Category: Today

September 5

1924 – Paterfamilias Fortis is born in the area near Pontiac, Missouri.

2024 – Having been the elder and eldest living member of both sides of his families for several years, Paterfamilas Fortis is feted as the first ever to make it to the century mark.

Yep, today is Pop’s 100th birthday.
Family and friends will be at the party.
See you all tomorrow.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Christus resurrexit! Vere resurrexit!

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

While most of the western churches use the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date, our Orthodox friends, and some others, use the Julian calendar, so this year they celebrate this Sunday, May 5th as Easter Sunday.

---

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28:

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.
And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.
So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

On this day, 248 years ago, the government attempted to confiscate the firearms of the citizens of two backwater farming communities in Massachusetts.

The response was the “shot heard around the world” at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The British officer in command of the field in Lexington and Concord (Major John Pitcairn), would be felled within two months at the Battle of Breed’s Hill (also called Bunker Hill). Felled by a shot fired by a freed slave, Peter Salem.

Exemplifying James Burgh’s earlier observation: “The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.” Although the English Constitution of 1689 enumerated the Rights of Englishmen to keep and bear arms, practical history has shown that we only have the Rights that we are willing to fight.

Currently, the UK is mostly disarmed, and engaged in “knife turn-ins” while police conduct “weapons sweeps” of residences, confiscating hammers, screw drivers, and anything a wild imagination can determine to be a weapon. Despite these measures, the violent crime rate, (stabbing sprees, acid attacks, assaults, home invasions) now exceed that of NYC (despite the differences in reporting), despite the lack of firearms that were already turned in a generation ago.

It is the character of the individual that society produces, not the tools that those individuals employ. It is also the character of the individuals in government who either seek to empower the individual to self defense, or seek to operantly condition society to be defenseless against aggression, that matters.

We can be a nation of Minutemen, rising to the occasion to aid our fellow man in defense, or we can be a nation of sheep, always in need of protection by government programs to provide a “sense” of safety, while providing a reality of servitude. “Both Oligarch and Tyrant mistrust the People and therefore deprive them of their Arms” -Aristotle

April 1, 2024

April

Middle English April “April,” from early French avrill and Latin APRILIS

The name was given to the month by the ancient Romans. No one knows for certain why the Romans named it as they did. Some Roman authors, and my high school Latin teacher thought that Aprilis was related to the Latin verb aperire meaning “to open” because April “opened” the buds of leaves and flowers, and where we get the medical word ‘aperient’ which means a laxative.

Another theory is that the name was based on Apru, an Etruscan form of the name of the Greek goddess Aphrodite.

December 31

1229 – James I, King of Aragon, enters Palma, Spain, completing the retaking of Majorca island during the Reconquista.

1744 – English astronomer James Bradley announces discovery of Earth’s nutation motion or wobble in its rotation.

1775 – During the Revolutionary War, British forces repulse an attack on Quebec by the Continental Army forces under General Richard Montgomery.

1796 – Baltimore, Maryland is incorporated.

1862 – President Lincoln signs an act enabling the admission of West Virginia as a state in the Union, partitioning Virginia.

1878 – Karl Benz, in Mannheim, Germany, files a patent on his 2 stroke internal combustion engine

1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1907 – The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square,  Manhattan.

1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.

1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion in a year.

1959 – AK Church is born somewhere in eastern Oklahoma.

1983 – The federal consent decree for divestiture into regional independent operating companies of the AT&T Bell System comes into effect.

1991 – All official Soviet institutions are confirmed to have ceased operations in the former Soviet Union

1992 – Czechoslovakia is dissolved into the Czech and the Slovak Republics.

1999 –  Under terms of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaty, the U.S. cedes control of the Panama Canal and Canal Zone to Panama.

2000 – The last day of the 20th Century and 2nd Millennium.

2010 –  A total of 36 tornadoes touch down in Arkansas, Illinois, and Oklahoma, killing 9 people and causing $113 million in damages.

2019 – The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan, China, later classified as SARS COVID-19

2020 – The World Health Organization issues its first emergency use authorization – EUA – for a COVID-19 vaxx.

