Nothingandall: On this day in History

164 BC - Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. Events commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
0235 - Anterus is elected Pope.
0496 - Pope Gelasius I dies.
1272 - Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England.
1361 - Philip I, Duke of Burgundy dies (b. 1346).
1495 - John Bale was born (d. 1563). Bishop of Ossory, antiquarian, dramatist.
1535 - O Governador Nuno da Cunha coloca a pedra de fundação da fortaleza de Diu.
1555 - Georg Agricola dies (b. 24 Mar 1494). German scholar and scientist known as "the father of mineralogy."
1566 - Annibale Caro dies (b. 1507). Italian poet.
1567 - Anne de Xainctonge was born (d. 1621). French saint.
1579 - Thomas Gresham dies. English merchant and financier.
1620 - 41 male passengers on the Mayflower, prior to landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts, signed the Mayflower Compact, by which they agreed to abide by the laws of the new government they would establish.
1643 - Rene Robert was born. Cavalier de la Salle.
1652 - Jan Brożek dies (b. 1585). Polish mathematician, physician, and astronomer.
1692 - Carlo Innocenzio Maria Frugoni was born (d. 1768). Italian poet.
1694 - Voltaire was born (d. 1778). French philosopher.
1695 - Henry Purcell dies. English composer, a master of religious and instrumental music (Nymphs and Shepherds).

1709 - António Marques Lésbio dies (b. 1639). Portuguese composer.

1717 - Jean-Baptiste Santerre dies. French painter.

1729 - Josiah Bartlett was born. Second Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1761 - Dorothy Jordan was born (d. 1816). British actress and royal mistress.

1768 - Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born (d. 1834). German theologian and philosopher.

1775 - First performance of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Duenna at Covent Garden Theatre, London.

1775 - John Hill dies. English writer.

1783 - In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight (flight time: 25 minutes, Maximum height: 100m, distance: 9 km).

1787 - Samuel Cunard was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (d. 1865). Canadian-born shipping magnate.

1789 - North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.

1791 - Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic.

1806 - The Continental System, a blockade designed to close the entire European continent to British trade, was proclaimed when Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree.

1811 - Zeng Guofan was born (d. 1872). Chinese military.

1811 - Heinrich von Kleist dies - suicide (b. 1777). German writer. He wrote immortal pieces of literature, such as "Prinz Friedrich von Homburg".

1819 - Antonio Leal Moreira dies (b. 1758). Portuguese composer (A vingança da cigana).

1824 - D. António da Costa Sousa de Macedo was born in Lisbon (d. 17 Jan. 1892). Portuguese writer and politician.

1831 - Michael Faraday presented his paper on "Experimental Research into Electricity" to the Royal Society.

1835 - Hetty Green was born (d. 1916). American business woman.

1840 - Victoria, Princess Royal of Great Britain and German Empress, was born (d. 1901).

1843 - Thomas Hancock patented the vulcanization of rubber in England.

1844 - Ivan Krylov dies (b. 1769). Russian fabulist.

1846 - The word anesthesia was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter to William Thomas Green Morton, the surgeon who gave the first public demonstration of the pain-killing effects of ether.

1849 - Johan August Brinell was born (d. 17 Nov 1925). Swedish metallurgist who devised the Brinell hardness test, a rapid, nondestructive means of determining the hardness of metals.

1852 - Francisco Tárrega was born (d. 1909). Father of modern classical guitar.

1854 - Pope Benedict XV was born (d. 1922).

1857 - Manuel Estrada Cabrera was born. President of Guatemala (1898-1920).

1857 - Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro was born in Almada (d. 6 Nov 1929). Portuguese painter.

1860 - Tom Horn was born (d. 1903). American hitman.

1861 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.

1867 - Vladimir Nikolayevich Ipatieff was born (d. 29 Nov 1952). Russian-born U.S. chemist who was one of the first to investigate high-pressure catalytic reactions of hydrocarbons and who developed a process for manufacturing high-octane gasoline.

1870 - Joe Darling was born (d. 1946). Australian cricketer.

1870 - Sigfrid Edström was born. Swedish sports official.

1876 - Duque de Saldanha dies (b. 1790). Portuguese politician.

1877 - Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound (this is considered to be Edison's first great invention).

1878 - Lord Lytton, the viceroy of India, launched the Second Afghan War.

1878 - Gustav Radbruch was born (d. 1949). German law professor.

