 – French National Meeting declares all citizens equal under law
1881 – 1,600 police and volunteers attack Māori settlement at Parihaka in western Taranaki which had become the symbol of protest against the confiscation of Māori land, New Zealand
1889 – Louisa Woosley first women to be ordained as a minister in any Presbyterian denomination (US Cumberland Presbyterian Church).
1935 – Parker Brothers launches game of Monopoly
1943 – Vatican bombed
1967 – ATS-3 launched by US to take first pictures of full Earth disc
1967 – The Hither Green rail crash in the United Kingdom kills 49 people. The survivors include Bee Gee Robin Gibb.
2006 – Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar are sentenced to death in the al-Dujail trial for the role in the massacre of the 148 Shi’as in 1982.
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November 4
1737 – The Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, inaugurated.
1819 – Māori Chiefs Hongi Hika and Rewa sell 13,000 acres (5260 hectares) at Kerikeri to the Church Missionary Society for 48 felling axes, New Zealand
1846 – Benjamin Palmer patents artificial leg
1854 – Lighthouse built on Alcatraz Island
1875 – Tonga adopts constitution
1879 – James Ritty patents first cash register, to combat stealing by bartenders in his Dayton, Ohio saloon
1886 – Edward MacDowell’s “Ophelia” premieres
1890 – Prince of Wales opens first underground station at Stockwell, South London
1904 – First stadium built specifically for football (Harvard Stadium)
1922 – Howard Carter discovers tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt
1948 – TS Eliot wins Nobel Prize for literature
2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States
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November 3
1493 – Christopher Columbus discovers island of Dominica
1529 – London – 1st sitting of the Reformation Parliament
1716 – Pacification Treaty of Warsaw: Tsar Peter the Great guarantees Saxon monarch August I’s Polish kingdom
1783 – John Austin, a highwayman, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.
1838 – The Times of India, the world’s largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.
1839 – 1st opium war – 2 British frigates engage several Chinese junks
1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.
1913 – The USA introduces an income tax.
1946 – Emperor Hirohito proclaims new Japanese constitution
2014 – New York’s 104-storey One World Trade Center officially opens 13 years after the September 11 attacks
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November 2
1783 – General George Washington, later 1st American President, bids farewell to his army after the American Revolutionary War
1868 – Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time to be observed nationally
1904 – British newspaper “Daily Mirror” begins publishing
1924 – Sunday Express publishes first British crossword puzzle
1936 – First high-definition TV broadcast service, by BBC in London
1959 – The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, is opened between the present junctions 5 and 18, along with the M10 motorway and M45 motorway
1960 – Penguin Books publishes “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”
1960 – Mary Leakey and her team discover the first fossils of Homo habilis, an early human ancestor, at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Homo habilis is thought to be one of the earliest species to make stone tools and lived between 1.4 and 2.3 million years ago.
1992 – First test flight of Airbus A330
2000 – The first crew arrives at the International Space Station.
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November 01
1512 – Michelangelo’s paintings on ceiling of Sistine Chapel in the Vatican first exhibited
1604 – William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello” first presented
1800 – John Adams becomes the first US president to live in White House
1848 – First US women’s medical school opens (Boston)
1876 – New Zealand’s provincial government system is dissolved.
1894 – Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Roux of Paris
1950 – Pope Pius XII witnesses “The Miracle of the Sun” while at the Vatican
1979 – Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice’s musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” premieres
1990 – Last of Margaret Thatcher’s original government resigns, Deputy PM Howe
2012 – Scientists detect evidence of light from the universe’s first stars, predicted to have formed 500 million years after the big bang
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October 31
1541 – Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes painting The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican
1863 – The Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
1864 – Nevada admitted as 36th state of the Union
1888 – Scottish vet John Boyd Dunlop patents pneumatic bicycle tyre
1908 – 4th Olympic games ends in London
1923 – 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees F begin at Marble Bar, Australia
1941 – Mount Rushmore Monument is completed
1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh at her home in New Delhi
1999 – Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
2003 – Bethany Hamilton, aged 13, while surfing has her arm bitten of by a shark in Hawaii1485 – Henry VII of England crowned at Westminster Abbey
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October 30
1534 – English Parliament passes Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII head of the Church in England – a role formerly held by the Pope
1772 – Captain Cook arrives with ship Resolution in Capetown
1922 – Benito Mussolini forms government in Italy
1944 – Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to Belsen
1973 – The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.
