This day in history.....

[Mare]

December 13th


1621: Under the care of Robert Cushman, the first American furs to be exported from the continent leave for England.


1642: Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovers New Zealand.


1769: Dartmouth College is chartered.

1862: Outnumbered Confederate forces defeat Union troops at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia.


1979: The first Susan B. Anthony dollar coin is minted.


2003: U.S. troops capture ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who is found hiding in a small underground chamber dubbed a "spider hole."

 

[Mare]

December 14th


1819: Alabama is the 22nd state to join the Union.


1902: The cableship Silverton begins laying the first transpacific telegraph cable, which reaches from San Francisco to Honolulu.


1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes the first person to reach the South Pole.


1946: The United Nations General Assembly establishes permanent U.N. headquarters in New York City.


1955: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Finland, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, and Spain are admitted to the United Nations (U.N.).

 

[Mare]

12/18/07


1787: New Jersey ratifies the U.S. Constitution.


1865: Following its ratification earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution takes effect, ensuring that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States."


1957: The first full-scale commercial nuclear power station in the United States opens at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It produces 60,000 kilowatts of electricity.


1958: Project Score, the world's first experimental communications satellite, is launched.

 

[Mare]

12-19-07


1776: Thomas Paine publishes the first installment of The American Crisis.


1777: The Continental Army under General George Washington enters its winter camp at Valley Forge, twenty miles from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


1950: U.S. President Harry S. Truman names General Dwight D. Eisenhower to command the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces.


1975: The Altair 8800, a do-it-yourself computer kit, goes on sale for $397.

1984: Britain formally agrees to return Hong Kong to China after 99 years under British rule.

 

[Mare]

December 20th


1790: American cotton producer Samuel Slater opens the first American cotton mill.


1803: France formally transfers authority over the territory of Louisiana to the United States.


1820: Missouri passes legislation that taxes single men, aged 21 to 50, one dollar.


1860: South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States, following the victory of Republican Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election.


1880: In New York City, electric lights are installed on Broadway.


1922: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.

 

[Mare]

December 22


1807: Congress passes the Embargo Act, which bars trading between the United States and European nations.


1845: The first voice synthesizer, later known as P.T. Barnum's Euphonium, is demonstrated to the public.


1894: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason by a military court-martial.


1894: The U.S. Golf Association is founded.


1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill begin their first official conference in Washington, D.C.

 

[Mare]

Merry Christmas

1776: American forces under George Washington cross the Delaware River at night, and raid British Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton the next day.


1868: By presidential proclamation, President Andrew Johnson grants unqualified amnesty to all those who participated in the rebellion against the United States.


1941: The British military garrison in Hong Kong surrenders to Japan.


1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president, and Communist Russia ceases to exist.

 

[Mare]

12-26-07


1776: American forces under George Washington raid British Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton, Pennsylvania.


1865: The coffee percolator is patented.


1941: Winston Churchill becomes the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.


1966: Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach, organizes the first Kwanzaa celebration in Los Angeles, California.

 

[Mare]

12-27-07


1831: British naturalist Charles Darwin begins a five-year voyage to South America and the Pacific as naturalist on the HMS Beagle.


1932: The Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.


1945: In the aftermath of World War II, foreign ministers from the former Allied nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain agree to govern Korea jointly for five years.


1968: The first manned mission to the moon, Apollo 8, returns safely to Earth.

 

[Mare]

12-29-07


1845: Texas is admitted into the United States as the 28th state.


1891: Thomas Edison patents the wireless radio.


1916: Siberian peasant and self-proclaimed holy man Grigory Rasputin is assassinated in St. Petersburg.


1940: Germany bombs London; fire causes widespread damage to the city.


1952: The first hearing aid using a transistor goes on sale.

 

[Mare]

December 30th


1853: U.S. minister to Mexico James Gadsden and Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City.


1880: The Transvaal province declares itself an independent Boer republic in British South Africa, instigating an armed conflict with Britain and setting the scene for the Boer War.


1922: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established through the confederation of Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation.

 

[Mare]

December 31, 2007


Happy New Year 2008

1775: During the first phase of the American Revolution, Patriot forces under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery are defeated by the British defenders of the city of Québec in Canada.


1808: French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac formulates a law of gases known as Gay-Lussac's Law.


1879: Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrates the electric light bulb.


1890: New York's Ellis Island opens to all immigrants to the United States.


1946: U.S. President Harry Truman officially announces the end of World War II.

 

[Mare]

January 1, 2008


1863: The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect, freeing slaves in Confederate territories.


1898: Brooklyn merges with Manhattan.


1902: The University of Michigan wins the first Rose Bowl, defeating Stanford 49–0.


1942: Twenty six nations sign the United Nations declaration.


1959: Fidel Castro ousts Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

 

[Mare]

1-2-08


1492: The Spanish forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I take the province of Granada from the Moors.


1788: Georgia is the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.


1959: The Soviets launch Luna I, the first spacecraft bound for the moon.


1972: Radio and television advertising of cigarettes ends as a result of legislation passed by the U.S. Congress.

 

[Mare]

1-3-08


1921: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the prosecution of labor unions under the provision of the Sherman Antitrust Act.


1938: The March of Dimes is founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.


1946: William Joyce, broadcaster of Nazi propaganda to Great Britain during World War II, is hanged for treason in London, England.


1959: Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th state.


1961: President Dwight D. Eisenhower ends U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba.

 

[Mare]

1-4-08


1885: The first successful appendectomy is performed in Davenport, Iowa.


1896: Utah is admitted into the United States as the 45th state.


1932: The Indian government declares the Indian National Congress illegal and arrests nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi.


1948: The British colony of Burma (Myanmar) becomes an independent sovereign nation, ending more than six decades of British rule.

 

[Mare]

1-5-08


1914: Henry Ford establishes a minimum wage of $5 per eight-hour day in his automobile factories.


1933: Construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.


1949: U.S. president Harry S. Truman announces the Fair Deal.


1972: U.S. President Richard Nixon authorizes a $5.5 billion, six-year program to develop plans for a spaceship capable of undertaking multiple missions, thereby launching the space shuttle program.

 

[TexasRaceLady]

1589 Catherine de Medici of France died at age 69.

1781 A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.

1896 The Austrian newspaper Wiener Presse reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as an X-ray.

1925 Nellie T. Ross succeeded her late husband as governor of Wyoming, becoming the first female governor in U.S. history.

1998 Sonny Bono, the pop singer-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

And --- Happy Birthday to

Diane Keaton --- 62
Marilyn Manson --- 39

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

January 1, 2008


1863: The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect, freeing slaves in Confederate territories.

Wrong. It freed not one Confederate slave as it was effective only in the United States, not the Confederate States of America, a completely separate and sovereign nation which was invaded two years earlier and her troops surrendered two years later in the saddest single event in the history of the North American continent.

I bust myths; it's what I do.

 

[Inkara1]

1998 Sonny Bono, the pop singer-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Even all this time later, it's hard to believe that Bono, a Republican, was such a tree-hugger.