TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – DEC 31
406 80,000 Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine at Mainz, beginning invasion of Gallia
1695 The window tax was imposed in Britain, which resulted in many windows being bricked up.
1711 The Duke of Marlborough was dismissed as commander-in-chief.
1744 English astronomer James Bradley announces discovery of Earth’s nutation motion (wobble)
1775 The British repulsed an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec. Montgomery was killed in the battle.
1775 George Washington orders recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
1841 The State of Alabama enacted the first dental legislation in the U.S.
1852 The richest year of the gold rush ends with $81.3 million in gold produced.
1857 Britain’s Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
1862 U.S. President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
1891 New York’s new Immigration Depot was opened at Ellis Island, to provide improved facilities for the massive numbers of arrivals.
1900 Indian Chief, Pac-kee-ka-ma-que, charged that Indian affairs agent H.M. Robek with corruption and theft. Apparently, the tribes had bought 3,000 acres of land with their own money and wanted $50,000 in compensation from the U.S. government.
1910 John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America’s foremost aviators, die in separate plane crashes.
1923 The Sahara is crossed by an automobile for the first time.
1929 Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played “Auld Lang Syne” as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time.
1930 Brewery heir Adolphus Busch is kidnapped.
1933 Martial law was declared in Rumania to prevent assassination attempts on King Carol and his government officials. Premier Ion G. Duca had already been murdered.
1938 The first breath test for drivers, “drunkometer,” was introduced in Indianapolis.
1942 Winston Churchill took a plane to Moscow to meet with communist leader Josef Stalin.
1946 U.S. President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
1955 General Motors became the first U.S. corporation to earn more than one billion dollars in a single year.
1958 Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista tells his Cabinet he is fleeing the country
1961 In the U.S., the Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
1964 The al-Fatah guerrillas of Yasser Arafat launched their first terrorist raid on Israel.
1974 Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
1978 Taiwanese diplomats struck their colors for the final time from the embassy flagpole in Washington, DC. The event marked the end of diplomatic relations with the U.S.
1979 At year end oil prices were 88% higher than at the start of 1979.
1991 U.S. diplomatic ties with Iran were severed as Swiss representatives were restricted and prevented from leaving the country. Switzerland had been acting on behalf of Americans in Iran and closed the Tehran embassy in protest for the way their diplomats were treated.
1999 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was designated acting president.
1999 Five hijackers left the airport where they had been holding 150 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane. They left with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed from an Indian prison. The plane had been hijacked during a flight from Katmandu, Nepal to New Dehli on December 24.
2005 Sudan’s embassy in Baghdad was shut down in an effort to get six kidnapped workers freed. Representatives of al-Qaida warned that the Sudanese captives would be murdered if diplomatic relations between Iraq and Sudan were not cut off.
2008 The ski resort of Aspen has been virtually shut down on New Year’s Eve after two homemade gasoline bombs with threatening notes were found at two of the town’s banks and two more in an alley.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