1974 – Muhammad Ali KOs George Foreman in 8th round in Kinshasa Zaire (‘The Rumble in the Jungle’)
1994 – Thomas Nicely reports bug in Intel’s Pentium-processor on Internet2003 – “Wicked” premieres on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth,
2012 – Walt Disney purchases Lucasfilm Ltd and its rights for Star Wars and Indiana Jones for $4.05 billion
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October 29
529 BC – The international day of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, who declared the first charter of human rights in the world also known as Cyrus Cylinder.
1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris.
1929 – “Black Tuesday” Stock Market crashes triggers “Great Depression”
1945 – First ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it is patented
1960 – Muhammad Ali’s (Cassius Clay) 1st professional fight, beats Tunney Hunsaker in 6
1969 – US Supreme Court orders end to all school desegregation “at once”
1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.
2007 – Argentina elects its first female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
2012 – Publishing companies Penguin and Random House merge to form the world’s largest publisher
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October 28
1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers Cuba and claims it for Spain
1538 – The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established.
1636 – Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) founded
1793 – Eli Whitney applies for a patent on cotton gin
1922 – First US coast-to-coast radio broadcast of a football game
1954 – Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to Ernest Hemingway
1971 – John & Yoko record “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” in NYC
1986 – The centennial of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication is celebrated in New York Harbour.
1988 – Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gives $10 million to University of Washington library
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October 27
312 – Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.
1275 – Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1780 – Samuel Williams and the first U.S. astronomical expedition to record an eclipse of the sun observes the event at Penobscot Bay
1901 – 1st complete performance of Debussy’s “Nocturnes”
1915 – Andrew Fisher is replaced as Labour Prime Minister by William ‘Billy’ Hughes, who will advocate a more active role for Australians in the war
1925 – Water skis patented by Fred Waller
1938 – DuPont announces its new synthetic fiber will be called “nylon”
1971 – Gerard Newe becomes the first Catholic to serve in any Northern Ireland government since 1920; Newe was appointed to try to improve community relations
1984 – France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island
1992 – Great Britain issues postage stamp on 100th anniversary of Tolkien
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October 26
1492 – Lead pencils first used
1858 – Hamilton Smith patents rotary washing machine
1861 – Pony Express ends
1863 – Football Association forms in England, standardizing soccer, splitting with rugby
1950 – Mother Teresa founds Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India
1951 – Winston Churchill re-elected British Prime Minister
1964 – Eric Edgar Cooke becomes last person in Western Australia to be executed.
1972 – Guided tours of Alcatraz (by Park Service) begin
1973 – President Nixon released first White House tapes on Watergate scandal
1977 – The last natural case of smallpox was discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.
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October 25
1492 – Christopher Columbus’ flagship the Santa María lands at Dominican Republic
1854 – Charge of Light Brigade (Battle of Balaclava, Crimean War), 409 die
1861 – The Toronto Stock Exchange created
1924 – “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip 1st published
1943 – Burma railroad completed & opens
1947 – Bradman scores 156 for SA v the Indians, 152 mins, 22 fours
1960 – 1st electronic wrist watch placed on sale, NYC
1964 – Rolling Stones appear on Ed Sullivan Show
1984 – Hepatitis virus is discovered
2001 – Windows XP first became available.
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October 24
1260 – The spectacular Cathedral of Chartres is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France; the cathedral is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1818 – Felix Mendelssohn, 9, performs his first public concert (Berlin)
1857 – World’s first soccer club, Sheffield F C, founded in Yorkshire, England
1882 – Robert Koch discovers germ that causes tuberculosis
1904 – First New York subway opens
1911 – Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition leaves Cape Evans for South Pole
1926 – Harry Houdini’s last performance, which was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.
