On this day in history

[Paddingtonwolf]

I had virtually the entire Tom Baker run on DVD, loads of Pertwee as well. Should have given them to you Langers when I cleared the house out for moving over here but it slipped my mind for some reason I can’t remember in the mad rush that was the last two weeks

 

[darlowolf64]

Sorry, I've been a bit busy with Cadet stuff so a bit of a catch up run...

 

[darlowolf64]

24th November

1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is killed by Jack Ruby on live television. Robert H. Jackson takes a photograph of the shooting that will win the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Photography.

Following his arrest 2 days previous, Oswald was interrogated several times during his two days at Dallas Police Headquarters. He admitted that he went to his rooming house after leaving the book depository. He also admitted that he changed his clothes and armed himself with a .38 caliber revolver before leaving his house to go to the theater. Oswald denied killing Kennedy and Tippit, denied owning a rifle, and said two photographs of him holding a rifle and a pistol were fakes.
On Sunday, November 24, detectives were escorting Oswald through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters toward an armored car that was to take him from the city jail. At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby approached Oswald from the side of the crowd and shot him once in the abdomen at close range. As the shot rang out, a police detective recognized Ruby and exclaimed: "Jack, you son of a bitch!" The crowd outside the headquarters applauded when they heard that Oswald had been shot. An unconscious Oswald was taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where Kennedy was pronounced dead two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m; Dallas police chief Jesse Curry announced his death on a TV news broadcast.

Also on 24th November...
1221 – Genghis Khan defeats the renegade Khwarazmian prince Jalal al-Din at the Battle of the Indus, completing the Mongol conquest of Central Asia.
1429 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc unsuccessfully besieges La Charité.
1642 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen's Land, later renamed Tasmania.
1835 – The Texas Provincial Government authorizes the creation of a horse-mounted police force called the Texas Rangers
1877 – Anna Sewell's animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published.
1906 – A 13–6 victory by the Massillon Tigers over their rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, for the "Ohio League" Championship, leads to accusations that the championship series was fixed and results in the first major scandal in professional American football.
1917 – In Milwaukee, nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most deaths in a single event in U.S. police history until the September 11 attacks in 2001.
1922 – Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.
1932 – In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, better known as the FBI Crime Lab, officially opens.
1969 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to land on the Moon.
1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

 

[darlowolf64]

25th November

1487 – Elizabeth of York is crowned Queen of England.
Elizabeth was the daughter of Edward IV who was a central figure in the War of the Roses. Her marriage to Henry VII followed his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. Together, Elizabeth and Henry had seven children.

Elizabeth's younger brothers, the "Princes in the Tower", mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London shortly after their uncle, Richard III, seized the throne in 1483. Although the 1484 act of Parliament Titulus Regius declared the marriage of her parents, Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, as invalid, she and her sisters were welcomed back to court by Richard III, and it was rumoured that he was plotting to marry her. The final victory of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses may have seemed a further disaster for the Yorkist princess. However, Henry Tudor knew the importance of Yorkist support for his invasion and promised to marry Elizabeth before he arrived in England. This may well have contributed to the haemorrhaging of Yorkist support for Richard.

Elizabeth seems to have played little part in politics. Her marriage appears to have been a successful and happy one, although her eldest son Arthur, Prince of Wales, died at age 15 in 1502, and three other children died young. Her second and only surviving son became King Henry VIII of England, while her daughters Margaret and Mary became Queens of Scotland and of France, respectively.

Also on 25th November

1120 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England. This, following Henry's death, would lead to the throne of England being taken by Stephen of Blois before Henry's daughter Matilda could claim it thus leading to The Anarchy which was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153.
1758 – French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control. Later, Fort Pitt will be built nearby and grow into modern Pittsburgh.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee.
1864 – American Civil War: A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan starts fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City.
1874 – The United States Greenback Party is established as a political party consisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873.
1876 – American Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack the sleeping village of Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife at the headwaters of the Powder River.
1941 – HMS Barham is sunk by a German torpedo from U331 with a loss of 862 crew members. 487 crew were rescured including Vice-Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell but the ships Captain, Geoffrey Cooke, went down with his ship.
1947 – Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
1947 – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
1952 – Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End after a premiere in Nottingham, UK. It will become the longest continuously running play in history
1963 – State funeral of John F. Kennedy; after lying in state at the United States Capitol, a Requiem Mass takes place at Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle and the President is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1981 – Pope John Paul II appoints Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
1984 – Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Some good stuff there. The story of the White Ship leading to the anarchy is a fascinating period.

