On October 6, 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000. Of course, trains had been robbed before the Reno brothers’ holdup. But these previous crimes had all been burglaries of stationary trains sitting in depots or freight yards. The Reno brothers’ contribution to criminal history was to stop a moving train in a sparsely populated region where they could carry out their crime without risking interference from the law or curious bystanders.
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The Reno brothers carry out the first train robbery in U.S. history
On October 5, 1892, the famous Dalton Gang attempts the daring daylight robbery of two Coffeyville, Kansas, banks at the same time. But if the gang members believed the sheer audacity of their plan would bring them success, they were sadly mistaken. Instead, they were nearly all killed by quick-acting townspeople.
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The Dalton Gang is wiped out in Coffeyville, Kansas
Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges of mail and wire fraud and of conspiring to defraud the public on this day in 1988. The case against the founder of Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries and three of his aides exploded in the press when it was revealed that Bakker had an affair with former church secretary Jessica Hahn.
Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges
Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges of mail and wire fraud and of conspiring to defraud the public. The case against the founder of Praise
Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges
Televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted on federal charges of mail and wire fraud and of conspiring to defraud the public. The case against the founder of Praise
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On October 3, 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.
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President Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday
The Warsaw Uprising ends on October 2, 1944, with the surrender of the surviving Polish rebels to German forces.
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Warsaw Uprising ends
On October 15, 1863, the H.L. Hunley, the world’s first successful combat submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crew members.
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H.L. Hunley sinks during tests
African American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America on this day in 1964. At 35 years of age, the Georgia-born minister was the youngest person ever to receive the award.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. wins Nobel Peace Prize
On October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress authorizes construction and administration of the first American naval force—the precursor to the United States Navy.
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Continental Congress authorizes first naval force
On October 12, 1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. Today, visitors to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue of a riderless horse.
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Silent-film star Tom Mix dies in Arizona car wreck; brained by “Suitcase of Death”
On this day in 1962, Pope John XXIII convenes an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church—the first in 92 years. In summoning the ecumenical council—a general meeting of the bishops of the church—the pope hoped to bring spiritual rebirth to Catholicism and cultivate greater unity with the other branches of Christianity.
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Pope John XXIII opens Vatican II
The hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro reaches a dramatic climax when U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept an Egyptian airliner attempting to fly the Palestinian hijackers to freedom and force the jet to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily on this day in 1985. American and Italian troops surrounded the plane, and the terrorists were taken into Italian custody.
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US Navy fighter jets intercept Italian cruise ship hijackers
On October 21, 1921, President Warren G. Harding delivers a speech in Alabama in which he condemns lynchings—illegal hangings committed primarily by white supremacists against African Americans in the Deep South.
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President Harding publicly condemns lynching
After 15 years of construction, the Sydney Opera House is dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II on this day in 1973. The $80 million structure, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and funded by the profits of the Opera House Lotteries, was built on Bennelong Point, in Sydney, Australia.
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Sydney Opera House opens
Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution on this day in 1781.
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Americans defeat the British at Yorktown
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Canadian Researchers Gave Homeless People $7500 Each And The Results Are So Uplifting
On October 18, 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas, and was championed by William Henry Seward, the enthusiastically expansionist secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson.
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U.S. Takes Possession of Alaska
On this day in 1906, Wilhelm Voigt, a 57-year-old German shoemaker, impersonates an army officer and leads an entire squad of soldiers to help him steal 4,000 marks. Voigt, who had a long criminal record, humiliated the German army by exploiting their blind obedience to authority and getting them to assist in his audacious robbery.
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A shoemaker leads German soldiers in a robbery
On October 27, 1858, future President Theodore Roosevelt is born in New York City to a wealthy family. Roosevelt was home-schooled and then attended Harvard University, graduating in 1880. He served in the New York state legislature from 1881 to 1884.
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Theodore Roosevelt is born
Both beautiful and talented, Whitney Houston was the daughter of soul singer Cissy Houston and niece of pop star Dionne Warwick. A near-unknown prior to the release of her debut album Whitney Houston, she shot to stardom when her first chart-topping hit, “Saving All My Love For You,” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1985.
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Whitney Houston earns her first #1 hit with “Saving All My Love For You”
Do you have plans for Halloween?
