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Monday, January 7, 2013

History Reviewed

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

January
January1In 1959, Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista.
January2In 1905, Japanese Gen. Nogi received from Russian Gen. Stoessel at 9 o’clock P.M. a letter formally offering to surrender, ending the Russo-Japanese War.
January3In 1959, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state.
January4In 1965, President Johnson outlined the goals of his “Great Society” in his State of the Union address.
January5In 1914, Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, introduced a minimum wage scale of $5 per day.
January6In 1919, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.
January7In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.
January8In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his 14 points for peace after World War I.
January9In 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
January10In 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.
January11In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
January12In 1915, the United States House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
January13In 1990, Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation’s first elected black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.
January14In 1943, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.
January15In 1967, the first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10.
January16In 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
January17In 1893, Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
January18In 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there first.
January19In 1937, millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
January20In 1981, Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
January21In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died at age 54.
January22In 1973, in its Roe vs. Wade decision, the Supreme Court legalized abortions, using a trimester approach.
January23In 1973, President Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.
January24In 1965, Winston Churchill died in London at age 90.
January25In 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service.
January26In 1950, India officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president.
January27In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
January28In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. “Dick” Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
January29In 1963, poet Robert Frost died in Boston.
January30In 1948, Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist.
January31In 1865, the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
February
February1In 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service.
February2In 1943, the remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered in a major victory for the Soviets in World War II.
February3In 1917, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, which had announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
February4In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
February5In 1937, President Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of Supreme Court justices; critics charged Roosevelt was attempting to “pack” the court.
February6In 1952, Britain’s King George VI died; he was succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II.
February7In 1984, space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart went on the first untethered spacewalk.
February8In 1996, in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would “bring the future to our doorstep.”
February9In 1943, the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.
February10In 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.
February11In 1945, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World War II.
February12In 1973, the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place.
February13In 1935, a jury in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed.
February14In 1929, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.
February15In 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 260 crew members and escalating tensions with Spain.
February16In 1923, the burial chamber of King Tutankhamen’s recently unearthed tomb was unsealed in Egypt.
February17In 1972, President Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.
February18In 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.
February19In 1945, during World War II, some 30,000 United States Marines landed on the Western Pacific island of Iwo Jima, where they encountered ferocious resistance from Japanese forces. The Americans took control of the strategically important island after a month-long battle.
February20In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth as he flew aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.
February21In 1965, former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot and killed by assassins identified as Black Muslims as he was about to address a rally in New York City; he was 39.
February22In 1980, in a stunning upset, the United States Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-to-3. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.)
February23In 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh.
February24In 1868, the United States House of Representatives impeached President Johnson following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.
February25In 1870, Hiram R. Revels, R-Miss., became the first black member of the United States Senate as he was sworn in to serve out the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.
February26In 1993, a bomb exploded in the garage of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
February27In 1991, President Bush declared that “Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated,” and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight.
February28In 1993, a gun battle erupted near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.
February29
March
March1In 1932, the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, N.J.
March2In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
March3In 1991, in a case that sparked a national outcry, motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video.
March4In 1933, the start of President Roosevelt’s first administration brought with it the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.
March5In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
March6In 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.
March7In 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse.
March8In 1917, Russia’s February Revolution (so called because of the Old Style calendar used by Russians at the time) began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg.
March9In 1862, during the Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.
March10In 1985, Konstantin U. Chernenko, Soviet leader for just 13 months, died at age 73. His death was announced on March 11th. Politburo member Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed him.
March11In 1941, President Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
March12In 1947, President Truman established what became known as the Truman Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
March13In 1868, the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the United States Senate.
March14In 1900, Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.
March15In 1965, addressing a joint session of Congress, President Johnson called for new legislation to guarantee every American’s right to vote.
March16In 1968, during the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre was carried out by United States troops under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr.
March17In 1942, Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
March18In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and remained outside the spacecraft for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.
March19In 1920, the United States Senate rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 49-35, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
March20In 1995, in Tokyo, 12 people were killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin leaked on five separate subway trains.
March21In 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.