1879 - Raúl Lino was born. Portuguese architect.

1881 - Francisco Calvo Burillo was born (d. 1936). Spanish saint.

1881 - Ami Boué dies (b. 1794). Austrian geologist.

1886 - Harold Nicolson was born (d. 1968). British diplomat.

1891 - Alfred Henry Sturtevant was born (d. 5 Apr 1970). American geneticist who in 1913 developed a technique for mapping the location of specific genes of the chromosomes in the fruit fly Drosophila.

1894 - Port Arthur massacre: Port Arthur, Manchuria falls to the Japanese, a decisive Japanese victory of the First Sino-Japanese War.

1897 - Mollie Steimer was born (d. 1980). Anarchist agitator.

1898 - René Magritte was born (d. 1967). Belgian painter.

1899 - Bernardo Loureiro Marques was born. Portuguese designer and painter.

1899 - Jobyna Ralston was born (d. 1967). American actress.

1899 - Garret Hobart dies (b. 1844). Vice President of the United States.

1902 - Foster Hewitt was born (d. 1985). Canadian radio pioneer.

1902 - Isaac Bashevis Singer was born (d. 1991). Polish writer.

1904 - Coleman Hawkins was born (d. 1969). American saxophonist.

1905 - Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", is published in the journal "Annalen der Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the famous equation e=mc².

1907 - Paula Modersohn-Becker dies (b. 8 Feb 1876). German painter.

1908 - Elizabeth George Speare was born (d. 1994). American author.

1912 - Eleanor Powell was born (d. 1983). American actress and dancer.

1913 - Roy Boulting was born (d. 2001). English film director and producer.

1916 - The HMHS Britannic sinks in the Aegean Sea after an explosion from an unknown object, killing 30 people.

1916 - Sid Luckman was born (d. 1998). American football player.

1916 - Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria dies (b. 1830). Son of Archduke Franz Karl and Princess Sophie of Bavaria.

1918 - The Estonian Flag is adopted.

1919 - Steve Brodie was born (d. 1992). American actor.

1920 - Bloody Sunday in Ireland. Irish Republican Army killed 11 Englishmen suspected of being intelligence agents, and the Black and Tans took revenge the same afternoon, attacking spectators and players at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Dublin, killing 12 and wounding 60.

1920 - Ralph Meeker was born (d. 1988). American actor.

1920 - Stan Musial was born. American baseball player.

1921 - Joonas Kokkonen was born (d. 1996). Finnish composer.

1922 - Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia takes the oath of office, becoming the first woman United States Senator.

1922 - Abe Lemons was born. American basketball coach.

1922 - Maria Casares was born (d. 1996). Spanish-born actress.

1922 - Ricardo Flores Magón dies (b. 1874). Mexican anarchist.

1924 - Christopher Tolkien was born. British author.

1924 - Florence Harding dies (b. 1860). American First Lady.

1926 - Raul de Leoni dies in Itaipava - RJ (b. 30 Oct. 1895). Brazilian poet / "seus versos são dos mais melodiosos da língua portuguesa e possuem um misto de simbolismo e de modernidade, vasados contudo dentro da técnica parnasiana" (in Antologia Portuguesa e Brasileira -Evaristo Pontes dos Santos -Porto 1974)

1927 - Columbine Mine Massacre: 500 striking coal miners, some with their families, were attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes

1927 - Georgia Frontiere was born (d. 2008). Co-owner of the St. Louis Rams.

1929 - Benedito José Viana da Costa Nunes was born in Belém, Pará. Brazilian writer.

1929 - Laurier LaPierre was born. Canadian journalist, broadcaster and senator.

1929 - Marilyn French was born. American feminist writer who wrote "The Women's Room," 1977; "The Bleeding Heart", 1980.

1931 - Revaz Dogonadze was born (d. 1985). Georgian scientist.

1931 - Malcolm Williamson was born (d. 2003). Australian composer.

1933 - Joseph Campanella was born. American actor.

1934 - MCC makes an ultimately controversial decision to alter the lbw rule so a batsman can be lbw to a ball pitching outside off stump. The change is later blamed for many problems developing during the 1950s - primarily negative bowling outside leg stump to a field of short-leg fieldsmen.

1935 - Fairuz was born. Lebanese singer.

1936 - Victor Chang was born (d. 1986). Australian physician.

1937 - Marlo Thomas was born in Deerfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. American actress ("That Girl," 1966-71; won Emmys for "Free to Be You and Me," 1977 and "Nobody's Child," 1986).

