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1st |
Slavery was
abolished throughout the British Empire today in 1834.
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2nd |
William S.
Burroughs,
US writer (The Naked Lunch) died today in 1997.
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3rd |
In 1858, Lake Victoria,
the source of the Nile, was discovered by the English explorer
John Speke
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4th |
1578 and the Portuguese
were defeated by the Berbers at the
Battle of Alcozarquivir.
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5th |
Sir Richard Burton,
diamond buying husband of Elizabeth Taylor and brilliant Welsh actor died today
in 1984.
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6th |
William Kemmler
a murderer, became the first to be executed in the electric chair, in Auburn
Prison, New York in 1890.
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7th |
Britain's first motor
racing
Grand Prix was held at Brooklands
in 1926; the winning car averaged
71.61 mph.
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8th |
Hadrian
became emperor of Rome
in AD
117; following the death of his father Trajan.
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9th |
In 1996,
Boris Yeltsin
was inaugurated as the first democratically elected Russian head of state.
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10th |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
completed his popular Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night
Music) this day in 1787.
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11th |
Phobos & Deimos,
the satellites or 'moons' of Mars, were discovered by US astronomer Asaph Hall in 1877:
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12th |
The
Quagga
in
Amsterdam Zoo died in 1883, it was the last of this species in the world.
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13th |
HG Wells,
English science fiction writer (War of the Worlds) died today in 1946.
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14th |
The Boxer Rebellion
was ended and Beijing captured by an international
punitive force today in 1900.
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15th |
In 1914
the Opening of the Panama Canal
took place; about
6,000 workers died during its construction.
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16th |
A female gorilla,
Binju Jua,
rescued a three-year-old boy after he fell 18ft/5m into her enclosure in a
Chicago zoo in 1996. The gorilla, with her 18-month-old daughter on her back,
picked the boy up, cradled him in her arms and carried him to a doorway where
zoo workers retrieved him. |
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17th |
In 1998, US president
Bill Clinton testified in front of a grand jury about his alleged affair
with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In a televised speech after
his testimony, he admitted that he did have an 'inappropriate'
relationship with Lewinsky but denied that he told anyone to lie about it.
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18th |
Australia and New Zealand
announced the withdrawal of their forces from Vietnam in 1971, as the Americans
were coming in, and they didn't want to lose all their men.
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19th |
It's 1991. and communist
hardliners stage a
Showdown, led by Gennady Yanayev,
staged a coup in the USSR against President Gorbachev, who is placed under
house arrest in the Crimea; radio and television stations were shut down
and military rule was imposed in many cities.
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20th |
Russian troops
invaded
Czechoslovakia
in 1968:as they tried
a little shot of democracy.
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21st |
It was in 1911, that Leonardo da
Vinci's painting Mona Lisa was
Stolen from the Louvre
Museum in Paris
– it was recovered two years later.
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22nd |
in
1788, the British settlement in
Sierra Leone
was founded, the purpose of which was to secure a home in Africa for freed
slaves from England.
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23rd |
Nicola Sacco
and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian-American anarchists, were falsely
accused of robbery and murder, and were sent to the electric chair in 1927.
Detals of the case can br read in
The
Sacco-Vanzetti Case.
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24th |
Long time ago in AD
79, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the cities of
Pompeii and Herculaneum
in hot volcanic ash.
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25th |
A very bad day for
Russians in 1530, as
Ivan the terrible, Tsar
of Russia born.
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26th |
The French Assembly
adopted the
Declaration of the Rights of man
in 1789 (Tom Paine was a busy boy).
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27th |
Algiers, then a
refuge for
Barbary Pirates, was bombarded by Lord
Exmouth in 1816.
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28th |
The massive (200,000
people) civil rights march from the South ended in Washington DC where
Martin Luther King
delivered his famous 'I have a dream' speech in 1963.
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29th |
At
Candlestick Park, San Francisco, the
Beatles played their last live concert in 1966:
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30th |
1999: US software company
Microsoft was forced it shut down its free e-mail service, Hotmail, when
Hackers hit Hotmail
allowing users to access the messages of any of its 40 million users.
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31st |
1888: The body of
Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols, the first victim of Jack
the Ripper, was found mutilated in Buck's Row, London. |