March22In 1972, Congress sent the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. It fell short of the three-fourths approval needed.
March23In 1965, America’s first two-person space flight began as Gemini 3 blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard.
March24In 1989, one of the nation’s worst oil spills occurred as the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude.
March25In 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
March26In 1979, the Camp David peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House.
March27In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Soviet premier in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.
March28In 1979, America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred inside the Unit Two reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.
March29In 1973, the last United States troops left South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.
March30In 1981, President Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr. Also wounded were White House news secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer.
March31In 1968, President Johnson stunned the country by announcing he would not run for another term of office.
April
April1In 1945, American forces invaded Okinawa during World War II.
April2In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
April3In 1948, President Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which allocated more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European countries.
April4In 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in Memphis, Tenn.
April5In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union.
April6In 1909, explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the first men to reach the North Pole. The claim, disputed by skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.
April7In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
April8In 1973, artist Pablo Picasso died at his home near Mougins, France, at age 91.
April9In 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
April10In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals.
April11In 1951, President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.
April12In 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63. Vice President Harry S. Truman became president.
April13In 1970, Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst. (The astronauts managed to return safely.)
April14In 1865, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. He died the next day.
April15In 1912, the British luxury liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg. About 1,500 people died.
April16In 1947, America’s worst harbor explosion occurred in Texas City, Texas, when the French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up, devastating the town. Another ship, the Highflyer, exploded the following day. The explosions and resulting fires killed more than 500 people and left 200 others missing.
April17In 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.
April18In 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires. About 700 people died.
April19In 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring 500. Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death.
April20In 1971, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
April21In 1910, author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Conn.
April22In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
April23In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.
April24In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States after rejecting America’s ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
April25In 1945, during World War II, United States and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, in central Europe, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany.
April26In 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.
April27In 1947, “Babe Ruth Day” at Yankee Stadium was held to honor the ailing baseball star.
April28In 1947, a six-man expedition sailed from Peru aboard a balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki on a 101-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to Polynesia.
April29In 1992, deadly rioting that claimed 54 lives and caused $1 billion in damage erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.
April30In 1975, the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces.
May
May1In 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
May2In 1945, the Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.
May3In 1971, anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe began four days of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., aimed at shutting down the nation’s capital.
May4In 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
May5In 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America’s first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
May6In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 of the 97 people on board.
May7In 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, to take effect the following day, ending the European conflict of World War II.
May8In 1973, militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.
May9In 1994, South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first black president.
May10In 1869, a golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.
May11In 1973, charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed by Judge William M. Byrne, who cited government misconduct.
May12In 1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
May13In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter’s Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.
May14In 1948, the independent state of Israel was proclaimed as British rule in Palestine came to an end.
May15In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
May16In 1868, the United States Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. (Johnson was acquitted of all charges.)
May17In 1954, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal.
May18In 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.
May19In 1935, T.E. Lawrence, also known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” died in England from injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash.
May20In 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Ala., prompting the federal government to send in United States marshals to restore order.
May21In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh landed his “Spirit of St. Louis” near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
May22In 1947, the Truman Doctrine was enacted as Congress appropriated military and economic aid for Greece and Turkey.
May23In 1934, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death in a police ambush as they were driving a stolen Ford Deluxe along a road in Bienville Parish, La.
May24In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, was opened to traffic.
May25In 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted in Tennessee for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.
May26In 1868, the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction.
May27In 1964, independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died.
May28In 1984, President Reagan led a state funeral at Arlington National Cemetery for an unidentified American soldier killed in the Vietnam War.
May29In 1953, Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, left, and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.
May30In 1958, unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflict were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
May31In 1889, more than 2,000 people perished when a dam break sent water rushing through Johnstown, Pa.


June
June1In 1968, author-lecturer Helen Keller, who earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf most of her life, died in Westport, Conn.
June2In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.
June3In 1965, astronaut Edward White became the first American to “walk” in space, during the flight of Gemini 4.
June4In 1989, Chinese army troops stormed Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement; hundreds – possibly thousands – of people died.
June5In 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded just after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested.
