TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 11
1620 102 Mayflower Pilgrims and about 30 crew land at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts [NS, Dec 21]
1688 James II abdicates the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.
1792 France’s King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason. He was convicted and condemned and was sent to the guillotine the following January.
1816 Indiana is admitted to the Union as the 19th state.
1844 Nitrous oxide was used for the first time in dentistry.
1882 A production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe at Boston’s Bijou Theatre becomes the first performance in a theatre lit by incandescent electric lights.
1917 13 black soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot
1941 The United States declares war on Italy and Germany.
1946 The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established by the U.N. General Assembly. The fund provides relief to children in countries devastated by war.
1955 Israel raids Syrian positions on the Sea of Galilee
1964 Frank Sinatra, Jr., is returned home to his parents after being kidnapped for the ransom amount of $240,000.
1972 Challenger, the lunar lander for Apollo 17, touches down on the moon’s surface, the last time that men visit the moon.
1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed into law legislation creating $1.6 billion environmental “superfund” that would be used to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.
1981 Military forces in El Salvador kill over 800 civilians in what is known as the El Mozote massacre during the Salvadoran Civil War.
1991 Salman Rushdie, under an Islamic death sentence for blasphemy, made his first public appearance since 1989 in New York, at a dinner marking the 200th anniversary of the First Amendment (which guarantees freedom of speech in the U.S.).
1994 Russian troups invaded Chechnya in an unsuccessful attempt to restore Moscow’s power in the region.
1997 Housing secretary Henry Cisneros was indicted for conspiracy, obstructing justice, and false statements to the FBI.
1997 Delegates from 150 industrial nations attending a UN climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, reach agreement to control heat-trapping greenhouse gases
1998 Majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against U.S. President Clinton.
2001 People’s Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization
2008 Bernard “Bernie” Madoff arrested and charged with securities fraud in what was called a $50-billion Ponzi scheme.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
