Category Archives: History

History

On This Day – November 10

On This Day – November 10

  • 1969 Sesame Street premieres

    Sesame Street, the long-running American children’s television series, premiered on TV stations.

  • 1951 North American Numbering Plan begins

    The plan standardized distance calling and gave phone numbers in cities a fixed 3 digit prefix, also called an area code. This made making long-distance calls faster and easier and without the involvement of an operator. The first call under the plan was made between the mayors of Englewood, New Jersey and Alameda, California.

  • 1903 Windshield wiper patented

    The US patent office granted inventor Mary Anderson a patent for automatic windshield wipers – a device that is used to remove or wipe the front and back windshields in automobiles.

  • 1898 Wilmington riots begin

    Thought to be one of the only incidents of insurrection against a local government in the United States, the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898 or the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 began after an election voted in a biracial city council. In retaliation, white supremacists overthrew the council, destroyed a lot of property and killed many black people in the city over the course of a few days.

  • 1775 US Marine Corps is created

    The elite military force capable of operating on land, sea and air was founded in Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. A resolution of the Second Continental Congress formed two battalions of Continental Marines that became the forerunners of today’s marine corps.

History

On This Day – November 9

On This Day – November 9

  • 2009 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall

    On this day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the last soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish ex-president and Noble Prize winner Lech Walesa walked through Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  • 1994 Darmstadtium created for the first time

    The heavily radioactive element with an atomic number of 110 and symbol Ds, was created at Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (Institute for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Germany, the city after which the element is named.

  • 1985 Youngest person to become World Chess Champion

    22-year-old Russian Gary Kasparov won the 13th World Chess Championship against Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest World Chess Champion.

  • 1967 Rolling Stone makes its debut

    The biweekly popular culture magazine was founded by Jann Simon Wenner in San Francisco. The magazine launched the careers of many famous authors and published the early versions of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

  • 1938 Night of broken glass

    A pogrom against Jewish businesses, synagogues, and Jews in Germany and Austria was carried out by Sturmabteilung troops and civilians. The series of attacks that killed about 70 people and put 30,000 jews in prison is known as night of broken glass or Kristallnacht

History

On This Day – November 8

On This Day – November 8

  • 1972 Home Box Office launched

    The premium TV channel, informally known as HBO, is the oldest paid TV channel in the United States. The first program to screen on the channel was Sometimes a Great Notion, a movie starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

  • 1971 Coup in Thailand

    Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn staged a coup against his own government and dismissed the parliament citing increasing communist influence.

  • 1939 Assassination attempt on Hitler

    Johann Georg Elser, a German woodworker, attempted to kill Adolf Hilter and other high ranking members of the Nazi party during the 16th anniversary observances of the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup attempt by Hitler in 1923. The time bomb Elser used in a beer hall called Bürgerbräukeller in Munich went off but failed to kill Hitler. Elser was caught and imprisoned in Dachau for 5 years.

  • 1923 Beer Hall Putsch

    On this day, Adolf Hitler and other members of the Nazi party attempted to overthrow current government by marching to Berlin. They started the march at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich. The coup attempt was eventually unsuccessful and Hitler was captured and imprisoned for 2 years.

  • 1895 First person to observe X-rays

    German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen accidentally discovered X-rays, also sometimes called Röntgen rays while working on cathode rays. X-rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation that are often used today in medicine. Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his discovery.

History

On This Day – November 7

On This Day – November 7

  • 1987 Coup in Tunisia

    In a bloodless coup in Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took over the Presidentship of Tunisia from President Habib Bourguiba.

  • 1947 Coup in Thailand

    The military staged a coup against Thawan Thamrong Nawasawat and installed Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister.

  • 1917 October Revolution

    The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, took over the winter palace and ended the rule of the post-Tsarist provisional government and transferred all powers to the communists in Russia

  • 1916 First woman to be elected to US Congress

    Jeannette Rankin from Montana became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

  • 1869 First inter-city cycle race

    The first city to city cycle race was held between Paris and Rouen. James Moore, an Englishman living in Paris at that time won the race.