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President Ronald Reagan, citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation’s Marxist regime, orders the Marines to invade and secure their safety on this day in 1983. There were nearly 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time, many of them students at the island’s medical school. In little more than a week, Grenada’s government was overthrown.
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United States invades Grenada
On October 24, 1945, the United Nations Charter, which was adopted and signed on June 26, 1945, is now effective and ready to be enforced.
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The United Nations is born
On October 23, 1989, 23 people die in a series of explosions sparked by an ethylene leak at a factory in Pasadena, Texas. The blasts, which took place at a Phillips Petroleum Company plant, were caused by inadequate safety procedures.
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Gas leak kills 23 at plastics factory
On October 29, 1901, President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York. Czolgosz had shot McKinley on September 6, 1901; the president succumbed to his wounds eight days later.
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President William McKinley’s assassin is executed
On October 28, 1992, Duluth, Minnesota mayor Gary Doty cuts the ribbon at the mouth of the brand-new, 1,480-foot–long Leif Erickson Tunnel on Interstate 35. With the opening of the tunnel, that highway—which stretches 1,593 miles, from Mexico all the way to Canada—was finished at last. As a result, the federal government announced, the Interstate Highway System itself was 99.7 percent complete.
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Leif Erickson Tunnel completes 1,593-mile I-35
An American Airlines flight out of John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City crashes into a Queens neighborhood after takeoff on November 12, 2001, killing 265 people. Although some initially speculated that the crash was the result of terrorism, as it came exactly two months after the September 11 attacks, the cause was quickly proven to be a combination of pilot error and wind conditions.
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Plane crashes in Rockaway, New York
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.
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Armistice Day: World War I ends
On November 10, 2001, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush addresses the United Nations to ask for the international community’s help in combating terrorism around the world. He also pledged to take the fight against terrorism to any place where terrorists were harbored.
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George W. Bush addresses the United Nations regarding terrorism
Willie Nelson landed himself in tax trouble as a result of investments he made in the early 1980s in a tax shelter later ruled illegal by the IRS. This led to Nelson struggling to repay a $16.7 million dollar tax debt that had led the federal government to seize all of his assets on November 9, 1990.
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Willie Nelson’s assets are seized by the IRS
On November 8, 1994, 59 percent of California voters approve Proposition 187, banning undocumented immigrants from using the state’s major public services. Despite its wide margin of victory, the ballot measure never takes effect.
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Proposition 187 is approved in California
On November 7, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term in office. FDR remains the only president to have served more than two terms.
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FDR wins unprecedented fourth term
For nearly a century, students at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, created a massive bonfire prior to their school’s annual football game against their archrival, the University of Texas. The 1999 bonfire was supposed to require more than 7,000 logs and the labor of up to 70 workers at a time. Just after dawn on November 18, students were working near the top of the pile when it collapsed. Without warning, scores of students became caught in the huge log pile.
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12 die in bonfire at Texas A&M University
On November 16, 2001, the British author J.K. Rowling’s star creation–bespectacled boy wizard Harry Potter–makes his big-screen debut in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which opens in movie theaters across the United States. The film, which starred Daniel Radcliffe in the title role, went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies in history.
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First Harry Potter film opens
Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a black veteran, factory worker, and homeowner raped her. Montgomery, who was promptly thrown in jail on November 15, 1923, spent more than 25 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and he was released.
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Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins
On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging his Muslim followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I.
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Ottoman Empire declares a holy war
CapTel: An Innovative Way to Keep in Touch
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Near the end of a weeklong national salute to Americans who served in the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of veterans of the conflict on this day in 1982. The long-awaited memorial was a simple V-shaped black-granite wall inscribed with the names of the 57,939 Americans who died in the conflict, arranged in order of death, not rank, as was common in other memorials.
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Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on this day in 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.”
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Origin of Species is published
On this day in 1959, Robert Stroud, the famous “Birdman of Alcatraz,” is released from solitary confinement for the first time since 1916. Stroud gained widespread fame and attention when author Thomas Gaddis wrote a biography that trumpeted Stroud’s ornithological expertise.
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The Birdman of Alcatraz is allowed a small taste of freedom
Angela Merkel is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany on November 22, 2005. The first woman to hold the position, Merkel emerged as one of the strongest forces in European politics over the subsequent decade. She has frequently been called the most powerful woman in the world and the de facto leader of the European Union.
