TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: DEC 13
644 Uthman ibn Affan, companion of Muhammad, appointed 3rd Caliph of Islam
1124 Theobald Buccapecus elected Pope Coelestinus II (he refuses)
1287 During St. Lucia’s Flood in Northwest Netherlands the Zuiderzee seawall collapses with loss of over 50,000 lives. Fifth largest recorded flood in history
1542 Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old
1793 1st state road authorized, Frankfort KY to Cincinnati OH
1798 David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented the nut and bolt machine.
1819 Alabama is admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
1825 Decembrist uprising in Russia against Tsar Nicholas I begins
1900 Max Planck presents the quantum theory at the Physics Society in Berlin.
1903 Orville Wright made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged in the attempt. Three days later, after repairs were made, the modern aviation age was born when the plane stayed aloft for 12 seconds and flew 102 feet.
1909 The Labor Conference in Pittsburgh ends with a “declaration of war” on U.S. Steel.
1911 Roald Amundsen and four others discover the South Pole.
1920 The League of Nations creates a credit system to aid Europe.
1939 USSR expelled from the League of Nations
1945 Josef Kramer, known as “the beast of Belsen,” and 10 others were executed in Hamelin for the crimes they committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.
1961 Tanzania joins the United Nations
1967 DNA synthesized for the first time.
1969 Jackson Five made their 1st appearance on “Ed Sullivan Show”
1975 Six South Moluccan terrorists surrendered to police after holding 23 people hostage for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
1981 Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights.
1984 Howard Cosell retires from Monday Night Football
1986 The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. The trip took nine days to complete.
1987 Chrysler pled no contest to federal charges of selling several thousand vehicles as new when Chrysler employees had driven the vehicles with the odometer disconnected.
1990 Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed, she dies 12 days later
1993 A judge in Colorado struck down the state’s voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.
1994 Construction begins on China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
1995 The Dayton Agreement signed in Paris; establishes a general framework for ending the Bosnian War between Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2003 Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, narrowly escapes and assassination attempt.
2008 Iraqi broadcast journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at US President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad.
2012 At Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Conn., 20 children and six adults are shot to death by a 20-year-old gunman who then commits suicide.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
