TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 20
269 Diocletian is proclaimed emperor of Numerian in Asia Minor by his soldiers. He had been the commander of the emperor’s bodyguard.
1695 Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian leader of a 100-year-old rebel slave group, is killed in an ambush.
1700 Sweden’s 17-year-old King Charles XII defeats the Russians at Narva.
1789 New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1815 2nd Treaty of Paris: France & her allies agree France pay indemnities after Battle of Waterloo, ending Napoleonic Wars
1903 In Cheyenne, Wyoming, 42-year-old hired gunman Tom Horn is hanged for the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.
1945 The war crimes trials of 24 German World War II leaders began in Nuremberg, Germany.
1955 The Maryland National Guard is ordered desegregated.
1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the document that laid out the rights of children around the world. The day is also annually celebrated as Universal Children’s Day.
1959 Britain, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Sweden met to create the European Free Trade Association.
1962 President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
1962 President John F. Kennedy agreed to lift the American blockade of Cuba, ending the Cuban missile crisis.
1968 Methane gas explosions in a West Virginia coal mine kills 78 men .
1969 The Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phase out of the substance.
1971 The United States announces it will give Turkey $35 million for farmers who agree to stop growing opium poppies.
1974 The Justice Department files an anti-trust suit against the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. AT&T in an attempt to break up the corporation.
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to address Israel’s parliament.
1981 Microsoft Windows 1.0 released.
1983 An estimated 100 million people watched the controversial ABC-TV movie “The Day After.” The movie depicted the outbreak of nuclear war.
1986 World Health Organization announces first global effort to combat AIDS
1993 The U.S. Senate passed the Brady Bill and legislation implementing NAFTA.
1998 Afghanistan’s Taliban militia offered Osama bin Laden safe haven. Osama bin Laden had been accused of orchestrating two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and later terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
2001 The U.S. Justice Department headquarters building was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy building by President George W. Bush. The event was held on what would have been Kennedy’s 76th birthday.
2001 The worlds first transdermal patch ( Ortho-Evra ) that gradually releases synthetic estrogen and progestin hormones to prevent ovulation and possible pregnancy is approved for sale by US Federal health officials.
2002 President George Bush and other leaders of the world involved in NATO decided to join in the confrontation against Saddam Hussein. They banned together in order to take a stand against terrorist attacks outside of European borders.
2009 The Liberty City defendants are convicted. The five defendants in the “Liberty City Six” criminal case were sentenced by Judge Joan Lenard to federal prison terms between six and thirteen and one-half years following an investigation by the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Miami. At the conclusion of a three-day sentencing, US District Court Judge Joan Lenard sentenced Narseal Batiste, 35, Patrick Abraham, 30, Stanley Grant Phanor, 34, Burson Augustin, 24, and Rothschild Augustine, 26, on terror-related charges.
The Liberty City defendants were originally seven members of a small Miami, Florida-based religious group / domestic terrorist cell who were caught on a sting by the FBI ( In 2006 ) pretending to be representatives of al-Qaeda, the group stated they planned to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago, the FBI field office in Miami, television and movie studios in Hollywood, the Empire State Building, and other targets.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
