TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 18
1307 William Tell shoots apple off his son’s head
1477 William Claxton publishes the first dated book printed in England. It is a translation from the French of The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosopers by Earl Rivers.
1626 St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is officially dedicated.
1805 30 women meet at Mrs Silas Lee’s home in Wiscasset, Maine, organizes Female Charitable Society, the first woman’s club in America
1820 Captain Nathaniel Palmer discovered Antarctica.
1861 The first provisional meeting of the Confederate Congress is held in Richmond, Virginia.
1865 Mark Twain’s first story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is published in the New York Saturday Press.
1883 Canadian and American railroads adopt time zones
1901 The second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty is signed. The United States is given extensive rights by Britain for building and operating a canal through Central America.
1906 Anarchists bomb St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
1921 New York City considers varying work hours to avoid long traffic jams.
1928 Mickey mouse makes his film debut in Steamboat Willie, the first animated talking picture.
1939 The Irish Republican Army explodes three bombs in Piccadilly Circus.
1950 The Bureau of Mines discloses its first production of oil from coal in practical amounts.
1963 Push button phones are used for the first time
1964 J Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King as “most notorious liar”
1966 US RC bishops did away with rule against eating meat on Fridays
1978 Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones leads his followers to a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after cult member killed Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California.
1983 Argentina announces its ability to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
1984 The Soviet Union helps deliver American wheat during the Ethiopian famine.
1991 Muslim Shites release hostages Terry Waite & Thomas Sutherland
1993 Twenty-one political parties approve a new constitution for South Africa that expands voter rights and ends the rule of the country’s white minority.
2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules the state’s ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional; the legislature fails to act within the mandated 180 days, and on May 17, 2004, Massachusetts becomes the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
