2001 – War in Afghanistan begins, American and British troops began air strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin-Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other Al Qaeda operatives, to the United States. Nicknamed Operation Enduring Freedom, the military strikes were part of the so-called Global War on Terror
1492 – Christopher Columbus misses Florida when he changes course
1520 – 1st public burning of books in Netherlands, in Louvain
1542 – Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo discovers Catalina Island off the coast of California
1571 – Battle of Lepanto: Holy League of southern European nations destroy Ottoman fleet in significant loss off Western Greece
1714 – People riot due to beer tax in Alkmaar, Netherlands
1763 – George III of Great Britain issues Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement
1765 – Nine American colonies sent a total of 28 delegates to New York City for the Stamp Act Congress. The delegates adopted the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances.”
1777 – During the American Revolution the second Battle of Saratoga began.
1830 – The Black Line begins; a leveé of colonists in Tasmania, Australia, attempts to round up Aborigines onto the Tasman Peninsula
1868 – Cornell University was inaugurated in Ithaca, NY.
1900 – The term “orienteering” is first used for an event
1913 – For the first time, Henry Ford’s entire Highland Park automobile factory was run on a continuously moving assembly line when the chassis was added to the process.
1915 – English nurse Edith Cavell sentenced to death along with 34 others by German court martial for running underground network to free Allied soldiers
1918 – The Georgia Tech football team defeated Cumberland College 222-0. Georgia Tech carried the ball 978 yards and never threw a pass.
1935 – Himmler, Hess and Heydrich inspect the concentration camp at Dachau
1944 – Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ordered to return to Berlin
1944 – Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando Revolt, The short-lived rebellion was staged by prisoners who worked at a crematorium after they learned that the Nazis planned to execute most of the squad. The revolt was quickly put down, and over 450 people were killed.
1949 – The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was formed.
1950 – The U.S.-led U.N. forces crossed the 38th parallel and entered North Korea. China in November proved their threat to enter the war by sending several hundred thousand troops over the border into North Korea.
1956 – A U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly rigged TV quiz shows.
1959 – People on Earth Get the First Glimpse of the Dark Side of the Moon, Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 took pictures of the far side of the Moon. The images sent by the probe covered about 70% of the far side of Earth’s natural satellite and they were instrumental in helping astronomers make the first atlas of the dark side of the Moon. The far or dark side of the Moon is the side of the Moon that cannot be seen from Earth because of the way the Moon orbits around the Earth and rotate on its own axis. Due to lunar libration, people on Earth can see about 59% of the Moon over time.
1963 – U.S. President Kennedy signed a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.
1968 – The Motion Picture Association of America adopted the film-rating system that ranged for “G” to “X.”
1973 – Iraq nationalizes Exxon and Mobil shares in Basrah Petroleum Company representing 23.75 percent equity in the company.
1981 – The Egyptian parliament, after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, named Vice President Hosni Mubarak the next president of Egypt.
1985 – The United States announced that it would no longer automatically comply with World Court decisions.
1989 – In Budapest, Hungary’s Communist Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism.
1990 – Israel begins handing out gas masks to its citizens
1993 – U.S. President Clinton sent more troops, heavy armor, and naval firepower to Somalia.
1994 – U.S. President Clinton dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf when Iraqi troops were spotted moving toward Kuwait. The U.S. Army was also put on alert.
1996 – Fox News broadcasts for the first time, The 24-hour news channel with the slogan Fair and Balanced was created by Australian-American businessman and media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch. Today, it is one of the most watched news channels in the United States.
1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming.
1998 – The U.S. government filed an antitrust suit that alleged Visa and MasterCard inhibit competition by preventing banks from offering other cards.
1999 – American Home Products Corp. agreed to pay up to $4.83 billion to settle claims that the fen-phen diet drug caused dangerous problems with heart valves.
2001 – Crude oil resumes flowing through the trans-Alaska pipeline after workers welded shut a bullet hole that caused 260,000 US gallons of oil to spill out
2001 – War in Afghanistan begins, American and British troops began air strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin-Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other Al Qaeda operatives, to the United States. Nicknamed Operation Enduring Freedom, the military strikes were part of the so-called Global War on Terror.
2014 – Spanish nurse diagnosed with Ebola, the first case outside west Africa
2015 – US President Barack Obama apologizes to Doctors without Borders President and the President of Afghanistan for the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz
2016 – Washington Post releases videotape of Donald Trump boasting of groping and kissing women without consent
2018 – Romanian referendum to ban same sex marriage fails with only 20.4% voting
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
