Today in History!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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1620 - The Mayflower Compact was signed by the 41 men on the Mayflower when they landed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod. The compact called for "just and equal laws."

1675 - German mathetician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function. Yes, I know Math!?! The reason I became a History major was in part due to a total lack of Math. However we don't have to use the formula we just have to know it exists.

1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's army enters England.

1887 - Labor Activists were hanged in Illinois after being convicted of being connected to a bombing that killed eight police officers.

1889 - Washington became the 42nd state of the United States.

1918 - Armistice signed by the Allies and Germany comes into effect and World War I hostilities end at 1100, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". While this "War to end all wars" did not accomplish this goal it did have lasting effects. It ended the "Old order" in Europe and redrew the map of that continent. It was the birth of the Soviet Union. It propelled the United States onto the stage as a World power. Sadly, it also sowed the seeds of the next war and established an environment in Germany that nurtured those poisoned philosophies that gave birth to the NAZI Party.

1918 - Poland was reestablished shortly after the surrender of Germany.

1920 - The body of an unknown British soldier was buried in Westminster Abbey. The service was recorded with the first electronic recording process developed by Lionel Guest and H.O. Merriman.

1921 - The Tomb of the Unknowns was dedicated at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia by U.S. President Harding.

1942 - During World War II, Germany completed its occupation of France.

1966 - The U.S. launched Gemini 12 from Cape Kennedy, FL. The craft circled the Earth 59 times before returning.

1993 - In Washington, DC, the Vietnam Women's Memorial was dedicated to honor the more than 11,000 women who had served in the Vietnam War.

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764 Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, capital of Chinese Tang Dynasty. The occupation lasted for fifteen days.

1799 - Andrew Ellicott Douglass witnesses the Leonids meteor shower from a ship off the Florida Keys. Douglass was an American astronmer who is more remembered for developing the method of dating wood by analyzing tree rings, Dendrochronology.

1915 - Theodore W. Richards, of Harvard University, became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

1918 - Austria and Czechoslovakia were declared independent republics.

1921 - Representatives of nine nations gathered for the start of the Washington Conference for Limitation of Armaments.

1927 - Joseph Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party leading to Stalin coming to power. And yet Stalin kept, er picking on Trotsky even in exile.

1942 - During World War II, naval battle of Guadalcanal began between Japanese and American forces. The Americans won a major victory.

1944 - During World War II, the German battleship "Tirpitz" was sunk off the coast of Norway.

1948 - The war crimes tribunal sentenced Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death. The new geopolitical realities of a land grabbing Soviet Union and national realignments stood in the way of justice for even more deserving Imperial Japanese war criminals.

1954 - Ellis Island, the immigration station in New York Harbor, closed after processing more than 20 million immigrants since 1892.

1982 - Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee.

1984 - Space shuttle astronauts Dale Gardner and Joe Allen snared the Palapa B-2 satellite in history's first space salvage.

1997 - Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

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1775 - During the American Revolution, U.S. forces captured Montreal.

1789 - Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." I feel your pain, Ben.

1805 - Johann George Lehner, a Viennese butcher, invented a recipe and called it the "Frankfurter." The original was ground pure pork encased in a section of sheep intestine. The unique flavor came from a very low temperature smoking process. This sausage was a big hit in Germany where it was called a "Dachshund" and eventually "Kleiner hund" or "Little dog". Do you see where I'm going with this? Yes, that is the origin of the American term "Hot dog".

1927 - The Holland Tunnel opened to the public, providing access between New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River.

1933 - 1st modern sit-down strike is held by Hormel meat packers in Austin, Minnesota. I'm mostly sure that this had nothing to do with hot dogs.

1942 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.

1956 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

1971 - The U.S. spacecraft Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, Mars.

1982 - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC.

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1680 - Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch's Comet/Newton's Comet).

1832 - The first streetcar went into operation in New York City, NY. The vehicle was horse-drawn and had room for 30 people.

1851 - Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick" was first published in the U.S. Screams of anguish were heard in sixth grade classrooms all over America.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau's trial began for the assassination of U.S. President Garfield. Guiteau was convicted and hanged the following year.

1896 - Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation.

1908 - Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light.

1920 - The Russian Bolshevik army occupies Sevastopol, ending anti-communist attempts to regain the government of Russia.

1935 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the Philippine Islands a free commonwealth after its new constitution was approved. The Tydings-McDuffie Act planned for the Phillipines to be completely independent by July 4, 1946.

1940 - During World War II, German war planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry when about 500 Luftwaffe bombers attacked.

1956 - The USSR crushed the Hungarian uprising. However it should be noted that the under equipped and mostly untrained Hungarians put up a valiant struggle against superior forces and made the Soviets pay for it.

1979 - U.S. President Carter froze all Iranian assets in the United States and U.S. banks abroad in response to the taking of 63 American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran.

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1492 - Christopher Columbus notes first recorded reference to tobacco. I don't know if he later recorded a nasty cough.

1777 - The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, precursor to the U.S. Constitution.