1939 - Mulayam Singh Yadav was born. Indian politician.

1940 - Dr. John (Malcolm Rebbenack) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. American musician (Right place but the wrong time).

1940 - Richard Marcinko was born. U.S. Navy SEAL team member and author

1940 - Natalia Makarova was born in Leningrad. Russian dancer, ballet star. She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1985 (1984 season) for Best Actress in a Musical for On Your Toes that gave her also a Tony Award.

1941 - The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time (it would later become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).

1941 - İdil Biret was born. Turkish pianist.

1941 - Juliet Mills was born. British actress.

1941 - Henrietta Vinton Davis dies (b. 1860).American elocutionist, dramatist, impersonator, public speaker.

1942 - The completion of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan Highway) is celebrated (the highway was not usable by general vehicles until 1943, however).

1942 - Afa Anoa'i was born. Samoan/American wrestler.

1942 - Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul was born. German politician.

1942 - Leopold Graf Berchtold dies (b. 1863). Austro-Hungarian foreign minister.

1943 - Larry Mahan was born. American rodeo cowboy.

1943 - Phil Bredesen was born. American politician.

1943 - Viktor Sidjak was born. Russian fencer.

1943 - Jacques Laffite was born in Paris. French former racing driver.

1944 - Dick Durbin was born. American politician.

1944 - Earl Monroe was born. American basketball player.

1944 - Harold Ramis was born. American actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, and producer.

1945 - Goldie Hawn was born in Washington, D.C. . American actress and producer; films include Private Benjamin , There's a Girl in my Soup (1970) and The First Wives Club (1996).

1945 - Guatemala is admited as ONU member.

1945 - Robert Benchley dies (b. 1889). American writer and actor.

1945 - Margarida Adelina Abranches dies in Lisbon (b. 15 Aug 1866). Portuguese actress [ Rosa do Adro (1938), Lisboa (1930), Maria do Mar (1930)].

1946 - Jacky Lafon was born. Belgian actress.

1947 - Alcione was born in São Luís, MA. Brazilian singer and composer.

1948 - Lonnie Jordan was born in San Diego, California. Musician (War).

1948 - George Zimmer was born. American entrepreneur, the founder and CEO of Men's Wearhouse.

1948 - Alphonse Mouzon was born. American jazzist.

1949 - João Ricardo was born. Brazilian composer and creator of the musical group Secos & Molhados.

1950 - Alberto Juantorena was born. Cuban athlete.

1950 - Stephen Geyer was born. American film & television songwriter.

1952 - Lorna Luft was born in Santa Monica, California. American entertainer and actress.

1953 - Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the "Piltdown Man", held to be one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, was a hoax.

1953 - Larry Shields dies (b. 1893). American jazz clarinetist.

1956 - Don Newcombe of the then Brooklyn Dodgers wins the Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award of the National League. He won because he posted a staggering 27-7 record and an E.R.A. of 3.06.

1956 - Ed Kaz was born. American journalist.

1957 - Francis Burton Harrison dies (b. 1873). American political figure.

1958 - Mel Ott dies (b. 1909). American baseball player.

1959 - Max Baer dies (b. 1909). American boxer.

1961 - João Domingos Pinto was born. Portuguese footballer (FC Porto).

1962 - The Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War.

1962 - Sabine Busch was born. German athlete.

1962 - Steven Curtis Chapman was born. American singer.

1963 - Eduardo Costley White was born in Quelimane. Mozambican writer.

1963 - Nicolette Sheridan was born. British actress.

1963 - Robert Stroud dies (b. 1890). American prisoner (The Birdman of Alcatraz) who became a self-taught ornithologist during his 54 years in prison, 42 of them in solitary confinement (Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds).

1964 - Second Vatican Council: The third period of the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.

1964 - The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, spanning New York Harbor from Brooklyn to Staten Island, opened to traffic.

1964 - Shane Douglas was born. American wrestler.

1965 - Alexander Siddig was born. British actor.

1965 - Björk was born. Icelandic singer, songwriter, and actress. She was a member of the Sugarcubes, an Icelandic pop group.

1965 - Reggie Lewis wa born (d. 1993). American basketball player.

1966 - Troy Aikman was born. American football star.

1967 - Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."

1967 - Tripp Cromer was born. Baseball player.

1967 - Toshihiko Koga was born. Japanese Judoka.