December 30

534 – The second and final edition of the Code of Justinian comes into effect in the Byzantine Empire

1066 –  A moslem mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city.

1813 – British soldiers burn Buffalo New York  during the War of 1812

1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States and the united Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi Indian tribes is ratified, ceding land between Lake Michigan and the Illinois river.

1825 – The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States and the Shawnee Nation is ratified, ceding land around Cape Girardeau Missouri

1853 – The United States completes the Gadsden Purchase, buying land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.

1890 – Following the Wounded Knee Massacre, Lakota warriors engage U.S. Army troops near White Clay Creek approximately 15 miles  north of Pine Ridge where it was reported that the Lakota had burned the Drexel Mission Church.

1903 – A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois kills at least 605 people.

1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.

1972 – The United States halts mission Linebacker II, the heavy bombing of North Vietnam when Hanoi agrees to return to peace negotiations

1990 – Chief Warrant 4, Gene E, Barner, Missouri National Guard dies, age 51, at home, of cancer.

2006 – Former President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging

2009 – A suicide bomber kills 9 people at Forward Operating Base Chapman, in Afghanistan.

December 29

1170 – Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II

1607 – According to John Smith, Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan leader Wahunsenacawh, successfully pleads for his life after tribal leaders attempt to kill him.

1778 – During the Revolutionary War, 3000 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.

1812 – The USS Constitution, under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures HMS Java off the coast of Brazil

1835 – The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee tribe east of the Mississippi River to the United States.

1845 – In accordance with the International Boundary Delimitation, the United States annexes the Republic of Texas, following the manifest destiny doctrine and is admitted as the 28th state.

1876 – A railroad bridge over the Ashtabula River northeast of Cleveland collapses while the Pacific Express of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway passes over it, killing 92 of the 160 passengers and crew aboard.

1890 – On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota, 300 Lakota and 31 Army soldiers are killed in battle near Wounded Knee creek when the U.S. troops attempt to disarm the camp.

1934 – Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 which limited construction of warships and begins to rearm.

1939 – The  prototype of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber makes its first flight.

1949 – KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra High Frequency television station to operate a daily schedule on UHF channel 24.

1970- The Occupational Safety and Health Act is signed into law by President Nixon, creating bureaucrapacy OSHA

1972 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, crashes in the Florida Everglades on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101 of the 176 passengers and crew aboard.

1975 – A bomb placed by unknown terrorists explodes at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 74.

2018 – The lowest recorded temperature of -111C (-167F) is registered by the NOAA-20 satellite in the western Pacific at top of a large storm system.

December 28

1612- Galileo observes and records a “fixed star” without realizing it is planet Neptune

1732 – Benjamin Franklin under the pseudonym Richard Saunders begins publication of “Poor Richard’s Almanack”

1832 – After being elected Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun becomes the 1st Vice President of the United States to resign.

1835 – Osceola leads the Seminoles into the 2nd Seminole War against the United States.

1846 – Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.

1895 – Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper in the journal of the Würzburg Physical Medical Society, about his discovery in November of a new type of radiation. Since it was of a type unknown to him, he refers to it as X radiation, which radiated X-rays.

1902 – The Syracuse Athletic Club defeat the New York Philadelphians, 5–0, in the first indoor professional football game, held at Madison Square Garden.

1912 – San Francisco starts the first municipal owned streetcar service

1967 – American businesswoman Muriel Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

1948 – The Airborne Transport Airlines DC-3 NC16002 enroute from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida, with 32 passengers and crew aboard disappears after the pilot’s last radio contact, some 50 mi south of Miami within the ‘Bermuda Triangle’

1973 – The Endangered Species Act is signed into law by President Nixon.

1978 – United Airlines Flight 173, a McDonnell Douglas DC, runs out of fuel on final approach to landing and crashes in a residential neighborhood near Portland International Airport, killing 10 of the 189 passengers and crew aboard.

