On This Day In History
November 21st
164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah
1818 Russia’s Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestine
1906 China prohibits the opium trade
1970 General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following a military coup
1971 Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by the Mukti Bahini, Bengali guerrillas, defeat the army of Pakistan
2017 Robert Mugabe‘s resignation after 37 years in power is read out in Zimbabwe’s parliaments during impeachment proceedings
Did You Know?
Maxim Gorky calls Vladimir Lenin a blind fanatic and unthinking adventurer
Today in History in 1917
Would You Believe?
Thomas Morris of Australia skips rope 22,806 times
Today in History in 1837
November 22nd
1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
1926 Imperial Conference ends, giving autonomy inside British Commonwealth
1935 Flying boat “China Clipper” takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on 1st trans-Pacific airmail flight
1963 US President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in an open-topped motorcade in Dallas, Texas
1969 Isolation of a single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University
2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany
Did You Know?
1st interracial TV kiss (Star Trek – Captain Kirk and Uhura)
Today in History in 1968
Would You Believe?
Vanellope Wilkins, born with her heart outside her body, is first UK baby to survive birth and operations to reinsert her heart
Today in History in 2017
November 23rd
1248 Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates
1644 “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published
1869 The clipper Cutty Sark is launched In Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving
2018 US Federal Climate report finds climate change will reduce economy by 10% by 2100 with $141 billion cost from heat-related deaths, $118 billion from sea level rise
2019 Sumatran rhino officially declared extinct in Malaysia after last known specimen, 25-year-old Iman, dies of cancer in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
Did You Know?
Patent granted for a process of making color photographs
Today in History in 1863
Would You Believe?
Chinese steward Poon Lim begins 133 days adrift after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by German U-boat and he is the sole survivor
Today in History in 1942
November 24th
380 Theodosius I makes his adventus, or first formal entry, into Constantinople
1639 1st observation of Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree – helped establish size of the Solar System
1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovers Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania)
1859 English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species” radically changing the view of evolution and laying the foundation for evolutionary biology
1950 UN troops begin an assault intending to end Korean War by Christmas
1954 France sends 20,000 soldiers to Algeria
1974 Most complete early human skeleton (Lucy, Australopithecus) discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression
Did You Know?
American inventor Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire
Today in History in 1874
Would You Believe?
American “Dan Cooper” hijacks plane, extorts $200,000 ransom before jumping out of plane over Washington State, never seen again
Today in History in 1971
November 25th
1177 Battle of Montgisard: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeats Saladin and a larger Ayyubid force
1783 Britain evacuates New York city, its last military position in the United States
1839 Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 people.
1905 Telimco makes the 1st ever advertisement for a radio set, by advertising a $8.50 set in the “Scientific American” which claimed to receive signals for up to one mile
1986 Iran-Contra affair erupts, President Reagan reveals secret arms deal
Did You Know?
Polish Minister of National Defence Radek Sikorski opens Warsaw Pact archives to historians showing maps of possible nuclear strikes against Western Europe, including the nuclear annihilation of 43 Polish cities by Soviet-controlled forces.
Today in History in 2005
Would You Believe?
First English patent granted to an American, for processing corn
Today in History in 1715
November 26th
43 BC Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leader Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony formed
1778 British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii)
1789 1st national Thanksgiving in America
Did You Know?
World’s greatest robbery; 26 million pounds (sterling) worth of gold, diamonds and cash stolen from Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, England
Today in History in 1983
Would You Believe?
In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1mm) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever on record
Today in History in 1970