 

[darlowolf64]

26th November

Thanksgiving:
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as proclaimed by President George Washington at the request of Congress.
1863 – United States President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November. Following the Franksgiving controversy from 1939 to 1941 in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Thanksgiving holiday one week earlier than normal, believing that doing so would help bolster retail sales during one of the final years of the Great Depression, it has been observed on the fourth Thursday in 1942 and subsequent years.
According to historian James Baker, debates over where any "first Thanksgiving" took place on modern American territory are a "tempest in a beanpot". Jeremy Bang opines that, "Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land." According to Baker, "the American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence."

Politically, the 1619 codification and celebration of an annual thanksgiving according to the Berkeley Hundred charter in Virginia prompted President John F. Kennedy to acknowledge the claims of both Massachusetts and Virginia to America's earliest celebrations. He issued Proclamation 3560 on November 5, 1963, saying: "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united them with their God."

The Wampanoag were collaboratively active in the first historical Thanksgiving dinner with the Pilgrims. Different accounts of the Thanksgiving meal exist from that the time. "While the celebrants might well have feasted on wild turkey, the local diet also included fish, eels, shellfish, and a Wampanoag dish called nasaump, which the Pilgrims had adopted: boiled cornmeal mixed with vegetables and meats. There were no potatoes (an indigenous South American food not yet introduced into the global food system) and no pies (because there was no butter, wheat flour, or sugar)."

The Wampanoag tribe has aligned what they eat with tradition, nature, and time of the season. Their farming and hunting techniques produced much of the dinner for the Pilgrims at the time, but they had a separate notion. Much of today's image and literary text promotes the idea that every party involved ate solely turkey.

Also on 26th November...

1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.
1914 – HMS Bulwark is destroyed by a large internal explosion with the loss of 741 men while at anchor near Sheerness.
1917 – The Manchester Guardian publishes the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France.
1917 – The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.
1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3,000 years.
1922 – The Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor. "The Gulf Between" was the first film to do so, but it was not widely distributed.
1941 – World War II: The Hull note is given to the Japanese ambassador, demanding that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina, in return for which the United States would lift economic sanctions. On the same day, Japan's 1st Air Fleet departs Hitokappu Bay for Hawaii.
1942 – Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City.
1943 – World War II: HMT Rohna is sunk by the Luftwaffe in an air attack in the Mediterranean north of Béjaïa, Algeria.
1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth's shop in New Cross, London, killing 168 people.
1944 – World War II: Germany begins V-1 and V-2 attacks on Antwerp, Belgium.
1977 – An unidentified hijacker named Vrillon, claiming to be the representative of the "Ashtar Galactic Command", takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes, starting at 5:12 pm.
1983 – Brink's-Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink's-Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.
2003 – The Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.
2008 – The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, now out of service, docks in Dubai.

 

[darlowolf64]

27th November

1975 – The Provisional IRA assassinates Ross McWhirter, after a press conference in which McWhirter had announced a reward for the capture of those responsible for multiple bombings and shootings across England.
Alan Ross McWhirter was, with his twin brother, Norris, the co-founder of the 1955 Guinness Book of Records (known since 2000 as Guinness World Records) and a contributor to the television program Record Breakers.

In the early 1960s, McWhirter was a Conservative Party activist and unsuccessfully fought the seat of Edmonton in the 1964 general election. McWhirter advocated and lobbied for various restrictions on the freedom of the Irish community in Britain, such as compulsory registration with the local police and a requirement for signed photographs when renting flats or booking hotel rooms. McWhirter advocated capital punishment for terrorism offences. During a press conference on 4 November 1975, he proposed that terrorism be classified as treason and as a result carry the death penalty. He also offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings in England that were publicly claimed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In doing so, McWhirter recognised that he could then be a target himself. This was described as a bounty by McWhirter, and considered a bounty by the IRA Army Council, a view that led directly to the events that followed. However, the idea was not originally his but that of John Gouriet.

