TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 14
644 Uthman ibn Affan, companion of Muhammad, appointed 3rd Caliph of Islam
1542 Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary I of Scotland at 6 days old
1798 David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented the nut and bolt machine.
1799 George Washington dies on his Mount Vernon estate.
1819 Alabama is admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.
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.
1932 Great Britain was to pay its debt borrowed in World War I to the U.S. of $95,550,000 in gold. The payment was going to be brought to New York as promised by Neville Chamberlain.
1939 The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for making aggressive demands of Finland.
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.
1946 The United Nations adopt a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.
1947 NASCAR is formed and it’s headquarters are located in Daytona Beach, Florida
1958 In 1958, a Soviet team led by Yevgeny Tolstikov became the first people in history to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, which is 546 miles (878 kilometers) from the geographic South Pole. Temperatures at this location averages around – 73 degree F (–58 degrees C).
1976 President Jimmy Carter refuses to ship India twelve tons of uranium. India claimed that the nuclear fuel was for peaceful purposes – only to generate electricity.
1981 Israel’s Knesset passes the Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the Golan Heights area.
1983 The U.S. battleship New Jersey fired on Syrian positions in Lebanon for the first time after American F-14 reconnaissance flights were fired on.
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.
1993 A judge in Colorado struck down the state’s voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.
1995 The Dayton Agreement signed in Paris; establishes a general framework for ending the Bosnian War between Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1995 AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon.
1997 Iran’s newest president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States. The preceding Iranian leaders had reviled the U.S. as “The Great Satan.”
1998 Hundreds of Palestinian leaders renounced a call for the destruction of Israel.
1999 U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers.
2000 It was announced that American businessman Edmond Pope would be released from a Russian prison for humanitarian reasons. Pope had been sentenced to 20 years in prison after his conviction on espionage charges.
2000 The FTC approves the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.
2001 The first commercial export, since 1963, of U.S. food to Cuba began. The 24,000 metric tons for corn were being sent to replenish what was lost when Hurricane Michelle struck on November
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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