June6In 1944, the D-Day invasion of Europe took place during World War II as Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France.
June7In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.
June8In 1969, authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
June9In 1954, Army counsel Joseph N. Welch confronted Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy during the Senate-Army Hearings over McCarthy’s attack on a member of Welch’s law firm, Frederick G. Fisher. Said Welch: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
June10In 1967, the Six-Day War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
June11In 1942, the United States and the Soviet Union signed a lend lease agreement to aid the Soviet war effort in World War II.
June12In 1987, President Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
June13In 1966, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda vs. Arizona decision, ruling that criminal suspects must be informed of their constitutional rights prior to questioning by police.
June14In 1982, Argentine forces surrendered to British troops on the disputed Falkland Islands.
June15In 1904, more than 1,000 people died when fire erupted aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City’s East River.
June16In 1933, President Roosevelt opened his New Deal recovery program, signing bank, rail, and industry bills and initiating farm aid.
June17In 1928, Amelia Earhart embarked on the first trans-Atlantic flight by a woman. She flew from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours.
June18In 1948, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights.
June19In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.
June20In 1967, boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
June21In 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. Eight members of the Ku Klux Klan went to prison on federal conspiracy charges; none served more than six years.
June22In 1940, during World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris.
June23In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
June24In 1997, the Air Force released a report on the so-called “Roswell Incident,” suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
June25In 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana.
June26In 1963, President Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he made his famous declaration: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).
June27In 1950, President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War following a call from the United Nations Security Council for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.
June28In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I.
June29In 1995, the shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir docked, forming the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.
June30In 1997, in Hong Kong, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time over Government House as Britain prepared to hand the colony back to China after ruling it for 156 years.
July
July1In 1997, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.
July2In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator.
July3In 1863, the Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.
July4In 1976, the United States celebrated its Bicentential. In 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
July5In 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title as he defeated Jimmy Connors.
July6In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3, 6-2.
July7In 1981, President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.
July8In 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.
July9In 1896, William Jennings Bryan caused a sensation at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with his “cross of gold” speech denouncing supporters of the gold standard. Bryan went on to win the party’s nomination.
July10In 1940, during World War II, the 114-day Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking southern England by air. By late October, Britain managed to repel the Luftwaffe, which suffered heavy losses.
July11In 1979, the abandoned United States space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
July12In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced he had chosen U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket.
July13In 1977, a 25-hour blackout hit the New York City area after lightning struck upstate power lines.
July14In 1965, the American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, sending back photographs of the planet.
July15In 1918, the Second Battle of the Marne began during World War I.
July16In 1918, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II, his empress and their five children were executed by the Bolsheviks.
July17In 1975, an Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit in the first superpower linkup of its kind.
July18In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began as Gen. Francisco Franco led an uprising of army troops based in Spanish North Africa.
July19In 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his “V for Victory” campaign in Europe.
July20In 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon when he stepped out of the lunar module.
July21In 1925, the so-called “Monkey Trial” ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. The conviction was later overturned.
July22In 1934, a man identified as bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.
July23In 1914, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; the dispute led to World War I.
July24In 1959, during a visit to the Soviet Union, Vice President Richard M. Nixon got into a “kitchen debate” with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a United States exhibition.
July25In 1956, the Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the New England coast, killing 51 people.
July26In 1947, President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
July27In 1953, the Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting.
July28In 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. World War I began as declarations of war by other European nations quickly followed.
July29In 1981, Britain’s Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
July30In 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 316 out of 1,196 men survived the sinking and shark-infested waters.
July31In 1964, the American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the moon’s surface.
August
August1In 1936, the Olympic games opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.
August2In 1923, the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, died in San Francisco. Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office as President of the United States.
August3In 1958, the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.
August4In 1914, Britain declared war on Germany while the United States proclaimed its neutrality.
August5In 1963, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and underwater.
August6In 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II, killing an estimated 140,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.
August7In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on United States forces.
August8In 1974, President Nixon announced he would resign following damaging revelations in the Watergate scandal.
August9In 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, the United States exploded a nuclear device over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.
