1914 – Industrialist Henry Ford announces his $5 minimum per-day wage, doubling most workers pay from $2.40 for a 9hr day to $5 for an 8hr day
1349 – Margaretha of Bavaria names her son Willem V Earl of Holland/Zealand
1463 – Poet Franois Villon is banned from Paris.
1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed along with over 7,000 more and Burgundy becomes part of France.
1527 – Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Zrich, was executed by drowning.
1531 – Pope Clemens VII forbids English king Henry VIII to re-marry
1709 – The Great Frost begins during the night, a sudden cold snap that remains Europe’s coldest ever winter. Thousands are killed across the continent and crops fail in France.
1757 – Louis XV of France survives the assassination attempt by RobertFranois Damiens, the last person to be executed in France with the traditional and gruesome form of Capital punishment used for regicides
1781 – Richmond, VA, was burned by a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold.
1804 – Ohio legislature passes 1st laws restricting free blacks movement
1822 – Central America proclaims annexation to Mexican Empire
1836 – Davy Crockett arrives in Nacogdoches, Texas, to aid the revolution
1846 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom
1874 – The city of Winnipeg holds first civic election. Only 304 voters were registered, but 331 ballots are cast
1885 – The Long Island Railroad Company became the first to offer piggy-back rail service which was the transportation of farm wagons on trains.
1895 – French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later declared innocent”
1896 – It was reported by The Austrian newspaper that Wilhelm Roentgen had discovered the type of radiation that became known as X-rays.
1900 – In Ireland, Nationalist leader John Edward Redmond called for a revolt against British rule.
1905 – Charles Perrine announces discovery of Jupiter’s 7th satellite, Elara
1913 – First Balkan War: During the Naval Battle of Lemnos Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.
1914 – Industrialist Henry Ford announces his $5 minimum per-day wage, doubling most workers pay from $2.40 for a 9hr day to $5 for an 8hr day
1919 – Left-wing Spartacus organization instigates a revolt in Berlin; terrified by the spread of Bolshevism, German troops brutally suppress the uprising
1925 – Nellie T. Ross becomes the first female governor in the US, succeeding her late husband as governor of Wyoming.
1927 – Judge Landis begins 3-day public hearing on charges that 4 games played between Chicago & Detroit in 1917 had been thrown to White Sox
1930 – Mao Zedong writes the essay “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire” to criticize cadres not creating rural revolutionary base areas
1933 – In California, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began.
1934 – Both the National and American baseball leagues decided to use a uniform-size baseball. It was the first time in 33 years that both leagues used the same size ball. (MLB)
1940 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) got its very first demonstration of FM radio.
1943 – William H Hastie, civilian aide to secretary of war, resigns to protest segregation in armed forces
1944 – The London “Daily Mail” was the first transoceanic newspaper to be published.
1948 – Warner Brothers-Pathe showed the very first color newsreel. The footage was of the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl football classic.
1949 – President Harry S Truman labels his administration the “Fair Deal”
1956 – In the Peanuts comic strip, Snoopy walked on two legs for the first time.
1957 – Eisenhower asks Congress to send troops to the Mid East
1967 – US folk singer Jesse Winchester crosses Canadian border after being served draft papers for military service; applies to became a Canadian citizen..
1968 – Dr Benjamin Spock indicted for conspiring to violate draft law
1970 – Joseph Yablonski, presidential candidate for the United Mine Workers, is found murdered at home with his wife and daughter
1971 – Body of former world heavyweight boxing champion Charles “Sonny” Liston (40) is found by his wife Geraldine at their Las Vegas home; he had been dead for an estimated 6 days; foul play suspected
1972 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon ordered the development of the space shuttle.
1976 – “MacNeil-Lehrer Report” premieres on PBS
1981 – Attorney General Guidelines were issued concerning FBI undercover Agents involving the investigation of bribery of public officials. The FBI’s successful ABSCAM investigation had raised concerns that undercover efforts might lead to entrapment. This was not the case in the ABSCAM investigation. The courts upheld the convictions.
1982 – Arkansas judge rules against obligatory teaching of creation
1987 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan underwent prostate surgery.
1989 – 2 French TV newsmen arrested for trying to plant fake bombs on 3 airlines at JFK airport in security test
1993 – The state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd. It was America’s first legal hanging since 1965. Dodd was an admitted child sex killer.
1996 – Yahya Ayyash, a member of the Hamas in Israel, is killed by a booby-trapped cellular phone.
1998 – U.S. Representative Sonny Bono died in skiing accident.
2002 – A 15 year-old student pilot, Charles Bishop, crashed a small plane into a building in Tampa, FL. Bishop was about to begin a flying lesson when he took off without permission and without an instructor
2005 – The solar system’s largest known dwarf planet is discovered, The discovery of “Eris” ultimately lead to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgrading Pluto, which has roughly the same size, to a dwarf planet.
2018 – Kitwe in Zambia bans shaking hands and the sale of fresh food in attempt to prevent a cholera outbreak
2019 – Chinese government report predicts China’s population will peak at 1.44 billion in 2029 before declining
2020 – Iran pulls out of the 2015 nuclear deal, will not limit its uranium enrichment
2021 – Six Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, sign an agreement to ease the blockage with Qatar, in place since 2017
2022 – Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards pardons Homer Plessy for buying whites-only train ticket in 1892 (resulted in U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson 1896)
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
