TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 20
69 Vespians’s supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
1606 The “Susan Constant,” “Godspeed” and “Discovery” set sail from London. Their landing at Jamestown, VA, was the start of the first permanent English settlement in America.
1699 Peter the Great ordered that the Russian New Year be changed from September 1 to January 1.
1790 Samuel Slater built the nation’s first cotton mill in Pawtucket, R.I.
1802 The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
1812 “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is published
1820 The state of Missouri enacted legislation to tax bachelors between the ages of 21-50 for being unmarried. The tax was $1 a year.
1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1924 Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
1930 Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
1933 The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
1938 First electronic television system is patented.
1948 U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
1954 Buick Motor Company signed Jackie Gleason to one of the largest contracts ever entered into with an entertainer. Gleason agreed to produce 78 half-hour shows over a two-year period for $6,142,500.
1963 Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
1989 General Noriega, Panama’s former dictator, was overthrown by a United States invasion force invited by the new civilian government. The project was known as Operation Just Cause.
1990 The world’s first website and server go live at CERN. The first website was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.
1994 Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man, was shot and mortally wounded by White House security officers. He had brandished a knife near the executive mansion.
1996 NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS X.
1999 The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex.
2001 The U.S. Congress passed a $20 billion package to finance the war against terrorism taking place in Afghanistan.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