1931 – George Washington Bridge linking New York City and New Jersey dedicated, opens the next day
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1982 – Steffi Graf plays her 1st pro tennis match
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October 23
42 BC – Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi – Brutus’s army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. Brutus commits suicide.
425 – Valentinian III is elevated to Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.
1091 – Tornado (possible T8/F4) strikes the heart of London killing two and demolishing the wooden London Bridge
1812 – Failed coup against emperor Napoleon
1941 – Walt Disney’s animation “Dumbo” released
1972 – Access credit cards introduced in Great Britain
1977 – Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announces that 34-billion-year-old one-celled fossils, the earliest life forms, had been discovered
1981 – US national debt hits $1 trillion
2001 – Apple releases the iPod.
2011 – 7th Rugby World Cup: New Zealand beats France 8-7 in Auckland
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October 22
1721 – Tsar Peter the Great becomes “All-Russian Imperator”
1819 – 1st ship sails by Erie-channel (Rome-Utica)
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. Those widows and orphans who were unable to support themselves were evicted by the mine owners and likely sent to the Poor House.
1878 – The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
Edison
1879 – Thomas Edison perfects carbonized cotton filament light bulb
1897 – World’s first car dealer opens in London
1924 – Toastmasters International is founded.
1962 – JFK imposes naval blockade on Cuba, beginning missile crisis
1964 – French philosopher/author Jean-Paul Sartre refuses Nobel prize
1978 – Pope John Paul II is inaugurated as Pope
2005 – Tropical Storm Alpha forms in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
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October 21
1520 – Explorer Ferdinand Magellen and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean
1774 – First display of the word “Liberty” on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1805 – Battle of Trafalgar, British Admiral Nelson defeats French & Spanish fleet but shot and killed
1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
1915 – 1st transatlantic radiotelephone message, Arlington, Va to Paris
1923 – 1st planetarium opens at Deutsche Museum in Munich
1945 – Women in France allowed to vote for 1st time
1958 – 1st women in British House of Lords
1959 – Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens (NYC)
2014 – Oscar Pistorius is sentenced to five years in prison for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp
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October 20
1820 – Spain sells part of Florida to US for $5 million
1822 – 1st edition of London Sunday Times
1833 – Charles Darwin reaches river mouth of Parana
1864 – US President Lincoln formally establishes Thanksgiving as a national holiday
1877 – Franz Schubert’s 2nd Symphony in B premieres
1911 – Roald Amundsen sets out on race to South Pole
1912 – Hannes Kolehmainen runs world record marathon (2:29:39.2)
1955 – Harry Belafonte records “Day-O” (Banana Boat Song)
1956 – 58°F (15°C), Esperanza Station, Antarctica (Antarctic record high)
1973 – Queen Elizabeth II opens Sydney Opera House
2007 – 6th Rugby World Cup: South Africa beats England 15-6 at Saint-Denis
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October 19
1216 – King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
1872 – World’s largest gold nugget (215 kg) found in New South Wales
1914 – US post office 1st used an automobile to collect & deliver mail
1919 – 1st Distinguished Service Medal awarded to a woman
1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
1951 – US President Harry Truman formally ends state of war with Germany
1953 – 1st jet transcontinental nonstop scheduled service
1974 – Niue becomes self-govering, in association with New Zealand
2003 – Mother Teresa of Calcutta is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
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October 18
707 – John VII ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroyed the town of Basel, Switzerland.
1776 – In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customer orders “cock tail”
1867 – US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia ($7.2 million)
1878 – Edison makes electricity available for household use
1922 – British Broadcasting Company (BBC) founded (later called British Broadcasting Corporation)
1929 – Women are considered “Persons” under Canadian law.
1961 – “West Side Story”, the film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical, starring Natalie Wood, is released (Best Picture 1962)
2007 – After 8 years in exile, Benazir Bhutto returns to her homeland Pakistan. The same night, suicide attackers blow themselves up near Bhutto’s convoy, killing over 100 in the cheering crowd, including 20 police officers. Bhutto escaped uninjured.
