Event-a-Day

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1789, George Washington sends proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.

1889, In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.

1919, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.

1959, The anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS television.

1967, Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1980, Michael Myers becomes the first member of either chamber of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War.

1778, Captain James Cook anchors in Alaska.

1789, George Washington makes the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the US.

1849, American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.

1863, The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by United States President Abraham Lincoln as are Thursdays, November 30, 1865 and November 29, 1866.

1919, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latin player to appear in a World Series.

1942, Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.

1949, WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta.

1962, Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.

1985, The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J).

1990, German reunification: The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day.

1995, O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

1795, Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence by suppressing armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention.

1824, Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.

1883, First run of the Orient Express.

1957, Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.

1958, The current constitution of France is adopted.

1976, Official launch of the InterCity 125 high speed train.

1983, Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468 km/h), driving Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

1997, The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company. A Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the $17.3 million stolen cash.

2004, SpaceShipOne wins Ansar X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.

1789, French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI of France about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, and have the King and his court moved to Paris.

1857, The City of Anaheim, California is founded.

1864, The Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a cyclone; 60,000 die.

1905, Wilbur Wright pilots Wright Flyer III in a flight of 24 miles in 39 minutes, a world record that stood until 1908.

1910, In a revolution in Portugal the monarchy is overthrown and a republic is declared.

1911, The Kowloon–Canton Railway (split into MTR East Rail Line and Guangshene Railway now) commences service between Kowloon and Canton.

1914, World War I: first aerial combat resulting in an intentional fatality.

1915, Bulgaria enters World War I as one of the Central Powers.

1921, The 1921 World Series is the first to be broadcast on radio.

1944, Suffrage is extended to women in France.

1962, Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, is released.

1969, The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus airs on BBC One.

1970, The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded.

1984, Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

2001, Barry Bonds surpasses Mark McGwire's single-season home run total with his milestone 71st and 72nd home runs.

1723, Benjamin Franklin arrives in Philadelphia at the age of 17.

1789, French Revolution: Louis XVI returns to Paris from Versailles after being confronted by the Parisian women on October 5.

1876, The American Library Association was founded.

1884, The Naval War College of the United States Navy is founded in Newport, Rhode Island.

1889, American inventor Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.

1927, Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent "talkie" movie.

1995, 51 Pegasi is discovered to be the second major star apart from the Sun to have a planet orbiting around it.

2007, Jason Lewis completes the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

1777, American Revolutionary War: The Americans defeat the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights.

1582, Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day is skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

1826, The Granite Railway begins operations as the first chartered railway in the U.S.

1916, Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.

1918, The Regency Council of the Kingdom of Poland declares independence from the German Empire and forms the Republic of Poland.

1933, Air France is inaugurated, after being formed by a merger of 5 French airlines.

1949, The communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is formed.

1958, The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.

1959, U.S.S.R. probe Luna 3 transmits the first ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.

2003, The governor of California, Gray Davis, is recalled in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

2008, Asteroid 2008 TC3 impacts the Earth over Sudan.

1200, Isabella of Angoulême is crowned Queen consort of England.

1860, Telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco opens.

1904, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and Edmonton, Alberta are incorporated as cities.

1921, KDKA in Pittsburgh's Forbes Field conducts the first live broadcast of a football game.

1956 – New York Yankees's Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series.

1514 – Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor.

1604 – Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.

1708 – Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya.

1806 – Prussia begins the War of the Fourth Coalition against France.

1812 – War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships: HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.

1820 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.

1824 – Slavery is abolished in Costa Rica.

1834 – Opening of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, the first public railway on the island of Ireland.

1919 – Black Sox Scandal: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series.

1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles.

2003 – Mission: Space opens to the public in the Epcot park at Walt Disney World. The opening ceremony included several astronauts from all eras of space exploration.

2009 – First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.

1846 – Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune, is discovered by English astronomer William Lassell.

1868 – Carlos Céspedes issues the Grito de Yara from his plantation, La Demajagua, proclaiming Cuba's independence

1871 – Chicago burns after a barn accident. The fire lasts from October 8 to October 10.

1897 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovers an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).

1913 – United States President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, ending construction on the Panama Canal.

1957 – The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident.

