Today in History
31 December
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31 December |
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| 335 St Silvester I ends his reign as Catholic Pope | ||
| 406 80,000 Vandels attack the Rhine at Mainz | ||
| 765 Coffin of Ho-tse Shen-hui interred in a stupa built in China | ||
| 870 Skirmish at Englefield: Ethelred of Wessex beats Danish invasion army | ||
| 1378 Callistus III [Alfonso the Borja] Pope (1455-58) was born | ||
| 1492 100,000 Jews expelled from Sicily | ||
| 1502 Cesare Borgia (son of pope Alexander VI) occupies Urbino | ||
| 1514 Andreas Vesalius Brussels Belgium, anatomist (Fabrica) was born | ||
| 1540 Silvio Antoniano Italian cardinal/theologist (Tre libri) was born | ||
| 1550 Henri Guise [le Balafré] French duke/leader (Catholic League) was born | ||
| 1564 Willem van Orange demands freedom of conscience/religion | ||
| 1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the "company of merchants of London trading to the East Indies" -- the East India Company. | ||
| 1604 Admiral Steven van der Haghen's fleet reaches Bantam | ||
| 1621 Hungarian King Bethlen Gábor/Ferdinand II sign Treaty of Mikulov | ||
| 1668 Hermannus Boerhaave Dutch medical/botanist was born | ||
| 1669 France & Brandenburg sign secret treaty | ||
| 1670 France & England sign Boyne-treaty | ||
| 1680 Amsterdam opera at Leidsegracht opens | ||
| 1687 1st Huguenots depart France to Cape of Good Hope | ||
| 1688 Pro-James II-earl of Devonshire occupies Nottingham | ||
| 1700 Frisia/Groningen adopt Gregorian calendar, tomorrow is 1/12/1701 | ||
| 1708 Great Alliance captures Bridge | ||
| 1711 Duke of Marlborough fired as English army commander | ||
| 1724 Franz Joseph Oehlschlagel composer was born | ||
| 1744 James Bradley announces discovery of Earth's motion of nutation (wobble) | ||
| 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlies army meets with de Esk | ||
| 1756 Russia joins the Alliance of Versailles | ||
| 1758 British expeditionary army occupies Goree (Dakar) Senegal | ||
| 1762 Mozart family moves from Vienna to Salzburg | ||
| 1775 Battle of Québec; Americans unable to take British stronghold | ||
| 1776 Rhode Island establishes wage & price controls to curb inflation: Limit is 70¢ a day for carpenters, 42¢ for tailors | ||
| 1779 English fleet beat Dutch Merchant vessels | ||
| 1781 Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens | ||
| 1783 Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states | ||
| 1805 End of French Republican calendar; France returns to Gregorianism | ||
| 1805 Marie-C-S de Flavigny Agoult [Daniel Stern] French author (Knife) was born | ||
| 1830 Ismail Pasha kedive of Egypt (1863-79) was born | ||
| 1838 Emile Loubet premier/President of France (1892, 1899-1906) was born | ||
| 1841 Alabama becomes 1st state to license dental surgeons | ||
| 1846 Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis vicar/Dutch anarchist (Right for all) was born | ||
| 1852 Future President & Mrs Rutherford B Hayes marry | ||
| 1855 Giovanni Pascoli Italian classicist/poet was born | ||
| 1857 Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada | ||
| 1859 Dutch colony in Dutch Indies counts 4,800 slaves | ||
| 1862 President Lincoln signs act admitting West Virginia to the Union | ||
| 1862 Battle of Stone's River TN (Stone River, Murfreesboro) | ||
| 1862 Skirmish at Parker Cross Roads TN | ||
| 1863 Alfredo Panzini Italian author (Dizionario Moderno) was born | ||
| 1864 Robert G Aitken US astronomer (Binary Stars) was born | ||
| 1869 Henri Matisse France, impressionist painter (Odalisque) was born | ||
| 1878 Horacio Quiroga Uruguayan author/poet (El Crimen del Otro) was born | ||
| 1879 Cornerstone laid for Honolulu's Iolani Palace (only royal palace in US) | ||
| 1879 Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp in Menlo Park, New Jersey. | ||
| 1881 Jacob Israel de Haan Dutch poet/writer (Pipelines, Jewish Song) was born | ||
| 1882 David Cohen Dutch historian/chairman (Jewish Council) was born | ||
| 1890 Ellis Island (New York NY) opens as a US immigration depot | ||
| 1893 Max Lamberty Flemish sociologist/author (Flemish Resurrection) was born | ||
| 1894 Ernest John Moeran British composer was born | ||
| 1896 25th auto built in US | ||
| 1897 Brooklyn's last day as a city, it incorporates into NYC (1/1/1898) | ||
| 1902 Boers & British army sign peace treaty | ||
| 1906 French/British/Italian treaty concerning rights on Abyssinia | ||
| 1907 For the 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal the new year | ||
| 1911 Marie Curie received her second Nobel Prize for her work on radioactive elements. | ||
| 1914 Colonel Jacob Ruppert & Cap Huston purchase New York Yankees for $460,000 | ||
| 1921 Last San Francisco firehorses retired | ||
| 1923 1st transatlantic radio broadcast of a voice, Pittsburgh-Manchester | ||
| 1923 In London, the BBC broadcast the chimes of the clock Big Ben for the first time. | ||
| 1924 Edwin Hubble announces existence of distant galactic systems | ||