August10In 1977, postal employee David Berkowitz was arrested in Yonkers, N.Y., accused of being the “Son of Sam” gunman responsible for six random slayings and seven woundings. Berkowitz is serving six consecutive terms of 25 years to life in state prison.
August11In 1965, rioting and looting broke out in the predominantly black Watts section of Los Angeles. In the week that followed, 34 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.
August12In 1898, the peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War was signed.
August13In 1961, Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city’s eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. Two days later, work began on the Berlin Wall.
August14In 1945, President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.
August15In 1947, India and Pakistan became independent after some 200 years of British rule.
August16In 1977, Elvis Presley died at Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tenn., at age 42.
August17In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair concluded near Bethel, N.Y.
August18In 1963, James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August19In 1963, James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August20In 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek’s regime.
August21In 1959, President Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union.
August22In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first United States chief executive to ride in an automobile.
August23In 1927, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. They were vindicated in 1977 by Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.
August24In 1992, Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida, causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm.
August25In 1944, Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.
August26In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, was declared in effect.
August27In 1962, the United States launched the Mariner 2 space probe, which flew past Venus the following December.
August28In 1963, 200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
August29In 1991, the Supreme Soviet, the parliament of the U.S.S.R., suspended all activities of the Communist Party, bringing an end to the institution.
August30In 1963, the hot-line communications link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow went into operation.
August31In 1997, Diana, the Princess of Wales, was killed in an automobile accident in a tunnel by the Seine in Paris. The accident also killed Emad Mohammed al-Fayed, the Harrod’s heir.
September
September1In 1939, World War II began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
September2In 1945, Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II.
September3In 1976, the unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet’s surface.
September4In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.
September5In 1972, Arab terrorists attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic games; 11 Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer were killed in the siege.
September6In 1901, President McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.
September7In 1940, Nazi Germany began its initial blitz on London during World War II.
September8In 1974, President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.
September9In 1976, Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing at age 82.
September10In 1919, New York City welcomed home Gen. John J. Pershing and 25,000 soldiers who had served in the United States 1st Division during World War I.
September11In 2001, suicide hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Another hijacked airliner hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
September12In 1977, South African black student leader Steven Biko died while in police custody, triggering an international outcry.
September13In 1993, at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
September14In 1959, the Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first man-made object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar surface.
September15In 1963, four children were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a black Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama.
September16In 1974, President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.
September17In 1862, Union forces hurled back a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. During the battle, 23,100 were killed, wounded or captured, making it the bloodiest day in United States military history.
September18In 1947, the National Security Act, which unified the Army, Navy and newly formed Air Force, went into effect.
September19In 1881, the 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, died of wounds inflicted by an assassin.
September20In 1973, Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in a $100,000 winner-take-all tennis match.
September21In 1938, a hurricane struck parts of New York and New England, causing widespread damage and claiming more than 600 lives.
September22In 1862, President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863.
September23In 1952, Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver what came to be known as the “Checkers” speech as he denied allegations of improper campaign financing.
September24In 1996, the United States and the world’s other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.
September25In 1957, with 300 United States Army troops standing guard, nine black children were escorted to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, days after unruly white crowds had forced them to withdraw.
September26In 1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy took place in Chicago.
September27In 1964, the Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy.
September28In 1924, two United States Army planes landed in Seattle, Washington, having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days.
September29In 1957, the New York Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds, losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-1. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the next season.
September30In 1938, British and French leaders agreed to allow Nazi Germany to occupy sections of the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia.
October
October1In 1961, Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run of the season, breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 60 set in 1927.
October2In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; he was the first African-American appointed to the nation’s highest court.
October3In 1990, West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a new unified country.
October4In 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into orbit.
October5In 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.
October6In 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.
October7In 1985, Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean with more than 400 people aboard.
October8In 1982, all labor organizations in Poland, including Solidarity, were banned.
October9In 1967, Latin American guerrilla leader Che Guevara was executed in Bolivia while attempting to incite revolution.
October10In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion and resigned his office.
October11In 1968, Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, was launched with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard.
October12In 1870, Gen. Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Va., at age 63.