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Angela Merkel becomes Chancellor of Germany
On the evening of November 21, 1934, a young and gangly would-be dancer took to the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater to participate in a harrowing tradition known as Amateur Night. The performer in question was a teenaged Ella Fitzgerald, whose last minute decision to sing rather than dance on this day in 1934 set her on a course toward becoming a musical legend.
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Ella Fitzgerald wins Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater
The American whaler Essex, which hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, is attacked by an 80-ton sperm whale 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America on this day in 1820.
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American vessel sunk by sperm whale
70 is the new 50!
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Once a hall for operettas, pantomime, political meetings, and vaudeville, the Folies Bergère in Paris introduces an elaborate revue featuring women in sensational costumes on this day in 1886. The highly popular “Place aux Jeunes” established the Folies as the premier nightlife spot in Paris. In the 1890s, the Folies followed the Parisian taste for striptease and quickly gained a reputation for its spectacular shows.
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Folies Bergère stages first revue
Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state on this day in 1947.
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U.N. votes for partition of Palestine
Tawana Brawley is found covered with feces and wrapped in garbage bags outside the Pavilion Condominiums in Wappingers Falls, New York on this day in 1987. Brawley appeared to have undergone an extremely traumatic experience.
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A media controversy ignites over the case of Tawana Brawley
On November 27, 1911, Elizabeth Jaffray, a White House housekeeper, writes in her diary about a conversation she’d had with President William Howard Taft and his wife about the commander in chief’s ever-expanding waistline. Taft’s 5′ 11″ frame carried anywhere between 270 pounds and 340 pounds over the course of his adult life.
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White House housekeeper frets over William Howard Taft’s waistline
On November 26, 1862, Oxford mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson sends a handwritten manuscript called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.
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"Alice in Wonderland" manuscript is sent as a Christmas present
On this day in 1933, a federal judge rules that Ulysses by James Joyce is not obscene. The book had been banned immediately in both the United States and England when it came out in 1922. Three years earlier, its serialization in an American review had been cut short by the U.S. Post Office for the same reason. Fortunately, one of James’ supporters, Sylvia Beach, owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Co. in Paris, published the novel herself in 1922.
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“Ulysses” is ruled not obscene
At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.
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Aircraft squadron disappears in the Bermuda Triangle
“Dapper Dan” Hogan, a St. Paul, Minnesota saloonkeeper and mob boss, is killed on December 4, 1928 when someone plants a car bomb under the floorboards of his new Paige coupe. Doctors worked all day to save him, but Hogan slipped into a coma and died at around 9 p.m. His murder is still unsolved.
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“Irish Godfather” killed by car bomb in St. Paul
Eleven people, including three high-school students, died from asphyxiation. on December 3, 1979, when a crowd of general-admission ticket-holders to a Cincinnati Who concert surged forward in an attempt to enter Riverfront Coliseum and secure prime unreserved seats inside.
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Eleven people killed in a stampede outside Who concert in Cincinnati, Ohio
On this day in 1991, opening testimony takes place in the highly publicized rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Smith, then a 30-year-old medical student at Georgetown University, was accused of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old Florida woman.
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William Kennedy Smith’s rape trial begins
Frank Sinatra Jr., who was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe, California, on December 8, is allowed to talk to his father briefly. The 19-year-old was abducted at gunpoint from his hotel room at Harrah’s Casino and taken to California’s San Fernando Valley. After the brief conversation between father and son, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $240,000.
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Frank Sinatra Jr. endures a frightening ordeal
On December 9, 1979, a commission of scientists declare that smallpox has been eradicated. The disease, which carries around a 30 percent chance of death for those who contract it, is the only infectious disease afflicting humans that has officially been eradicated.
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Smallpox is officially declared eradicated
On December 8, 1940, the Chicago Bears trounce the Washington Redskins in the National Football League (NFL) Championship by a score of 73-0, the largest margin of defeat in NFL history.
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Bears beat Redskins 73-0 in NFL Championship game
On December 7, 1993, Colin Ferguson opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train from New York City, killing 6 and injuring 19. Other train passengers stopped the perpetrator by tackling and holding him down. Ferguson later attributed the shooting spree to his deep-seated hatred of white people.
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Shooter opens fire on Long Island Railroad train
On this day in 1933, a federal judge rules that Ulysses by James Joyce is not obscene. The book had been banned immediately in both the United States and England when it came out in 1922. Three years earlier, its serialization in an American review had been cut short by the U.S. Post Office for the same reason. Fortunately, one of James’ supporters, Sylvia Beach, owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Co. in Paris, published the novel herself in 1922.