1964 – The opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, is broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary satellite.

1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force.

1971 – Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

1973 – Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.

1311 – The Ordinances of 1311 are published, imposing a series of regulations upon King Edward II of England by the peerage and clergy.

1727 – George II and Caroline of Ansbach are crowned King and Queen of Great Britain.

1767 – Surveying for the Mason–Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.

1899 – The Western League is renamed the American League.

1906 – San Francisco public school board sparks a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.

1910 – Former President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert–St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.

1950 – Television: CBS's mechanical color system is the first to be licensed for broadcast by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

1954 – First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.

1957 – Space Race: M.I.T. scientists calculate Sputnik 1's booster rocket's orbit.

1958 – Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).

1968 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.

1975 – The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts.

1976 – George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 is approved by President Gerald R. Ford.

1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.

2000 – NASA launches STS-92, the 100th Space Shuttle mission, using Space Shuttle Discovery.

539 BC – The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon.

1492 – Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean, specifically in The Bahamas. The explorer believes he has reached the Indies.

1692 – The Salem witch trials are ended by a letter from Massachusetts Governor William Phips.

1792 – The first celebration of Columbus Day is held in New York City.

1823 – Charles Macintosh of Scotland sells the first raincoat.

1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited by students in many US public schools, as part of a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.

1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House.

1960 – Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe.

1964 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits.

1994 – The Magellan spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere of Venus.

1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at University of Wyoming, dies five days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie, Wyoming.

2005 – The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 launched carrying Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng for five days in orbit.

1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier.

1775 – The United States Continental Congress orders the establishment of the Continental Navy (later renamed the United States Navy).

1792 – In Washington, D.C., the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid.

1845 – A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution that, if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.

1943 – World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.

1967 – The first game in the history of the American Basketball Association is played as the Anaheim Amigos lose to the Oakland Oaks 134–129 in Oakland, California.

1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago.

1066 – Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings: In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeat the English army and kill King Harold II of England.

1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence.

1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Elizabeth I of England.

1773 – Just before the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, several of the British East India Company's tea ships are set ablaze at the old seaport of Annapolis, Maryland.

1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the World Series. It would be their last one to date.

1943 – Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans, killing eleven SS guards, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp's 600 prisoners escape, and about 50 of these survive the end of the war.

1944 – World War II: Athens, Greece, is liberated by British Army troops entering the city as the Wehrmacht pulls out. This clears the way for the Greek government-in-exile to return to its historic capital city, with Georgios Papandreou, as the head of government. Linked to a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is forced to commit suicide.

1947 – Captain Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound at Mach 1.06 (700 miles per hour (1,100 km/h; 610 kn) over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight.

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot flies over the island of Cuba and takes photographs of Soviet SS-4 Sandal missiles being installed and erected in Cuba.

1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.

1968 – Apollo program: The first live TV broadcast by American astronauts in orbit performed by the Apollo 7 crew.

1979 – The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, demands "an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people", and draws approximately 100,000 people.

2003 – Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman becomes infamously known as the scapegoat for the Cubs losing Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series to the Florida Marlins.

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, and condemned to death the following day.

1815 – Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.

1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation.

1888 – The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.

1989 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL.

1990 – Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.

1997 – The first supersonic land speed record is set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom), 50 years and one day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere. The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn.

2001 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.

2003 – China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission.

2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst day in the Dow's history based on a percentage drop.

1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

1923 – The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

1939 – World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe.

1940 – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.

1945 – The Food and Agriculture Organization is founded in Quebec City, Canada.

1946 – Nuremberg trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial.

1949 – The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic are established.

1968 – United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

1978 – Wanda Rutkiewicz is the first Pole and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

2012 – The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb is discovered.

1091 – London tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.

1346 – Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by the English near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.

1604 – Kepler's Supernova: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.

1610 – French king Louis XIII is crowned in Reims Cathedral.

1660 – Nine regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.

1662 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.

1771 – Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age 15.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.

1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

1905 – The October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.

1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.

1931 – Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion.

1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.

1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.

1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.

1965 – The 1964–65 New York World's Fair closes after a two-year run. More than 51 million people had attended the event.

1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.