2012 – Google stock trading is suspended after a premature release of a quarterly report indicating a 20% drop in profits and a 9% fall in share price
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October 17
539 BC – King Cyrus The Great of Persia marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile and making the first Human Rights Declaration
1483 – Tomas de Torquemada appointed inquisitor-general of Spain
1662 – Charles II of Great Britain sells Dunkirk to France for 2.5 million livres (320,000 English pounds)
1740 – Ivan VI becomes Tsar of Russia
1814 – London Beer Flood occurs in London killing nine.
1860 – 1st British Golf Open: Willie Park Snr shoots a 164 at Prestwick Club, Scotland
1961 – NY Museum of Modern Art hangs Henri Matisse’s “Le Bateau” upside-down. It wasn’t corrected until December 3rd
1971 – It is estimated today that approximately 16,000 households were withholding rent and rates for council houses as part of the campaign of civil disobedience against internment organised by the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Northern Ireland
1979 – Mother Teresa of India, awarded Nobel Peace Prize
2003 – The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165 feet) and become the World’s tallest highrise.
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October 16
1846 – Dentist William T Morton demonstrates effectiveness of ether
1847 – Charlotte Brontë’s book “Jane Eyre” published
1867 – Alaska adopts Gregorian calendar, crosses intl date line
1915 – Great Britain declares war on Bulgaria
1923 – Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio founded
1934 – Mao Zedong & 25,000 troops begin 6,000 mile Long March
1950 – The first edition of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” is released in London
1953 – Fidel Castro sentenced to 15 years (Havana)
1962 – Cuban missile crisis begins as JFK becomes aware of missiles in Cuba
1964 – China becomes world’s 5th nuclear power
1995 – Million Man March held in Washington, D.C. (over 830,000 African American men attend)
2014 – New Zealand, Malaysia, Angola, Spain and Venezuela are elected to the United Nations Security Council
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October 15
1520 – King Henry VIII of England orders bowling lanes at Whitehall
1582 – Many Catholic countries switch to Gregorian calendar, skip 10 days
1764 – Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1860 – 11-year-old Grace Bedell writes to Lincoln, tells him to grow a beard
1874 – Child labor law takes 12 year olds out of work force
1913 – Train crash in Liverpool during “Black Week”
1917 – A Parisian dancer Mata Hari is executed for espionage by the French Government after being convicted of passing military secrets to Germany
1937 – Ernest Hemingway novel “To Have & Have Not” published
1939 – LaGuardia Airport opens in NYC
1989 – South Africa President FW de Klerk frees ANC Founder Walter Sisulu & 4 other political prisoners
1993 – Nelson Mandela & South Africa president F W de Klerk awarded Nobel Peace Prize
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October 14
1888 – In England, Louis Le Prince filmed the experimental film “Roundhay Garden Scene.” It is the oldest surviving motion picture.
1912 – Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning in Milwaukee, WI. Roosevelt’s wound in the chest was not serious and he continued with his planned speech. William Schrenk was captured at the scene of the shooting.
1944 – During World War II, the Second British Parachute Brigade liberated the city of Athens.
1947 – Over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California, pilot Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 rocket plane and became the first person to break the sound barrier.
1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis began. It was on this day that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing data discovered Soviet medium-range missile sites in Cuba. On October 22 U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that he had ordered the naval “quarantine” of Cuba.
1964 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent resistance to racial prejudice in America. He was the youngest person to receive the award.
1968 – The first live telecast to come from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.
1972 – In Iraq, oil was struck for the first time just north of Kirkuk.
2002 – Britain stripped power from the Catholic and Protestant politicians of Northern Ireland. Britain resumed sole responsibility for running Northern Ireland.
2011 – The Apple iPhone 4S was released.
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October 13
1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier
1792 – “Old Farmer’s Almanac” is 1st published
1860 – 1st aerial photo taken in US (from a balloon), Boston
1862 – Bismarck’s “Blood & Iron” speech
1884 – Greenwich established as universal time meridian of longitude
1896 – First public screening of a motion picture in New Zealand
1914 – Garrett Morgan invents & patents gas mask
1963 – “Beatlemania” is coined after Beatles appear at Palladium
2010 – The 2010 Copiapó mining accident in Copiapó, Chile comes to an end as all 33 miners arrive at the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground awaiting rescue.