1968 - Alex James was born. English bassist.

1968 - Christopher Noxon was born. American journalist.

1969 - The first ARPANET link is established.

1969 - US President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, DC on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under terms of the agreement, the US is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.

1969 - Ken Griffey, Jr. was born. American baseball player.

1969 - Mutesa II of Buganda dies. President of Uganda.

1970 - Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast - A joint Air Force and Army team raids the Son Tay prison camp in an attempt to free American POWs thought to be held there (there were zero Americans killed, but the prisoners had already moved to another camp; All US POWs were moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid).

1970 - Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman dies (b. 1888). Indian physicist, Nobel Prize for Physics laureate in 1930 for the 1928 discovery now called Raman scattering: a change in frequency observed when light is scattered in a transparent material.

1970 - Justin Langer was born. Australian cricketer.

1970 - Newsy Lalonde dies (b. 1887). National Hockey League player.

1970 - Paulinho Santos was born. Portuguese footballer (FC Porto).

1971 - Indian troops partly aided by Mukti Bahini (Bengali guerrillas) defeated the Pakistan army in the Battle of Garibpur.

1971 - Michael Strahan was born. American football player.

1972 - David Tua was born. Samoan boxer.

1973 - Brooke Kerr was born. American actress.

1973 - Inés Sastre was born in Valladolid, Castilla y León. Spanish actress and model.

1973 - Thomas Pelly dies (b. 1902). American politician.

1974 - The Birmingham Pub Bombings by the IRA killed 21 people. The Birmingham Six were sentenced to life in prison for this and subsequently acquitted.

1974 - George W. Bush is discharged from the US Air Force Reserve.

1974 - Luis Eduardo Matta was born. Brazilian writer.

1974 - John B. Gambling dies (b. 1897). American radio talk show host.

1974 - Frank Martin dies (b. 1890). Swiss composer.

1975 - Cherie Johnson was born. American actress.

1975 - Chris Moneymaker was born. American poker player.

1976 - Dasha was born. Czech porn star.

1976 - Daniel Whiston was born. British ice skater.

1976 - Martin Meichelbeck was born. German footballer.

1977 - Minister of Internal Affairs Hon Allan Highet announced that 'the national anthems of New Zealand shall be the traditional anthem 'God Save The Queen' and the poem 'God Defend New Zealand', written by Thomas Bracken, as set to music by John Joseph Woods, both being of equal status as national anthems appropriate to the occasion'.

1977 - Bruno Berner was born. Swiss footballer.

1977 - Myles Heskett was born. Australian musician (Wolfmother).

1977 - Jonas Jennings was born. American football player.

1977 - Tobias Sammet was born. German singer (Edguy).

1977 - Yolande James was born. Quebec politician.

1978 – Daniel Bradshaw was born. Australian rules footballer.

1978 - Lucía Jiménez was born. Spanish actress.

1978 - Sara Tanaka was born. American actress.

1979 - The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is attacked by a mob and set afire, killing four. (see: Foreign relations of Pakistan).

1979 - Alex Tanguay was born. Canadian hockey player.

1979 - Kim Dong Wan was born. Singer in the Korean group Shinhwa.

1979 - Stromile Swift was born. American basketball player.

1979 - Vincenzo Iaquinta was born. Italian footballer.

1980 - A deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.

1980 - Lake Peigneur drained into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe drilled into the Diamond crystal salt mine; water flowing down into the mine eroded the edges of the hole. The whirlpool created sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet, to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.

1980 - Who Shot JR? - The Dallas Episode "Who Done It?" aired on US television. It was one of the highest-rated episodes of a TV show ever aired.

1980 - Alec Brownstein was born. American author, director.

1980 - Elaine Yiu was born. Hong Kong actress.

1980 - Hank Blalock was born. Baseball player.

1980 - Leonardo González was born. Costa Rican footballer.

1980 - Sara García was born. Mexican actress.

1981 - Piet Rinke was born. Zimbabwean cricketer.

1981 - Jonny Magallón was born. Mexican footballer.

1981 - Piet Rinke was born. Zimbabwean cricketer.

1981 - Wesley Britt was born. American football player.

1981 - Harry Von Zell dies (b. 1906). American announcer.

1982 - Kevin Moen of University of California, Berkeley is involved with The Play, avoiding marching band members while scoring a touchdown.

1982 - Georgios Kalogiannidis was born. Greek archer.

