TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: DEC 9
0536 Having captured Naples earlier in the year, Belisarius takes Rome.
1212 Frederick II (later also Holy Roman Emperor) crowned King of Germany in Mainz
1625 The Treaty of the Hague was signed by England and the Netherlands. The agreement was to subsidize Christian IV of Denmark in his campaign in Germany.
1640 Settler Hugh Bewitt banished from Massachusetts colony when he declares himself to be free of original sin
1803 The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. With the amendment Electors were directed to vote for a President and for a Vice-President rather than for two choices for President.
1854 Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Charge of the Light Brigade” published
1861 The U.S. Senate approves establishment of a committee that would become the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War.
1867 The capital of Colorado Territory is moved from Golden to Denver.
1872 P.B.S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of Louisiana.
1893 Auguste Vaillant bombs the French Chamber of Deputies
1908 A child labor bill passes in the German Reichstag, forbidding work for children under age 13.
1941 China declared war against Japan, Germany, and Italy.
1948 The United States abandons a plan to de-concentrate industry in Japan
1949 The United Nations takes trusteeship over Jerusalem.
1950 Harry Gold gets 30 years imprisonment for passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II.
1953 General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired
1958 The anti-Communist John Birch Society was formed.
1960 The Laos government flees to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane is engulfed in war
1968 NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.
1965 Charlie Brown Christmas makes airs for the first time on television
1973 Bruno Sammartino beats Stan Stasiak in New York, to become WWF champion
1975 President Gerald Ford signs $2.3 Billion loan-authorization for NYC
1979 Smallpox declared eradicated
1983 Attorney General Edwin Meese says people go to soup kitchens “…because the food is free and that’s easier than paying for it”
1985 In Argentina, five former military junta members received sentences in prison for their roles in the “dirty war” in which nearly 9,000 people had “disappeared.”
1992 Clair George, former CIA spy chief, was convicted of lying to the U.S. Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. U.S. President George H.W. Bush later pardoned George.
1992 U.S. Marines land in Somalia to ensure food and medicine reaches the deprived areas of that country.
1994 Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders resigns after masturbation comments
1996 UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali approved a deal allowing Iraq to resume its exports of oil and easing the UN trade embargo imposed on Iraq in 1990.
2008 Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested on federal charges, including an attempt to sell the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
REFERENCES: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeoplehistory.com, timeandate.com, factmonster.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