1987 – After earlier shooting, strangling and drowning 14 relatives at his home near Dover, Arkansas, Ronald Gene Simmons, shoots and kills 2 and wounds 4 more people at former places of employment before surrendering to police. Later he is sentenced to death and executed in 1990.

1999 – Clayton “The Lone Ranger” Moore, dies, age 85 at West Hills Hospital, California.

2021 – Former Senator Harry Reid, dies, age 82, at his home in Henderson, Nevada.

December 27

537 – The construction of the second Hagia Sophia Church, the first being destroyed 5 years earlier, in Constantinople is completed.

1512 – The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.

1657 – The residents (none of them Quakers but conscientious of tolerance) of the small settlement of Flushing, (now the Flushing neighborhood in Queens, New York) petition Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, for an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship, which is considered as the first time in North American history that freedom of religion is put forth as a fundamental right.

1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
Journalist John L. O’Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country “by the right of our manifest destiny”.

1929 – Soviet General Secretary Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” in Russia, and beginning the ‘Holodomor‘ in Ukraine.

1932 – Radio City Music Hall opens in New York City.

1968 – Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.

1979 – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. Interesting that the cost of the invasion and occupation and later retreat is considered a prime cause of the Soviet collapse a decade later.

1985 – Moslem terrorists kill 18 people inside the airports of Rome and Vienna.

2004 – Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar neutron star SGR 1806-20 in the constellation of Sagittarius, reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.

2012 – General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. dies, age 78, at Tampa, Florida.

2016 – Actress Carrie Fishe dies, age 60, at the UCLA Medical Center, after suffering from a cardiac arrest while flying from London to Los Angeles, 4 days earlier.

December 26

1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performances of his first Christmas Cantata; Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes,  – For this the Son of God appeared – in the 2 main churches in Leipzig; Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche

1776 – Successfully crossing the Delaware river under cover of darkness during Christmas night, troops of the Continental Army under General Washington attack and defeat a garrison of Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.

1799 – Representative Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III’s Eulogy to George Washington in Congress Assembled, declares him as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen”

1811 – A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills 72 people among them, the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and former Senator, Abraham B. Venable.

1862 – Four nuns serving as volunteer nurses on board USS Red Rover are the first female nurses on a U.S. Navy hospital ship.

1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.

1941 – President Roosevelt signs a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

1944 – The U.S. 3rd Army’s 4th Armored Division, under General George Patton breaks the encirclement of surrounded U.S. forces at Bastogne, Belgium.

1972 – During Operation Linebacker II, 120 American B-52 Stratofortress bombers attack Hanoi, including 78 launched from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the largest single combat launch in Strategic Air Command history.

1989 – United Express Flight 2415, a BAe Jetstream 31, crashes on approach to the Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, Washington, killing all 6 passengers and crew on board.

1991 – The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union

1994 – Four armed moslem hijackers seize control of Air France Flight 8969. When the plane lands at Marseille, a French Gendarmerie assault team boards the aircraft and kills them.

1996 – JonBenét Ramsey is found murdered in the basement of her home in Boulder Colorado.

2004 – A 9.3 Mw  earthquake in the Indian Ocean hits northern Sumatra and causes one of the largest observed tsunamis, affecting coastal Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, killing over 227,000 people.

2015 – A tornado outbreak strikes the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, with multiple tornadoes from EF2 to EF4 power, killing 12 people and causing heavy damage to the suburb of Rowlett.

 

December 25

~4BC – Forced to stay in the equivalent of a modern stable due to all the inns in the city of Bethlehem being full up because of a census and taxing ordered by the Romans, Mariam, the wife of Yosef ben Yakov gives birth to a son they name Yeshua.

336 – Christmas is  celebrated in Rome for the first time.

508 – Clovis I, King of the Franks, is baptized at Reims, France by Bishop Remigius.

597 – Augustine of Canterbury baptizes more than 10,000 Anglo Saxons at Kent, England.

800 – Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor at the ‘Old’ St. Peter’s Basilica in  Rome

1000 – Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by King Stephen I

1025 – Mieszko II Lambert is crowned king of Poland at the Gniezno Cathedral

1046 – Henry III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor at ‘Old’ St. Peter’s Basilica in  Rome

1066 – William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey

1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem.

