1995 – US President Bill Clinton lifts ban on exports of oil from the Alaskan North Slope; the ban was imposed after the oil embargo by Arab oil producers in 1973
1349 – Jews of Augsburg, Germany massacred
1530 – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, former adviser to England’s King Henry VIII, died.
1596 – King Philip II devalues Spanish currency
1760 – French commandant Beletre surrenders Detroit to Major R. Rogers
1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as el Pueblo de San Jos de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California
1781 – The crew of the slave ship Zong murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea in order to claim insurance.
1812 – Napoleon’s Grand Army crosses Berezina River in retreat from Russia
1830 – November Uprising: An armed rebellion against Russia’s rule in Poland begins.
1847 – Whitman Massacre: Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians, causing the Cayuse War
1864 – The Sand Creek Massacre occurred in Colorado when a militia led by Colonel John Chivington, killed at least 400 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who had surrendered and had been given permission to camp.
1872 – Indian Wars: The Modoc War begins with the Battle of Lost River.
1892 – A patent was issued to Almon Brown Strowger for the rotary dial.
1900 – General Horatio Kitchener assumes command of the British forces in South Africa from General Lord Roberts
1916 – US declares martial law in Dominican Republic
1918 – Serbia annexes Montenegro
1923 – The Dawes Commission, chaired by the American Banker Charles G. Dawes, is set up to look into the German economic situation and make recommendations that the US can accept
1929 – The first airplane flight over the South Pole was made by U.S. Navy Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd, sends “My calculations indicate that we have reached the vicinity of the South Pole”
1933 – 1st state liquor stores authorized (Pennsylvania)
1939 – The USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Finland prior to a Soviet attack.
1941 – Passenger ship Lurline sends radio signal of sighting Japanese war fleet
1944 – The first surgery (on a human) to correct blue baby syndrome is performed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
1945 – The monarchy was abolished in Yugoslavia and a republic proclaimed.
1947 – The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution that called for the division of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
1950 – Three weeks after U.S. General Douglas MacArthur first reported Chinese Communist troops in action in North Korea, U.N. troops begin a desperate retreat out of North Korea under heavy fire from the Chinese
1951 – Silent Coup in Thailand, The Thai military took over the country’s governance and reinstated the 1932 Constitution.
1952 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict.
1961 – The Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft was launched by the U.S. with Enos the chimp on board. The craft orbited the earth twice before landing off Puerto Rico.
1963 – U.S. President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
1964 – Roman Catholic Church in US replaces Latin with English
1967 – U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
1972 – Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) releases Pong (the first commercially successful video game) in Andy Capps Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
1973 – Chrysler Halts Production witht he economic downturn of the late 1970s struck again. This time, limping auto giant Chrysler Corp. announced plans to halt production at seven plants
1974 – In Britain, a bill that outlawed the Irish Republican Army became effective.
1975 – Bill Gates adopted the name Microsoft for the company he and Paul Allen had formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair.
1981 – Actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, CA, at the age 43.
1982 – The U.N. General Assembly voted that the Soviet Union should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
1987 – A Korean jetliner disappeared off Burma, with 115 people aboard.
1987 – Cuban detainees released 26 hostages they’d been holding for more than a week at the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, LA.
1988 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the rights of criminal defendants are not violated when police unintentionally fail to preserve potentially vital evidence.
1989 – In Czechoslovakia, the Communist-run parliament ended the party’s 40-year monopoly on power.
1990 – The U.N. Security Council voted to authorize military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and release all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.
1991 – 17 people were killed in a 164-vehicle wreck during a dust storm near Coalinga, CA, on Interstate 5.
1994 – Fighter jets attacked the capital of Chechnya and its airport only hours after Russian President Boris Yeltsin demanded the breakaway republic end its civil war.
1995 – US President Bill Clinton lifts ban on exports of oil from the Alaskan North Slope; the ban was imposed after the oil embargo by Arab oil producers in 1973
1996 – A U.N. court sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims. The sentence was the first international war crimes sentence since World War II.
1998 – Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected legalizing heroin and other narcotics.
2004 – Godzilla received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2007 – The Armed Forces of the Philippines lay siege to The Peninsula Manila after soldiers led by Senator Antonio Trillanes stage a mutiny
2012 – 30 people are killed and 100 are wounded by bombs in Hillah and Karbala, Iraq
2017 – Bosnian war criminal Slobodan Praljak commits suicide by poison in court at The Hague after 20 year prison term read out
2019 – Terrorist knife attack at Fishmongers Hall by London Bridge, kills two and injures three, attacker who was previously imprisoned for 2012 terror offence is shot dead
2022 – For the first time fewer than half of people in England and Wales call themselves Christian according to the 2021 Census
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