1982 - Ryan Starr was born. American singer.

1982 - John Hargrave dies (b. 1894). British Social Credit advocate.

1983 - Jamie Langley was born. English rugby player.

1984 - Álvaro Bautista was born. Spanish motorcycle racer.

1984 - Jena Malone was born. American actress.

1985 - United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested for spying (he was caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations and was eventually sentenced to life in prison).

1985 - Jesús Navas was born. Spanish footballer.

1985 – Nicola Silvestri was born. Italian footballer.

1986 - Iran-Contra Affair: National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary start to shred documents implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Conras rebels in Nicaragua.

1986 - Lançamento do primeiro romance do escritor português David Mourão-Ferreira, intitulado Um Amor Feliz.

1986 - Dar Robinson dies (b. 1947). American film stuntman.

1986 - Jerry Colonna dies (b. 1904). American comic.

1986 - Marcelino Sanchez dies (b. 1957). American actor.

1987 - Brian Douwes was born. Dutch kickboxer and martial artist.

1988 - Canadians re-elect the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney after an election campaign fought mainly over the issue of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement.

1988 - Jamie Mahoney was born. American rapper and actor.

1988 - Carl Hubbell dies (b. 1903). American baseball player.

1989 - Britain's parliamentary proceedings were first televised.

1990 - Charter of Paris for a New Europe refocusses the efforts of the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europeon post-Cold War issues.

1990 - Nintendo's successor to the Famicom; the Super Famicom was released in Japan.

1990 - Dean Hart dies (b. 1954). Canadian professional wrestler.

1991 - "The Apple of God's Eye", an undercover investigative journalism piece exposing the fundraising practices of American televangelist Robert Tilton, airs on ABC's Primetime Live newsmagazine show for the first time.

1991 - Sonny Werblin dies (b. 1907). Former owner of the New York Jets.

1992 - Nevada-Tan was born. Japanese internet culture icon, known for slaying classmate.

1993 - Bill Bixby dies (b. 1934). American actor and director.

1995 - The Dayton Peace Agreement was initialled in the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, ending three and a half years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement was formally ratified in Paris, on December 14 that same year.

1995 - Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

1995 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 5,000 (5,023.55) for the first time.

1995 - Noel Jones dies (b. 1940). British diplomat.

1995 - Peter Grant dies (b. 1935). British rock manager, actor (Led Zeppelin,Bad Company).

1996 - A propane explosion at the Humberto Vidal shoe store and office building in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 33.

1996 - Abdus Salam dies (b. 1926). Pakistani physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.

1999 - Quentin Crisp dies (b. 1908). English writer, satirist, and actor.

2000 - The United Farm Workers called off the boycott of California table grapes begun in 1984 by union organizer Cesar Chavez, saying the goals of the strike had been met.

2001 - Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al-Haj dies (b. 1926). King of Malaysia.

2001 - Salahuddin of Malaysia dies (b. 1926). King of Malaysia.

2002 - NATO invites Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

2002 - Hadda Brooks dies (b. 1916). American jazz singer, pianist, and composer.

2004 - The Nintendo DS is released in North America.

2004 - The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, unleashing massive protests and controversy with regards to the election's integrity.

2004 - The island of Dominica is hit by its most destructive earthquake in history; the northern half of the island receives the most damage, especially in the town of Portsmouth. It is also felt in neighbouring Guadeloupe, where one person is killed as a result.

2004 - The Paris Club agrees to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt.

2005 - Alfred Anderson dies (b. 1896). Last Scottish World War I veteran.

2005 - Hugh Sidey dies (b. 1927). American journalist.

2006 - Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel is assassinated in suburban Beirut.

2006 - Kathryn Johnston was born (d. 1914). US victim of police shooting.

2006 - Pierre Amine Gemayel dies assassinated (b. 1972). Lebanese Cabinet minister.

2006 - Robert Lockwood Jr. dies (b. 1915). American blues guitarist.

2007 - Portugal gets the qualification for Euro 2008 (football) after a null match with Finland in Estádio do Dragão (webmaster note: I was there).

2007 - Fernando Fernán Gómez dies (b 1921). Spanish actor, director, academic and playwright.

2007 – Noel McGregor dies (b. 1931). New Zealand cricketer.

2007 - Tom Johnson dies (b. 1928). Canadian ice hockey player.

2009 – Konstantin Feoktistov dies (b. 1926). Soviet cosmonaut.