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“Ulysses” is ruled not obscene
At 2:10 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.
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Aircraft squadron disappears in the Bermuda Triangle
The Apollo lunar-landing program ends on December 19, 1972, when the last three astronauts to travel to the moon splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean. Apollo 17 had lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 10 days before.
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Last lunar-landing mission ends
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John Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires, is executed in Pennsylvania on this day in 1878. The Molly Maguires, an Irish secret society that had allegedly been responsible for some incidences of vigilante justice in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, are often regarded as one of the first organized labor groups.
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Last member of Irish secret society is executed
Frank Sinatra Jr., who was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe, California, on December 8, is allowed to talk to his father briefly. The 19-year-old was abducted at gunpoint from his hotel room at Harrah’s Casino and taken to California’s San Fernando Valley. After the brief conversation between father and son, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $240,000.
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Frank Sinatra Jr. endures a frightening ordeal
On December 9, 1979, a commission of scientists declare that smallpox has been eradicated. The disease, which carries around a 30 percent chance of death for those who contract it, is the only infectious disease afflicting humans that has officially been eradicated.
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Smallpox is officially declared eradicated
On December 8, 1940, the Chicago Bears trounce the Washington Redskins in the National Football League (NFL) Championship by a score of 73-0, the largest margin of defeat in NFL history.
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Bears beat Redskins 73-0 in NFL Championship game
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Christmas at Rike's
On December 24, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge touches a button and lights up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds.
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President Coolidge lights first national Christmas tree
On December 23, 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cuts off the lower part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France. He later documented the event in a painting titled Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.
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Vincent van Gogh chops off his ear
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Support Dogs
On December 22, 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, is led before a firing squad and prepared for execution. He had been convicted and sentenced to death on November 16 for allegedly taking part in antigovernment activities. However, at the last moment he was reprieved and sent into exile.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky spared from execution
Wealthy socialite Martha “Sunny” Crawford von Bulow is found in a coma—the result of what appeared to be an insulin overdose—on the bathroom floor of her Newport, Rhode Island, mansion. Following a long investigation, Sunny’s husband, Claus von Bulow, was charged with two counts of attempted murder and was convicted in a sensational trial in 1982. But the conviction was later overturned, and Claus was acquitted at a second trial in 1985.
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Socialite Sunny von Bulow is found comatose
James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City on this day in 1853. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States.
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Southern U.S. border established
On December 29, 1890, in the final chapter of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
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U.S. Army massacres Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee
On December 28, 1895, the world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. On this day, the entrepreneurial siblings screened a series of short scenes from everyday French life and charged admission for the first time.
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First commercial movie screened
On December 27, 1904, the play Peter Pan, by James Barrie, opens at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.
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J.M. Barrie's play "Peter Pan" opens in London
The first day of the first Kwanzaa is celebrated in Los Angeles on this day in 1966 under the direction of Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. The seven-day holiday, which has strong African roots, was designed by Dr. Karenga as a celebration of African American family, community, and culture.
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The first Kwanzaa
“White Christmas” took its first steps toward becoming a bedrock standard in the American songbook when Bing Crosby first performed it publicly on Christmas Day, 1941. The song’s success couldn’t have surprised Berlin, who had raced into his Manhattan office in January 1940 and asked his musical secretary to transcribe “The best song I ever wrote…the best song anybody ever wrote.” It was nearly two years later, however, that Crosby finally premiered the song on live radio, and a year after that that Crosby’s recording of “White Christmas” became a smash pop hit.
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Bing Crosby introduces “White Christmas” to the world
On January 5, 1531, Pope Clement VII sends a letter to King Henry VIII of England forbidding him to remarry under penalty of excommunication. Henry, who was looking for a way out of his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, ignored the pope's warning. He went on to marry Anne Boleyn (and four subsequent wives), leading to his excommunication and one of the most significant schisms in the history of Christianity.
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Pope Clement VII forbids King Henry VIII from remarrying
New Year's Day is the dawn of a new era in Europe, as 11 nations adopt a single currency, the euro, on this day in 1999. Now the official currency of 19 members of the European Union, as well as the nations of Kosovo and Montenegro, the euro's introduction had a profound effect on the global economy and was a watershed moment in the continent’s history.