2012 – Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild sells for $34 million, the highest sold artwork by a living artist
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October 12
642 – John IV ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1216 – King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, probably near Fosdyke, perhaps near Sutton Bridge
1609 – Children’s rhyme “Three Blind Mice” published in London
1773 – America’s first insane asylum opens for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia
1775 – US Navy forms
1901 – Theodore Roosevelt renames “Executive Mansion,” “The White House”
1928 – 1st use of iron lung (Boston’s Children Hospital)
1986 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People’s Republic of China
1989 – Musical “Buddy” with Paul Hipp premieres in London
1999 – The Day of Six Billion: the proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born.
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October 11
1521 – Pope Leo X titles King Henry VIII of England “Defender of the Faith”
1737 – Earthquake kills 300,000 and destroys half of Calcutta India
1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
1868 – Thomas Edison patents his 1st invention: electric voice machine
1890 – 1st 100 yard dash under 10 seconds (John Owens 9-4/5 secs, Wash DC)
1975 – “Saturday Night Live” premieres on NBC with George Carlin as host
1982 – English ship Mary Rose, which sank during an engagement with France in 1545, raised at Portsmouth, England
1984 – 1st space walk by US woman (Dr Kathryn D Sullivan)
1992 – First 3-way US presidential debate (Bush-Clinton-Perot)
2013 – The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons wins the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize
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October 10
19 – Germanicus, the best loved of Roman princes, dies of poisoning. On his deathbed he accuses Piso, the governor of Syria, of poisoning him.
1865 – The billiard ball was patented by John Wesley Hyatt.
1877 – Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is buried at West Point in New York.1886 – The tuxedo dinner jacket made its U.S. debut in New York City.
1911 – The Panama Canal opens.
1959 – Pan American World Airways announced the beginning of the first global airline service.
1965 – The Red Baron made his first appearance in the “Peanuts” comic strip.
1971 – The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.
1987 – Tom McClean finished rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. It set the record at 54 days and 18 hours.
1997 – The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, opened to the public. Architect Frank Gehry designed the 450 ft. long and 98 ft. wide building.
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October 9
768 – Charlemagne and his brother Carloman I are crowned Kings of The Franks.
1804 – Hobart Tasmania founded
1855 – Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor
1870 – Rome is incorporated into Italy by royal decree
1876 – 1st 2-way telephone conversation, 1st over outdoor wires
1936 – Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles
1947 – First telephone conversation between a moving car & a plane
1976 – Test Cricket debut of Javed Miandad (Pakistan), scores 163 on 1st day
1986 – “Phantom of the Opera” premeires in London
2012 – Women’s rights and education activist Malala Yousafzai is shot three times by a Taliban gunman as she tried to board her school bus in the Swat district of northwest Pakistan
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October 8
1604 – Supernova “Kepler’s nova” first sighted
1769 – Captain James Cook lands in New Zealand (Poverty Bay)
1818 – Two English boxers are first to use padded gloves
1862 – Otto Von Bismarck becomes chancellor of the German Empire
1892 – Sergei Rachmaninoff first performs “Prelude in C-sharp-Minor” in Moscow
1896 – Dow Jones starts reporting an average of selected industrial stocks
1932 – The Indian Air Force is established.
1942 – Comedy duo Abbott and Costello launch their weekly radio show
1958 – Dr Ake Senning installs first pacemaker (Stockholm)
1971 – John Lennon releases his megahit “Imagine”
2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
October 7
1492 – Columbus misses Florida when he changes course
1520 – 1st public burning of books in Netherlands, in Louvain
1806 – Carbon paper patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood
1900 – The term “orienteering” is first used for an event
1912 – The Helsinki Stock Exchange sees its first transaction.
1913 – Henry Ford institutes moving assembly line
1919 – KLM, Royal Ducth Airlines, es