| 1929 Pope Pius XI publishes encyclical Divini illius magistri | ||
| 1930 Pontifical encyclical Casti connubii against mixed marriages | ||
| 1930 US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in 1930 | ||
| 1932 John P O'Brien sworn-in as mayor of New York NY | ||
| 1934 Helen Richey becomes 1st woman to pilot an airmail transport | ||
| 1935 Charles Darrow patents Monopoly | ||
| 1938 Dr. R.N. Harger's "drunkometer," the first breath test for car drivers, was officially introduced in Indianapolis. | ||
| 1940 37 U boats sunk this month (213,000 ton) | ||
| 1942 Battle in Barents Sea | ||
| 1942 Potatoes rationed in Holland | ||
| 1944 48 people die in a train accident in Ogden UT | ||
| 1944 Japanese army evacuates harbor city Akyab | ||
| 1946 French troops leave Lebanon | ||
| 1946 In the United States, President Truman formally declared an end to all hostilities in the Second World War. | ||
| 1948 Dutch police actions up Java gone on strike | ||
| 1949 18 countries recognize Republic Indonesia | ||
| 1958 Cuban dictator Batista flees | ||
| 1961 Failed coup by Syrian group in Lebanon | ||
| 1962 Katanga becomes part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo | ||
| 1962 Dutch leave New Guinea | ||
| 1963 The Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formally dissolved. | ||
| 1964 Indonesia proclaims expelled from the UN | ||
| 1966 Pirate Radio 390 (Radio Invicata) off England, resumes transmitting | ||
| 1968 Russia's TU-144 supersonic airliner made its first flight, several months ahead of the Anglo-French Concorde which it closely resembled. | ||
| 1969 Congo-Brazzaville becomes People's republic, under Major Ngouabi | ||
| 1970 Congress authorizes the Eisenhower dollar coin | ||
| 1970 President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines | ||
| 1970 Would have been start of Australia/England Test Cricket at MCG, washed out | ||
| 1971 Austrian Kurt Waldheim took over as U.N. secretary-general after U Thant retired. | ||
| 1973 A three-day work week was introduced in Britain to conserve energy during a miners' strike. | ||
| 1974 Gold legal in US, Franklin Mint strikes Panamá's Gold 100 balboa coin | ||
| 1974 Popular Electronics displays Altair 8800 computer | ||
| 1977 Donald Woods, a banned white editor flees South Africa | ||
| 1977 Ted Bundy escapes from jail in Colorado | ||
| 1977 Amir Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir Al Sabah becomes leader of Kuwait | ||
| 1977 Cambodia drops diplomatic relations with Vietnam | ||
| 1978 Taiwan's final day of diplomatic relations with the US | ||
| 1978 CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner retires from the Navy | ||
| 1978 Iran shah names Chapour Bakhtiar premier | ||
| 1980 A Jewish owned hotel in Nairobi Kenya is bombed killing 18 | ||
| 1980 Senegal President Leopold Senghor resigns | ||
| 1981 CNN Headline News debuts | ||
| 1981 In Ghana, President Hilla Limann's civilian government was overthrown in a military coup led by Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings. | ||
| 1981 Netherlands unemployment stands at record 475,000 | ||
| 1983 Brunei gains complete independence from Britain | ||
| 1983 José Happart installed as mayor of Voeren Belgium | ||
| 1983 Nigeria's National Assembly dissolves after military coup | ||
| 1984 Rajiv Gandhi takes office as India's 6th PM succeeds his mom, Indira | ||
| 1984 US leaves UNESCO | ||
| 1985 King Hussein of Jordan and President Assad hold talks | ||
| 1986 Dupont Plaza Hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 97 | ||
| 1990 Iraq begins a military draft of 17 year olds | ||
| 1990 United Somali Congress seizes Presidential Palace | ||
| 1991 Dow Jones closes at record high 3168.83 | ||
| 1991 CPN, Communist Party of Netherlands, last day of existance | ||
| 1991 Daniel R McCarthy elected New York Yankee managing general partner | ||
| 1991 USSR, last day of existence | ||
| 1992 Target date for Europe's single market | ||
| 1994 Anti Apartheid Group of Netherlands (AABN) disbands | ||
| 1994 Bosnia's Muslim-led government signed an agreement for a four-month cease-fire in Bosnia, the 1,000th day of the bitter Serb siege of Sarajevo. | ||
| 1995 Algerian President Liamine Zeroual appointed Ahmed Ouyahia as prime minister to replace Mokdad Sifi. | ||
| 1995 American tanks and troops rolled into Bosnia to keep the peace after U.S. army engineers beat the Balkan winter and completed a pontoon bridge over the river Sava. | ||
| 1997 Intel cuts price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268 | ||
| 1997 Marv Levy retires as coach of Buffalo Bills | ||
| 1997 Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service | ||
| 1997 More Swedes died than were born in 1997, 1st time since 1809 | ||
| 1997 Orlando Hernandez, half-brother of pitcher Livan, defects from Cuba | ||
| 1997 South Africa & US surgeons separate Zambian Siamese twins joined at the head | ||
| 1999 Control of Panamá Canal reverts to Panamá | ||