TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: NOV 10
1493 Christopher Columbus discovers Antigua during his second expedition.
1619 René Descartes has the dream that inspires his “Meditations on First Philosophy”
1647 All Dutch-held areas of New York are returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster.
1775 The U.S. Marines were organized under authority of the Continental Congress. The Marines went out of existence after the end of the Revolutionary War in April of 1783. The Marine Corps were formally re-established on July 11, 1798. This day is observed as the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.
1782 In the last battle of the American Revolution, George Rogers Clark attacks Indians and Loyalists at Chillicothe, in Ohio Territory.
1801 The U.S. state of Tennessee outlawed the practice of dueling.
1871 Henry M. Stanley finds Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji near Unyanyembe in Africa.
1885 German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveils the world’s first motorcycle
1898 Wilmington riots begin
Thought to be one of the only incidents of insurrection against a local government in the United States, the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898 or the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 began after an election voted in a biracial city council. In retaliation, white supremacists overthrew the council, destroyed a lot of property and killed many black people in the city over the course of a few days.
1903 The US patent office granted inventor Mary Anderson a patent for automatic windshield wipers
1917 Forty-one US suffragettes are arrested protesting outside the White House.
1918 Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia receives a top-secret coded message from Europe stating on November 11, 1918 all fighting would cease on land, sea and in the air
1938 Fascist Italy enacts anti-Semitic legislation.
1951 The first long distance telephone call without operator assistance took place.
1952 U.S. Supreme Court upholds the decision barring segregation on interstate railways.
1954 The Iwo Jima Memorial was dedicated in Arlington, VA.
1964 Australia begins a draft to fulfill its commitment in Vietnam.
1969 Sesame Street, the long-running American children’s television series, premiered on TV stations.
1970 The Great Wall of China opened to the world for tourism.
1971 Two women are tarred and feathered in Belfast for dating British soldiers, while in Londonderry, Northern Ireland a Catholic girl is also tarred and feathered for her intention of marrying a British soldier.
1975 The iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald breaks in half and sinks at the eastern end of Lake Superior–all 29 crew members perish.
1980 – CBS News anchor Dan Rather claimed he had been kidnapped in a cab. It turned out that Rather had refused to pay the cab fare.
1986 President Ronald Reagan refuses to reveal details of the Iran arms sale.
1993 The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Brady Bill, which called for a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases
1997 A judge in Cambridge, MA, reduced Louise Woodward’s murder conviction to manslaughter and sentenced the English au pair to time served. She had served 279 days in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.
1998 At the White House, “The Virtual Wall” website (www.thevirtualwall.org) was unveiled. The site allows visitors to experience The Wall through the Internet.
2004 Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) was awarded the “Man for Peace” prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