1130 – Count Roger II is crowned the first King of Sicily at Palermo.

1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage, the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.

1776 – George Washington leads 2400 members of the Continental Army across the Delaware River, Christmas night to attack Hessian mercenary forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.

1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.

1868 – President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.

1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command as Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Fleet.

1968 – Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.

1989 – Deposed Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are arrested, condemned to death after a summary trial, and executed by firing squad.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union.

2020 – Anthony Quinn Warner blows himself and his RV to bits in downtown Nashville, Tennessee injuring 8 more people.

2021 – NASA launches thehe James Webb Space Telescope

December 24

1144 – The capital of the crusader County of Edessa, in modern southeastern Turkey, falls to Imad ad-Din Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo.

1777 – Christmas Island in the Gilbert archipelago – Kiritimati, as pronounced by the native populace – is named such by James Cook during his 3rd voyage

1814 – Representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

1818 – The first performance of “Silent Night” composed by Franz Xaver Gruber takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.

1877  – Thomas Edison files for a patent for the cylinder phonograph.

1914 – During the first winter of World War I, the “Christmas Truce” begins.

1942 –  The first V-1 ‘buzz bomb’, is launched at Peenemunde, Germany

1943 – U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named Supreme Allied Commander for the Invasion of Normandy.

1968 – Firing the Apollo 8 Service Module main engine, the crew becomes the first humans to reach the moon and enter into Lunar orbit.

1973 – The District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.

1996 – A Learjet 35 crashes into Smarts Mountain near Dorchester, New Hampshire, killing both pilots on board and resulting in the longest missing aircraft search in the state’s history, lasting almost three years.

 

December 23

1688 – During the ‘Glorious Revolution’, King James II of England flees from England to Paris, after being deposed in favor of his nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.

1783 – After the end the War of Independence, and his victory/farewell dinner in New York, General George Washington resigns as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

1913 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System.

1936 – Colombia becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1941 – After 15 days of fighting, the U.S. garrison on Wake Island is finally forced to surrender to the Japanese Army

1947 – The properties of the transistor are first demonstrated by its inventors at Bell Laboratories.

1948 – Convicted of war crimes during World War 2 by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East; Akira Mutō, Hideki Tojo, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Kenji Doihara and Kōki Hirota are executed by hanging at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, Japan.

1954 – The first successful kidney transplant is performed by J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray between the identical twins, Ronald and Richard Herrick, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

1968 – The 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo are released after 11 months of captivity in North Korea.

1970 – The North Tower (Tower 1) of the World Trade Center in Manhattan is topped out at 1,368 feet, making it the tallest building in the world at the time.

1979 – Invading Soviet Union forces occupy the Afghanistan capital, Kabul.

1986 – Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, piloting Voyager, land at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first to fly an aircraft non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.

2002 – A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement between a drone and conventional aircraft.

2013 – Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, inventor of the Soviet AK-47 rifle, dies, age 94, in hospital at the Udmurtian medical facility in Izhevsk, Russia

December 22

1489 – Nearing the finish of the Reconquista , the forces of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille, seize the port city of Almería from the Nasrid ruler of Granada, Muhammad XIII.

1807 – Replacing the 1806 Non importation Act, the 1807 Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by Congress

1891 – Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using astrophotography by Max Wolf, at the Heidelberg University Observatory.

1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel,  connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to  Manhattan opens to traffic.

1944 – German troops surrounding U.S. troops in and around Bastogne, Belgium, receive a one word reply to their surrender demand from the American commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe; “Nuts!”
Elsewhere; Supported by the American OSS, the People’s Army of Vietnam is formed by Hồ Chí Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp to resist Japanese occupation of Indochina.

1964 – The SR-71 Blackbird makes its first test flight at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.

1975 – President Ford creates the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to the 1973 oil embargo by the arabian members of  OPEC.

1984 – Bernhard Goetz shoots four muggers on an express train in Manhattan.

