12-01-09 Today in History
USCC member Larry was born this date.
AP: Today is Thursday, Sept. 10, the 253rd day of 2009. There are 112 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Sept. 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Nazi Germany as Parliament acted at the behest of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
On this date:
In 1608, John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.
In 1813, an American naval force commanded by Oliver H. Perry defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.
In 1846, Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.
In 1919, New York City welcomed home Gen. John J. Pershing and 25,000 soldiers who’d served in the U.S. First Division during World War I.
In 1935, Sen. Huey P. Long, “The Kingfish” of Louisiana politics, died in Baton Rouge two days after being shot in the state Capitol.
In 1945, Vidkun Quisling was sentenced to death in Norway for collaborating with the Nazis (he was executed by firing squad the next month).
In 1963, 20 black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Governor George C. Wallace.
In 1977, convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant, became the last person to date to be executed by the guillotine in France.
In 1979, four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for a 1954 attack on the U.S. House of Representatives and a 1950 attempt on the life of President Harry S. Truman were freed from prison after being granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter.
In 1983, John Vorster, prime minister of white-ruled South Africa from 1966 to 1978, died in Cape Town at age 67.
Ten years ago: The U.S. government began freeing 14 Puerto Rican nationalists granted clemency by President Bill Clinton. A federal judge ordered an end to busing and other means of achieving racial balance in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the North Carolina school system that had pioneered urban busing in the United States.
Five years ago: CBS News vigorously defended its report about President George W. Bush’s Air National Guard service, with anchor Dan Rather saying broadcast memos questioned by forensic experts came from “what we consider to be solid sources.” Former Transportation Secretary Brock Adams died in Stevensville, Md., at age 77.
One year ago: The world’s largest particle collider passed its first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) ring under the Franco-Swiss border. Frank Mundus, the legendary shark fisherman said to have inspired the character of Quint in “Jaws,” died in Honolulu at age 82.
Today’s Birthdays: Golfer Arnold Palmer is 80. Actor Philip Baker Hall is 78. Country singer Tommy Overstreet is 72. Actor Greg Mullavey is 70. Jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers is 69. Singer Danny Hutton (Three Dog Night) is 67. Singer Jose Feliciano is 64. Actor Tom Ligon is 64. Actress Judy Geeson is 61. Former Canadian first lady Margaret Trudeau is 61. Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is 60. Rock musician Joe Perry (Aerosmith) is 59. Actress Amy Irving is 56. Country singer Rosie Flores is 53. Actress Kate Burton is 52. Movie director Chris Columbus is 51. Actor Colin Firth is 49. Rock singer-musician David Lowery (Cracker) is 49. Pitcher Randy Johnson is 46. Rock musician Stevie D. (Buckcherry) is 43. Rock musician Robin Goodridge (Bush) is 43. Rock singer-musician Miles Zuniga (Fastball) is 43. Rapper Big Daddy Kane is 41. Movie director Guy Ritchie is 41. Actor Ryan Phillippe is 35. NBA All-Star Ben Wallace is 35. Rock musician Mikey Way (My Chemical Romance) is 29. Olympic bronze medal figure skater Timothy Goebel is 29.
Thought for Today: “History is the great dust-heap … a pageant and not a philosophy.” Augustine Birrell, English author and statesman (1850-1933).
Wikipedia:
800 – Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican.
1420 – Henry V of England enters Paris.
1640 – End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, thus ending a 60 year period of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the House of Habsburg (also called the Philippine Dynasty).
1768 – The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøy in Norway.
1821 – The first constitution of Costa Rica is issued.
1822 – Peter I is crowned Emperor of Brazil.
1824 – U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate had received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1826 – French philhellene Charles Nicolas Fabvier forces his way through the Turkish cordon and ascends the Acropolis of Athens, which had been under siege.
1864 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.
1913 – Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the first Balkan war, is annexed by Greece.
1918 – Transylvania unites with Romania, following the incorporation of Bessarabia (March 27) and Bukovina (November 28).
1918 – Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.
1918 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
1919 – Lady Astor becomes first female member of the British Parliament to take her seat (she had been elected to that position on November 28).
1925 – World War I aftermath: The final Locarno Treaty is signed in London, establishing post-war territorial settlements.
1934 – In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead by Leonid Nikolayev at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad.
1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgenson, the first notable case of a sexual reassignment operation.
1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1958 – The Central African Republic becomes independent from France.
1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in Chicago, Illinois, kills 92 children and three nuns.
1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.
1960 – Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
1961 – The independent Republic of West Papua is proclaimed in modern-day Western New Guinea.
1963 – Nagaland becomes the 16th state of India.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
1964 – Malawi, Malta and Zambia join the United Nations.
1965 – The Border Security Force is formed in India as a special force to guard the borders.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1971 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray.
1971 – The Indian Army recaptures part of Kashmir occupied forcibly by Pakistan.
1973 – Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport killing all 92 people on-board.
1974 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1976 – Angola joins the United Nations.
1981 – A Yugoslavian Inex Adria Aviopromet DC-9 crashes in Corsica killing all 180 people on-board.
1981 – The AIDS virus is officially recognized.
1982 – At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto is appointed Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1989 – Right-wing military rebel Reform the Armed forces Movement (RAM) attempts to oust Philippine President Corazon Aquino in a failed bloody coup d’ etat.
1989 – Cold War: East Germany’s parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the communist party the leading role in the state.
1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet 40 metres beneath the seabed.
1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
1998 – Exxon announces a $73.7 billion USD deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world’s largest company.
2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA’s purchase by American Airlines.
2006 – Mexican President Felipe Calderon declares war on Drug traffickers in the ongoing Mexican Drug War.