THIS DAY IN HISTORY!

[LongRider]

11 December...  is the 345th day of the year 2023. There are 20 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1934  Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time.

1931  The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.

[LongRider]

12 December... is the 346th day of the year 2023. There are 19 days remaining until the end of this year.

1950  Paula Ackerman, the first woman appointed to perform rabbinical functions in the United States, leads the congregation in her first services.

1982  Women’s peace protest at Greenham Common – 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 14.5 km perimeter fence.  Amazing protest "On the 5th September 1981, the Welsh group “Women for Life on Earth” arrived on Greenham Common, Berkshire, England. They marched from Cardiff with the intention of challenging, by debate, the decision to site 96 Cruise nuclear missiles there. On arrival they delivered a letter to the Base Commander which among other things stated ‘We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life’..."The conduct and integrity of the protest mounted by the Women’s Peace Camp was instrumental in the decision to remove the Cruise Missiles from Greenham Common."  Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp (greenhamwpc.org.uk)

[LongRider]

13 December... is the 317th day of the year 2023. There are 48 days remaining until the end of this year.

1954  Great Britain defeats France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators.

1982  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.  The two-acre (8,100 m2) site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those service members who died or remain missing as a result of their service in Vietnam and South East Asia during the war.  The names on the Wall, originally numbering 57,939 when it was dedicated in 1982, are listed in the chronological order of the dates of casualty.[8] Additional names have been added throughout the years since: as of May 2018 there are 58,320 names.

 

 

[LongRider]

14 December...  is the 348th day of the year 2023. There are 17 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1958  The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first expedition to reach The Pole of Relative Inaccessibility in the Antarctic.  A pole of inaccessibility with respect to a geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying a maximum degree of continentality or oceanity.  

The southern pole of inaccessibility is the point on the Antarctic continent most distant from the Southern Ocean. A variety of coordinate locations have been given for this pole. The discrepancies are due to the question of whether the "coast" is measured to the grounding line or to the edges of ice shelves, the difficulty of determining the location of the "solid" coastline, the movement of ice sheets and improvements in the accuracy of survey data over the years, as well as possible topographical errors.  Pole of inaccessibility - Wikipedia

2008  President George W. Bush makes his fourth and final (planned) trip to Iraq as president and is almost struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a news conference in Baghdad.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by LongRider

[LongRider]

15 December...  is the 349th day of the year 2023. There are 16 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1965  Gemini program: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.

2000  The 3rd reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down.

[LongRider]

16 December... is the 350th day of the year 2023. There are 15 days remaining until the end of this year.  

1707  Last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan.

1811  The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri. These four so-called mega-quakes are believed to be an ongoing cataclysmic danger that could reprise the 1811-12 series of 2,000 quakes that affected the lands of what would be eight of today’s heartland states of the United States.

1775  Jane Austen, English writer (d. 1817)

1917  Sir Arthur C. Clarke, English writer (d. 2008)

1928  Philip K. Dick, American writer (d. 1982)

Edited December 16, 2023 by LongRider

[LongRider]

17 December...  is the 351st day of the year 2023. There are 14 days remaining until the end of this year.

1903  The Wright Brothers make their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1935  First flight of the Douglas DC-3 airplane.

1947  First flight of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber.

2003  SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first supersonic flight.  

[LongRider]

18 December... is the 352nd day of the year 2023. There are 13 days remaining until the end of this year.

1892  premiere performance of The Nutcracker Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg.

1898  Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 39.245 mi/h in a Jeantaud electric car.

1865  On this day by proclamation of the U.S. secretary of state, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery, officially entered into force, having been ratified by the requisite states on December 6.

[LongRider]

19 December...   is the 353rd day of the year 2023. There are 12 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1924  The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

1986  Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, releases Andrei Sakharov and his wife from exile in Gorky.

[Zorral]

20th December 1401  a.d. (803 a. h.) ...  Ibn Khaldun and Tamerlane sat together for the historic interview which Ibn Khaldun includes an account in his Autobiography. 

[LongRider]

20 December...  is the 354th day of the year 2023. There are 11 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1968  The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.

2004  A gang of thieves steal £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of the largest bank robberies in UK history.

2007  The painting Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, is stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art, along with O Lavrador de Café by the major Brazilian modernist painter Candido Portinari.

[LongRider]

21 December...  is the 355^th day of the year 2023. There are 10 days remaining until the end of this year.  It is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.  

1844  The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.

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

2012  The music video for South Korean singer PSY's humorous pop song Gangnam Style became the first video on YouTube to garner one billion views.  Can't say I've ever seen the original Gangman Style vid, but this parody of it, which is about Mitt Romney's 2012 run for the president, is the best!

 

[LongRider]

22 December... is the 356th day of the year 2023. There are 9 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1808  Ludwig van Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano).

1851  The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India.

1956  Colo, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity, is born at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.

1989  Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

[LongRider]

23 December... is the 357th day of the year 2023. There are 8 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Saturday. 

1938  Discovery of the first modern coelacanth in South Africa.

1947  The transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.

1972  The 16 survivors of the Andes flight disaster are rescued after 73 days, having survived by cannibalism.

[LongRider]

24 December... is the 358th day of the year 2023. There are 7 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Sunday. 

1826  The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy begins that night, wrapping up the following morning.  The eggnog riot, sometimes known as the grog mutiny, was a riot that took place at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, on 24–25 December 1826. It was caused by a drunken Christmas party in the north barracks of the academy. Two days prior to the incident, a large quantity of whiskey was smuggled into the academy to make eggnog for the party, giving the riot its name.

The riot eventually involved more than one-third of the cadets by the time it ceased on Christmas morning. A subsequent investigation by academy officials resulted in the implication of 70 cadets and the court-martialing of 20 of them along with one enlisted soldier. Among the participants in the riot – though he was not court-martialed – was future Confederate States President Jefferson Davis.

1906  Radio: Reginald Fessenden transmits the first radio broadcast; consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.

1955  NORAD Tracks Santa for the first time in what will become an annual Christmas Eve tradition.

[LongRider]

25 December...is the 359th day of the year 2023. There are 6 days remaining until the end of this year.

1968  42 Dalits are burned alive in Kilavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, India, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit labourers.

1990  The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web.

2004  Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005.

[LongRider]

26 December... is the 360th day of the year 2023. There are 5 days remaining until the end of this year.

1846  Trapped in snow in the Sierra Nevadas and without food, members of the Donner Party resort to cannibalism.

1898  Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.

1997  The Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat explodes, creating a small tsunami offshore.

2003  A magnitude 6.6 earthquake devastates southeast Iranian city of Bam, killing tens of thousands and destroying the citadel of Arg-é Bam.

2004  A 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people including over 1700 on a moving train.

2006  A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Hengchun, Pingtung, Taiwan, killing two people and causing severe communication disruptions in southeast Asia.

[LongRider]

27 December...  is the 361st day of the year 2023. There are 4 days remaining until the end of this year.

1831  Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate the theory of evolution.

1945  The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.

1966  The Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, is discovered in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico.  The link goes to photos of this fascinating cave.  Cave of Swallows - Search Images (bing.com)

 

[LongRider]

28 December...is the 362nd day of the year 2023. There are 3 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1612  Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

1832  John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign.

1895  The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines, marking the debut of the cinema.

[LongRider]

29 December... is the 363rd day of the year 2023. There are 2 days remaining until the end of this year. 

1851  The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

1959  Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.

2003  The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.