1989 – The Brandenburg Gate reopens, ending the division of East and West Berlin.

1996 – Airborne Express Flight 827, a Douglas DC-8, crashes near Narrows, Virginia, killing all 6 passengers and crew on board.

2001 – Aboard American Airlines Flight 63, Richard Reid attempts to destroy the airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes and is ‘subdued’ by passengers when the bomb fails to go off.

2008 – An ash dike ruptures at a waste retaining pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing over 1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry into the Emory and Clinch Rivers.

2010 – The repeal of the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell‘ policy, the 17 year old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, enacted by President Bill Clinton, is signed into law by President Barack Hussein Obama.
Just me, but I see a connection here. Could it be demoncraps?

2018 – A tsunami caused by an eruption of Anak Krakatau, part of the remains of Krakatoa, kills 430 people and injures many more

December 21

69 – The Roman Senate declares Vespasian emperor of Rome, the last in the Year of the Four Emperors where the preceding 3 were either murdered or committed suicide during a civil war among themselves after they had deposed Emperor Nero.

1361 – During the Spanish Reconquista, the combined army of the Kingdom of Castile and of the Bishop of Jaén defeat the forces of the Emirate of Granada in battle at the city of Huesa.

1605 – The Spanish Queirós Expedition departs Callao, Peru, led by Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in attempt to find the legendary continent Terra Australis but instead reaching Espíritu Santo and other Vanuatu islands.

1620 – William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1784 – In office as Chief Justice of the U.S. for only the past 2 months,  John Jay is also appointed U.S. Secretary of State.

1826 – American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.

1861 – Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

1872 –  The crew of HMS Challenger sails from Portsmouth, England on their voyage of exploration.

1913 – Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross”, is the first crossword puzzle published in the New York World newspaper.

1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Hollywood.

1945 – General George S. Patton dies in Heidelberg, Germany, age 60, 12 days after being injured in an automobile accident.

1949 – The movie, Samson and Delilah, directed and produced by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature, premieres in New York

1967 – Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a human to human heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the operation

1968 – Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to the Moon.

1970 – The first flight of Grumman F-14 Tomcat Navy fighter

1988 – A bomb placed by Libyan moslem terrorists explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew aboard and 11 more on the ground.

2004 – A suicide bomber kills 14 U.S. soldiers, 4 U.S. citizen Halliburton employees, 4  allied Iraqi soldiers and wounds 72 more at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, Iraq.

December 20

1192 – Richard the Lionheart of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after the Third Crusade.

1522 – After 6 months of siege by the fleet and army of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I, the Hospitaller Knights of Rhodes are forced to surrender, and are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle in Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.

1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.

1812 –  Sacagawea of the Shoshone tribe dies, age about 24, at the Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post in North Dakota.

1820 – Missouri imposes a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men aged between 21 & 50, which is only paid for 1 year before being repealed in January 1822.

1860 – South Carolina – of course, Fort Sumter being in Charleston harbor – becomes the first state to secede from the United States.

1915 – The last Australian troops are evacuated from Gallipoli during World War 1

1924 – Sentenced to 5 years in prison for being convicted of Treason for the ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ in Munich, Adolf Hitler is released from Landsberg Prison, after serving only 264 days.

1941 – The American Volunteer Group, better known as the “Flying Tigers” has their first engagement against Japanese forces in Kunming, China.

1951 – The EBR-1 reactor at the Argonnne West National Laboratory site near Arco, Idaho, becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity, powering four (4!) light bulbs before finally producing enough electricity to power the entire building.

1952 – A U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster, enroute from Larson Air Force Base, near Moses Lake, Washington to Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas as part of Operation Sleigh Ride, bringing servicemen fighting in the Korean War home for Christmas, crashes just after takeoff, killing 87 of the 115 passengers and crew aboard.

1957 – The first Boeing 707 production passenger jet rolls off the line.

1968 – The Zodiac Killer murders his first victims, Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.

1971 – The international aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières -Doctors Without Borders – is founded by Bernard Kouchner in Paris, France.