1806 - Explorer Zebulon Pike spotted the mountaintop that became known as Pikes Peak. Fortunately he went with his last name when exercising discoverer's rights.

1864 - Union Gen. William T. Sherman and his troops began their "March to the Sea" during the U.S. Civil War.

1884 - European Colonization and trade in Africa is officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing European powers "Scramble for Africa".

1904 - King C. Gillette patents the Gillette razor blade.

1920 - The League of Nations met for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland.

1940 - The first 75,000 men were called to Armed Forces duty under peacetime conscription.

1966 - The flight of Gemini 12 ended successfully as astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

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534 - Second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus published. This was basically a codification of Roman law that eliminated conflicts between laws and removed outdated laws. It also had the side effect of enabling more Roman citizens to understand Roman law.

1532 - Francisco Pizarro captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa after a surprise ambush at Cajamarca. Atahualpa had arranged for a massive ransom to be paid to Pizzaro for his life. Pizzaro accepted the ransom and after Atahualpa had converted to Christianity Pizzaro had him assassinated by garrote. Pizzaro's greed may have ultimately short changed the conquistador since according to local legend not all of the ransom had arrived but was on its way to Pizzaro. When the Incas heard of the treachery they diverted the en route ransom and concealed it. The Spanish never found it.

1776 - British troops captured Fort Washington during the American Revolution.

1885 - Canadian rebel Louis Riel was executed for high treason.

1907 - Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state.

1915 - Coca-Cola had its prototype for a contoured bottle patented. The bottle made its commercial debut the next year. Prior to this Coke came in a straight sided bottle sealed with a cork. This straight sided bottle looked like it contained medicine and may have impeded sales.

1933 - The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations for the first time.

1966 - Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard was acquitted in his second trial of charges he had murdered his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954. This case was the inspiration for the TV series and later film "The Fugitive".

1969 - The U.S. Army announced that several had been charged with massacre and the subsequent cover-up in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968.

1982 - Space Shuttle Columbia completes its 1st operational flight.

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1558 - Elizabeth I ascended the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary Tudor.

1603 - Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.

1798 - Irish nationalist leader Wolfe Tone committed suicide while in jail awaiting execution.

1800 - Congress holds its first session in Washington D.C. in an incomplete Capitol Building.

1831 - Ecuador and Venezuela separated from Greater Colombia.

1855 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe.

1869 - The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas.

1903 - Russia's Social Democrats officially split into two groups - Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

1913 - In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II banned the armed forces from dancing the tango. Just part of the reason that while Wilhelm II was called many things during his reign "Fun Guy Willie" wasn't one of them.

1922 - The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire Mehmed VI is expelled to Malta on British warship.

1973 - U.S. President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, FL, "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

1990 - A mass grave was discovered by the bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand. The bodies were believed to be those of World War II prisoners of war.

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1477 - William Caxton produced "Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres," which was the first book to be printed in England.

1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, replacing earlier basilica, world's largest Christian basilica.

1820 - Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica.

1865 - Samuel L. Clemens published "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" under the pen name "Mark Twain" in the New York "Saturday Press."

1903 - The U.S. and Panama signed a treaty that granted the U.S. rights to build the Panama Canal.

1916 - Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, called off the Battle of the Somme in France. The offensive began on July 1, 1916.

1928 - The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon premiered in New York. It was Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie," starring Mickey Mouse.

1936 - Germany and Italy recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco. No real surprise there.

1966 - U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays. And thousands, well hundreds at ST Marks Catholic School cheered!

1969 - Apollo 12 astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean landed on the lunar surface during the second manned mission to the moon.

1978 - In Jonestown, Guyana 918 members of the Peoples Temple are murdered or commit suicide under the leadership of cult leader Jim Jones.

1987 - The U.S. Congress issued the Iran-Contra Affair report. The report said that President Ronald Reagan bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides.

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1530 - The Recess document resulting from the Diet of Augsburg signed by Charles V and Catholic princes. This was basically an acknowledgement of what was at stake in the schism in the Christian church. It was the only thing the members of the Diet could agree upon.

1794 - Britain's King George III signed the Jay Treaty. It resolved the issues left over from the Revolutionary War. Covered issues included Amity, commerce, and navigation between the US and Britain.

1863 - U.S. President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. Be warned, when taking a History test writing even in jest that Lincoln's Gettysburg address was 1616 Canal Street will probably result in failure and a trip to the principal's office.

1919 - The U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles with a vote of 55 in favor to 39 against. A two-thirds majority was needed for ratification.

1942 - During World War II, Russian forces launched their winter offensive against the Germans along the Don front.

1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to set foot in Israel on an official visit.

1990 - NATO and the Warsaw Pact signed a treaty of nonaggression.

1994 - The U.N. Security Council authorized NATO to bomb rebel Serb forces striking from neighboring Croatia.

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1863 - U.S. President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. Be warned, when taking a History test writing even in jest that Lincoln's Gettysburg address was 1616 Canal Street will probably result in failure and a trip to the principal's office.

For the historically challenged among us (i.e. me) why?