TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – NOV 20
1695 Zumbi, the last King of the Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil and ex-slave, is executed and decapitated, his head displayed on a pike to dispel any legends of his immortality
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.
1873 Budapest was formed when the rival cities of Buda and Pest were united to form the capital of Hungary.
1903 In Cheyenne, Wyoming, 42-year-old hired gunman Tom Horn is hanged for the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.
1914 US State Department starts requiring photographs for passports
1938 1st documented anti-Semitic remarks over US radio (by Father Coughlin)
1945 Nuremberg trials begin…The war crimes trials of 24 German World War II leaders began in Nuremberg, Germany.
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
1967 U.S. census reports the population at 200 million
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.
1980 On Jefferson Island, Louisiana, an oil rig in Lake Pigneur pierced the top of the salt dome beneath the island. The freshwater lake completely drained within a few hours. The Delcambre Canal reversed flow and two days later the previous freshwater lake was a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake
1983 100 million watch ABC-TV movie “The Day After,” about 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.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