1989 – Beginning with troops of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the U.S. Army Ranger Regiment performing Combat Parachute Assaults at 01:00 hrs EST to capture the Rio Hato and Torrijos International Airports, U.S forces begin Operation Just Cause, invading Panama to depose Manuel Noriega.

1991 – A Missouri court sentences the Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria to death for the ‘honor killing’ of their daughter Palestina but both murderous parents later die in prison before execution of sentences.

1995 – American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia killing 159 of the 163 passengers and crew aboard.

2005 – The New York City’s Transport Workers Union Local 100 goes on strike over pension and wage increases, shutting down all subway and bus services for 3 days

2014  – Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley kills 2 NYPD officers in Brooklyn, New York, supposedly in revenge for the killing of Eric Garner, before killing himself

2019 – The United States Space Force becomes the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947.

2022 – A 6.4-magnitude earthquake near Eureka, northern California kills 2 people.

 

 

December 19

1606 – The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who found Jamestown, Virginia Colony

1675 – The militia of the English settlers of the villages of Kingston and West Kingston in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations are victorious against warriors of the Narragansett tribe during King Philip’s (Chief Metacomet ‘s Christian name) War in New England.

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis”.

1777 – The U.S. Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

1828 – Vice President John Calhoun sparks political crisis when he anonymously publishes the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, protesting the Tariff of 1828,  stating his view that a state has the right to reject federal law.

1871  – Albert L Jones of New York City patents corrugated paper

1907 – 239 coal miners die in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.

1932 – The BBC Empire Service, now called the World Service begins international broadcasting.

1946 – The First Indochina War between France and the Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh and the People’s Army of Vietnam begins

1950 – A Chinese invasion of Tibet forces the Tibetan spiritual leader Tenzin Gyatso, Gyalwa Rinpoche, the 14th Dalai Lama, to flee Lhasa for Yadong on the Tibetan-India border

1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned Moon landing mission to date, returns to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, 4 miles from the recovery ship, USS Ticonderoga

1974 – Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States

1984 – The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997 at the end of a 99 year lease, is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.

1995 – Having not been included under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Congress finally passes legislation recognizing the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi tribe in Athens Michigan.

1998 –The House of Representatives votes to impeach President Bill Clinton

2016 –Murdering the original driver, a moslem from Tunisia deliberately drives a truck  into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56 more.

December 18

1118 – During the Reconquista, the city of Zaragoza is retaken by the army of King Alfonso I of Aragon.

1271 – Kublai Khan renames his empire of Mongolia and China “Yuan” starting the Yuan dynasty .

1777 – The U.S. celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by Americans over British troops commanded by General John Burgoyne at Saratoga in October.

1787 – New Jersey becomes the 3rd state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1799 – George Washington is buried at Mount Vernon

1865 – Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the 13th  Amendment to the Constitution.

1892 –  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker opens in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

1917 – The 18th amendment to enact Prohibition is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL playoff game held to break a tie in the season’s final standings to win the NFL Championship at Chicago.

1944 – In the case of Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced removal and internment of Japanese Americans is constitutional and is not reversed as unconstitutional until 2018, in the case of Trump v. Hawaii.

1958 – Designed and built by  U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory,  the SCORE satellite–Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment – the world’s first purpose built communications satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral’s launch complex  LC-11

1966 – The Saturn moon Epimetheus is discovered by astronomer Richard Walker using the U.S. Naval Observatory – Flagstaff Station’s 61-inch Kaj Strand Astrometric Reflector telescope.

1972 –  President Nixon announces that the U.S. will begin Operation Linebacker II, bombing North Vietnam after peace talks collapse.

1977 – United Airlines Cargo Flight 2860,  a Douglas DC-8, enroute from San Francisco to Chicago, crashes near Kaysville, Utah, killing all 3 crew members on board.

1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying 5 Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

2016 – Zsa Zsa Gabor dies, age 99, from cardiac arrest at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

2017 – Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501 derails near DuPont, Washington, killing 6 people, and injuring 70 others.

2019 – The House of Representatives votes to impeach President Donald Trump