532 – Nika uprising against Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople fails, 30,000 killed by troops loyal to the Emperor in the Hippodrome
1644 – Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting
1733 – 1st polar bear exhibited in America in Boston
1778 – English navigator Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the “Sandwich Islands.”
1840 – The Electro-Magnet, and Mechanics Intelligencer, 1st US electrical journal, appears
1862 – Confederate Territory of Arizona forms
1884 – Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Iesu Grist (Welsh for Jesus Christ) Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom
1896 – The x-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.
1902 – Despite reports that favor the US building a route through Nicaragua for a canal, a ‘supplementary report’ recommends the route through Panama
1933 – White Sands National Monument in New Mexico established
1943 – During World War II, the Soviets announced that they had broken the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which had began in September of 1941.
1943 – U.S. commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold during the ban until the end of World War II.
1944 – 1st Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
1957 – The first, non-stop, around-the-world, jet flight came to an end at Riverside, CA. The plane was refueled in mid-flight by huge aerial tankers.
1958 – Willie O’Ree made his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. He was the first black player to enter the league.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the “Boston Strangler,” was convicted in Cambridge, MA, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison. Desalvo was killed in 1973 by a fellow inmate.
1971 – Ivan Koloff beats Bruno Sammartino in New York, to become WWWF champ
1975 – “The Jeffersons” spinoff from “All in the Family” premieres on CBS
1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.
1978 – The European Court of Human Rights cleared the British government of torture but found it guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland.
1981 – Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets. Iran continually scaled down its financial demands to reach the accord. Initially it sought $14 billion in frozen assets; then it asked for $9.5 billion; then $8.1 billion, and finally it accepted $7.9 billion, of which less than $3 billion actually went to Iran. The rest was used to pay off American and foreign bank creditors.
1990 – A jury in Los Angeles, CA, acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.
1991 – US acknowledges CIA and US Army paid Manuel Noriega $320,000 over his career
1995 – A network of caves were discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc in southern France. The caves contained paintings and engravings that were 17,000 to 20,000 years old.
2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War ends. The conflict had lasted 11 years and left over 50,000 dead.
2012 – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout becomes the largest protest in the history of the internet
2013 – Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is indicted on corruption charges stemming from post-Hurricane Katrina business contracts and bribes
2016 – World’s 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world’s population according to a report published by Oxfam
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