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The euro debuts
Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini did not become the dictator of a totalitarian regime overnight. For several years, he and his allies worked more or less within the confines of the Italian constitution to accrue power, eroding democratic institutions until the moment came for them to be done away with entirely. In a speech Mussolini gave to the Italian parliament on January 3, 1925, he asserted his right to supreme power and effectively became the dictator of Italy.
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Benito Mussolini declares himself dictator of Italy
On January 2, 1958, celebrated soprano Maria Callas walks off after the first act of a gala performance of Bellini’s Norma in Rome, claiming illness. The president of Italy and most of Rome’s high society were in the audience, and Callas, known for her volatile temperament, was sharply criticized.
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Opera star Maria Callas walks out of performance
Happy New Year!
On January 1, 1994, one of the largest and most significant trade pacts in world history comes into effect. The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico removed most of the trade barriers between the three countries.
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The North American Free Trade Agreement comes into effect
After eight years as president of the United States, Ronald Reagan gives his farewell address to the American people on this day in 1989. In his speech, President Reagan spoke with particular enthusiasm about the foreign policy achievements of his administration.
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President Reagan gives his farewell address
Franklin James, the lesser-known older brother of Jesse, is born on this day in 1843 in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse James were both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because of his more dramatically violent death.
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Outlaw Frank James born in Missouri
Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, takes his place on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on January 8, 1978. The first and, for years, most visible openly gay politician in America, Milk was a longtime activist and pioneering leader of San Francisco’s LGBT community.
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Harvey Milk becomes the first openly gay person elected to public office in California
Congress sets January 7, 1789 as the date by which states are required to choose electors for the country's first-ever presidential election. A month later, on February 4, George Washington was elected president by state electors and sworn into office on April 30, 1789.
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First U.S. presidential election
After a bitterly contested election, Vice President Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress that certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 election on this day in 2001. In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner more than five weeks after the election due to the disputed Florida ballots.
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Congress certifies George W. Bush winner of 2000 elections
The inspiration came from the Beatles, the financing came from Screen Gems, the music came from Don Kirshner and on January 17, 1966, the National Broadcasting Corporation ordered 32 episodes of The Monkees for its upcoming fall schedule.
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NBC greenlights “The Monkees”
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes,” is ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919.
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Prohibition is ratified by the states
Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on January 15, 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of the city.
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Great Boston Molasses Flood
On January 14, 1784, the Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence. In the document, which was known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.
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Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution
On January 13, 1128, Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God. The Knights Templar's self-imposed mission was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to and from the Holy Land during the Crusades, the series of military expeditions aimed at defeating Muslims in Palestine.
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Pope recognizes Knights Templar
An international panel overseeing the restoration of the Great Pyramids in Egypt overcomes years of frustration when it abandons modern construction techniques in favor of the method employed by the ancient Egyptians, on this day in 1984. Restoration of the pyramids proved destructive when water in modern cement caused adjacent limestone stones to split.
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Pyramid mystery unearthed
The day after her unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Madeline Albright is sworn in as America’s first female secretary of state by Vice President Al Gore at the White House. As head of the U.S. State Department, Albright was the highest ranking female official in U.S. history, a distinction that led some to declare that the “glass ceiling” preventing the ascension of women in government had been lifted.
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Madeline Albright becomes first female secretary of state
The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.
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Queen Victoria dies
One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris on this day in 1793.
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King Louis XVI executed
One of America’s most beloved actresses, Audrey Hepburn, dies on January 20, 1993, near her home in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 63-year-old Hepburn had undergone surgery for colon cancer the previous November.
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Actress Audrey Hepburn dies
On this day in 1977, President Gerald R. Ford pardons the woman that became synonymous with Tokyo Rose, Iva Toguri. On the orders of the Japanese government, American-born Toguri and other women broadcast sentimental American music and phony announcements regarding U.S. troop losses in a vain attempt to destroy the morale of Allied soldiers.
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President Ford pardons Tokyo Rose
On January 18, 1958, hockey player Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins takes to the ice for a game against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first Black to play in the National Hockey League (NHL).
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NHL is integrated
John Burgoyne, poet, playwright and British general, submits an ill-fated plan to the British government to isolate New England from the other colonies on January 28, 1777.
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British plan to isolate New England
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops enter Auschwitz, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps—and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors perpetrated there.