October13In 1943, Italy declared war on Germany, its one-time Axis partner.
October14In 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
October15In 1964, it was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev had been removed from office. He was succeeded as premier by Alexei N. Kosygin and as Communist Party secretary by Leonid I. Brezhnev.
October16In 1964, China detonated its first atomic bomb.
October17In 1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released in 1939.
October18In 1968, the United States Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a “black power” salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.
October19In 1987, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6 percent in value – its biggest-ever percentage drop.
October20In 1973, in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre, President Nixon abolished the office of special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, accepted the resignation of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and fired Deputy Attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus.
October21In 1879, Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.
October22In 1962, President Kennedy announced an air and naval blockade of Cuba, following the discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island.
October23In 1983, a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon killed 241 United States Marines and sailors; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers.
October24In 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.
October25In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
October26In 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan signed a peace treaty in a ceremony attended by President Clinton.
October27In 1904, the first rapid transit subway, the IRT, opened in New York City.
October28In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland.
October29In 1929, Black Tuesday descended upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapsed amid panic selling and thousands of investors were wiped out as America’s Great Depression began.
October30In 1974, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight title.
October31In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated near her residence by two Sikh security guards.
November
November1In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.
November2In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter defeated Republican incumbent Gerald R. Ford, becoming the first U.S. president from the Deep South since the Civil War.
November3In 1936, President Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide over Republican challenger Alfred M. “Alf” Landon.
November4In 1979, the Iranian hostage crisis began as militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran.
November5In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.
November6In 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln defeated three other candidates for the United States presidency.
November7In 1917, Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution took place as forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin overthrew the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky.
November8In 1960, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the presidency.
November9In 1965, the great Northeast blackout occurred as several states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of power failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours.
November10In 1982, the newly finished Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened to its first visitors in Washington, D.C.
November11In 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.
November12In 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. The Americans eventually won a major victory over the Japanese.
November13In 1956, the Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.
November14In 1972, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 for the first time, ending the day at 1,003.16.
November15In 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War.
November16In 1933, the United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Soviet leader Maxim Litvinov, expressing hope that United States-Soviet relations would “forever remain normal and friendly.”
November17In 1973, President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla., that “people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
November18In 1976, Spain’s parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
November19In 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.
November20In 1945, 24 Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
November21In 1964, New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened.
November22In 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Texas Gov. John B. Connally was seriously wounded. A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States.
November23In 1943, during World War II, United States forces seized control of the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese.
November24In 1963, Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy.
November25In 1986, the Iran-Contra affair erupted as President Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.
November26In 1942, President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December 1.
November27In 1973, the Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who’d resigned.
November28In 1943, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during World War II.
November29In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
November30In 1995, President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.
December
December1In 1959, representatives of 12 countries, including the United States, signed a treaty in Washington setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity.
December2In 1954, the Senate voted to condemn Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R Wis., for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
December3In 1984, more than 4,000 people died after a cloud of gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.
December4In 1945, the Senate approved United States participation in the United Nations.
December5In 1933, national Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.
December6In 1923, a presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.
December7In 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, an act that led to America’s entry into World War II.
December8In 1941, the United States entered World War II as Congress declared war against Japan, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
December9In 1992, Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.
December10In 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
December11In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.
December12In 1963, Kenya gained its independence from Britain.
December13In 1981, authorities in Poland imposed martial law in a crackdown on the Solidarity labor movement. Martial law formally ended in 1983.
December14In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967.
December15In 1916, the French defeated the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun.
December16In 1950, President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism.”
December17In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright took the first successful man-powered airplane flights, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
December18In 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first civilian nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went online.
December19In 1984, Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
December20In 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, sending troops into Panama to topple the government of General Manuel Noriega.
December21In 1988, a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
December22In 1864, during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent a message to President Lincoln from Georgia, saying, “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.”
December23In 1986, the experimental airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling as it landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
December24In 1992, President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
December25In 1991, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation.
December26In 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress.
December27In 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.
December28In 1981, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va.
December29In 1940, during World War II, Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on London.
December30In 1972, the United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.
December31In 1946, President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.

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