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Auschwitz is liberated
The first Prohibition law in the history of the United States is passed in Tennessee on this day in 1838, making it a misdemeanor to sell alcoholic beverages in taverns and stores. The bill stated that all persons convicted of retailing “spirituous liquors” would be fined at the “discretion of the court” and that the fines would be used in support of public schools.
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Tennessee passes nation’s first prohibition law
The first Emmy Awards ceremony is held on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The awards recognize excellence in television (which in the 1940s was a novel medium).
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First Emmy Awards ceremony
Larry Nassar, a former doctor at Michigan State and for USA Gymnastics, is sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexual assault on January 24, 2018. Nassar was found guilty of using his position in sports medicine to abuse hundreds of women and girls. The scandal resulted not only in his imprisonment, likely for the rest of his life, but also criticism of the institutions that failed to detect and respond to his behavior.
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Larry Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics, is sentenced to prison for sexual assault
The day after her unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Madeline Albright is sworn in as America’s first female secretary of state by Vice President Al Gore at the White House. As head of the U.S. State Department, Albright was the highest ranking female official in U.S. history, a distinction that led some to declare that the “glass ceiling” preventing the ascension of women in government had been lifted.
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Madeline Albright becomes first female secretary of state
On February 3, 2005, Alberto Gonzales wins Senate confirmation as the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general despite protests over his record on torture.
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Alberto Gonzales becomes first Hispanic U.S. attorney general
On February 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into its burrow, predicting six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.
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First Groundhog Day
February 1, 1884: The first portion, or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Today, the OED is the definitive authority on the meaning, pronunciation and history of over half a million English words, past and present.
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Oxford Dictionary debuts
On January 31, 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
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House passes the 13th Amendment
On January 30, 1956, an unidentified white supremacist terrorist bombed the Montgomery home of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. No one was harmed, but the explosion outraged the community and was a major test of King’s steadfast commitment to non-violence.
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Martin Luther King, Jr.'s home is bombed
Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” beginning “Once upon a midnight dreary,” is published on this day in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror.
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“The Raven” is published
On February 9, 1960, the official groundbreaking ceremony is held for the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The first star to be dedicated on the historic walkway belonged to the actress Joanne Woodward, an Academy Award winner for The Three Faces of Eve (1957).
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Joanne Woodward earns first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
A classic “Nor’easter” storm that brought a severe blizzard to New England finally subsides on February 8, 1978, and the region begins to dig out from under several feet of snow. Over the previous 72 hours, some areas of Rhode Island and Massachusetts had received as many as 55 inches of snow.
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New England digs out after blizzard
In London on February 7, 1775, Benjamin Franklin publishes "An Imaginary Speech" in defense of American courage. Franklin’s speech was intended to counter an unnamed officer’s comments to Parliament that the British need not fear the colonial rebels, because “Americans are unequal to the People of this Country [Britain] in Devotion to Women, and in Courage, and worse than all, they are religious.”
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Benjamin Franklin publishes “An Imaginary Speech”
On this day in 1820, the first organized immigration of freed enslaved people to Africa from the United States departs New York harbor on a journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The immigration was largely the work of the American Colonization Society, a U.S. organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to return formerly enslaved African people to Africa.
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Freed U.S. slaves depart on journey to Africa
On February 5, 1994, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith is convicted in the murder of African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers, over 30 years after the crime occurred. Evers was gunned down in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi, home on June 12, 1963, while his wife, Myrlie, and the couple’s three small children were inside.
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This Day in History
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Disposable Face Mask vs. Cloth Face Mask: Which is Better?
On February 15, 1933, a deranged, unemployed brick layer named Giuseppe Zangara shouts "Too many people are starving!" and fires a gun at America’s president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt. He escaped injury but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was also in attendance, received a mortal stomach wound in the attack.
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FDR escapes assassination attempt in Miami
On February 14, 1988, U.S. speed skater Dan Jansen, a favorite to win the gold medal in the 500-meter race at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, falls during competition, only hours after learning his sister had died of cancer. Jansen suffered disappointment after disappointment in the Olympics, earning him a reputation as “the heartbreak kid,” before he finally captured an Olympic gold medal in 1994.
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Olympic speed skater Dan Jansen falls after sister dies
Happy Valentines Day!
On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the “Florence of the Elbe” to rubble and flames, and killing roughly 25,000 people. Despite the horrendous scale of destruction, it arguably accomplished little strategically, since the Germans were already on the verge of surrender.
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Firebombing of Dresden
On February 12, 1909, the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, a group that included African American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett announced the formation of a new organization. Called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it would have a profound effect on the struggle for civil rights and the course of 20th Century American history.
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The NAACP is founded
On this day in 1858 in southern France, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a 14-year-old French peasant girl, first claims to have seen the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and a central figure in the Roman Catholic religion. The apparitions, which totaled 18 before the end of the year, occurred in a grotto of a rock promontory near Lourdes, France.
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Virgin Mary appears to St. Bernadette
On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London. The political pamphlet–arguably the most influential in history–proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever.
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Karl Marx publishes Communist Manifesto
On February 20, 1998, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski wins the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, and becomes the youngest gold medalist in her sport.
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Tara Lipinski becomes youngest Olympic figure skating gold medalist
The technology that made the modern music business possible came into existence in the New Jersey laboratory where Thomas Edison created the first device to both record sound and play it back. He was awarded U.S. Patent No. 200,521 for his invention—the phonograph—on February 19, 1878.
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Thomas Edison patents the phonograph
On February 18, 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr., considered one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, dies at the age of 49 in a last-lap crash at the 43rd Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida. Earnhardt was vying for third place when he collided with another car, then crashed into a wall. After being cut from his car, Earnhardt was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead of head injuries.
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Dale Earnhardt killed in crash
On February 17, 1801, Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States. The election constitutes the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in the United States.
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Thomas Jefferson is elected third U.S. president
Strongly supported by western mining interests and farmers, the Bland-Allison Act—which provided for a return to the minting of silver coins—becomes the law of the land on this day in 1878.
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Silver dollars made legal
On February 27, 1936, Shirley Temple receives a new contract from 20th Century Fox that will pay the seven-year-old star $50,000 per film. She was born in 1928 in Santa Monica, California, and started appearing in a series of short films spoofing current movies, called Baby Burlesks, at the age of four.
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Shirley Temple receives $50,000 per film
In a controversial move that inspires charges of eastern domination of the West, the Congress establishes Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. It is home to some of the most stunning alpine scenery in the United States.
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Grand Teton National Park is established
image by Manuel Barroso Parejo @lute3d via unsplash
On February 25, 1862, the U.S. Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper notes to pay the government’s bills. This ended the long-standing policy of using only gold or silver in transactions, and it allowed the government to finance the enormously costly Civil War long after its gold and silver reserves were depleted.
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Legal Tender Act passed to help finance the Civil War
Juan Domingo Perón, the controversial former vice president of Argentina, is elected president on this day in 1946.
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Juan Perón elected in Argentina
On February 23, 1954, a group of children from Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, receive the first injections of the new polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk.
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Children receive first polio vaccine
On the morning of March 4, Private Albert Gitchell reports to the hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat, fever and headache. By noon, over 100 of his fellow soldiers had reported similar symptoms, marking what are believed to be the first cases in the historic influenza pandemic of 1918, later known as Spanish flu. The flu would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and an estimated 20 million to 50 million people around the world.
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First cases reported in deadly Spanish flu pandemic
A DC-10 jet crashes into a forest outside of Paris, France, killing all 346 people on board, on March 3, 1974. The poor design of the plane, as well as negligent maintenance, contributed to the disaster.
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Faulty door dooms plane
On this day in 1972, Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet. In December 1973, after successfully negotiating the asteroid belt and a distance of 620 million miles, Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter and sent back to Earth the first close-up images of the spectacular gas giant.
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Pioneer 10 launched to Jupiter
Two trains are swept into a canyon by an avalanche in Wellington, Washington, on March 1, 1910, killing 96 people. Due to the remote location of the disaster and the risk of further avalanches, efforts to rescue survivors and find the bodies of the dead were not completed until several days later.
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Trains buried by avalanche
On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The most momentous award that night undoubtedly went to Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of “Mammy”. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar.
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Hattie McDaniel Becomes First African American Actress To Win Oscar
On February 28, 1983, the celebrated sitcom M*A*S*H bows out after 11 seasons, airing a special two-and-a-half hour episode watched by 77 percent of the television viewing audience. It was the largest percentage ever to watch a single TV show up to that time.
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Final episode of M*A*S*H airs