On 27 November 1975 at 6:45 p.m., McWhirter was shot and killed by Provisional IRA Volunteers Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty, members of the Active Service Unit (ASU), later dubbed the Balcombe Street Gang, for whose capture McWhirter had offered a reward. McWhirter was shot at close range in the head and chest with a .357 Magnum revolver outside his home in Village Road, Bush Hill Park. He was taken to Chase Farm Hospital but died soon after being admitted. Duggan and Doherty were apprehended following the Balcombe Street siege and charged with murdering McWhirter in addition to nine other victims. They were sentenced to life imprisonment but released in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement

In his 1981 book, former counterterrorism operative Gordon Winter of the South African Bureau of State Security recalled a briefing with his London-based handler Alf Bouwer warning him to be wary of McWhirter, who he claimed was a British intelligence operative and member of the right-wing, anti-immigration Society for Individual Freedom, which he described as a "front" for "disseminating Establishment-type propaganda."

Also on 27th November...

176 – Emperor Marcus Aurelius grants his son Commodus the rank of "Imperator" and makes him Supreme Commander of the Roman legions.
1809 – The Berners Street hoax is perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London.
1835 – James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England.
1901 – The U.S. Army War College is established.
1924 – In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.
1940 – World War II: At the Battle of Cape Spartivento, the Royal Navy engages the Regia Marina in the Mediterranean Sea.
1942 – World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands.
1973 – Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States Senate votes 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States. (On December 6, the House will confirm him 387–35).
1978 – In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.
1989 – Avianca Flight 203: A Boeing 727 explodes in mid-air over Colombia, killing all 107 people on board and three people on the ground. The Medellín Cartel, led by Pablo Escobar, will claim responsibility for the attack.

 

[darlowolf64]

28th November

1905 – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland.

Sinn Féin, "We Ourselves", often mistranslated as "Ourselves Alone", is the name of an Irish political party founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It subsequently became a focus for various forms of Irish nationalism, especially Irish republicanism. After the Easter Rising in 1916, it grew in membership, with a reorganisation at its Ard Fheis in 1917. Its split in 1922 in response to the Anglo-Irish Treaty which led to the Irish Civil War and saw the origins of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two parties which have since dominated Irish politics. Another split in the remaining Sinn Féin organisation in the early years of the Troubles in 1970 led to the Sinn Féin of today, which is a republican, left-wing nationalist and secular party.

Sinn Féin won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland parliament at the general election in December 1918, twenty-five of them uncontested. At the 1918 general election, Countess Constance Markievicz was elected for the constituency of Dublin St Patrick's, beating her opponent William Field with 66% of the vote, as one of 73 Sinn Féin MPs. The results were called on 28 December 1918. This made her the first woman elected to the United Kingdom House of Commons. However, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she did not take her seat in the House of Commons.

Also on 28th November...

1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond in lieu of posting wedding banns, which enables them to marry immediately.
1660 – At Gresham College, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray decide to found what is later known as the Royal Society.
1666 – At least 3,000 men of the Royal Scots Army led by Tam Dalyell of the Binns defeat about 900 Covenanter insurgents led by James Wallace of Auchens in the Battle of Rullion Green.
1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, by which the United States acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now East Tennessee.
1811 – Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.
1814 – The Times of London becomes the first newspaper to be produced on a steam-powered printing press, built by the German team of Koenig & Bauer.
1843 – Ka Lā Hui (Hawaiian Independence Day): The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.
1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicago's Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours.
1919 – Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. (Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.)
1920 – Irish War of Independence: Kilmichael Ambush: The Irish Republican Army ambush a convoy of British Auxiliaries and kill seventeen.
1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the WSM Barn Dance.
1943 – World War II: Tehran Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, to discuss war strategy.
1980 – Iran–Iraq War: Operation Morvarid: The bulk of the Iraqi Navy is destroyed by the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf. (Commemorated in Iran as Navy Day.)
1990 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns as leader of the Conservative Party and, therefore, as Prime Minister. She is succeeded in both positions by John Major.

 

[darlowolf64]

29th November

1899 – FC Barcelona is founded by Catalan, Spanish and Englishmen. It later develops into one of Spanish football's most iconic and strongest teams.

Futbol Club Barcelona, commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça, is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football.

Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, Catalan, German, and English footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto "Més que un club" ("More than a club"). Unlike many other football clubs, the supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the third-most valuable sports team in the world, worth $5.51 billion, and the world's fourth richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of €582.1 million. The official Barcelona anthem is the "Cant del Barça", written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs. Barcelona traditionally play in dark shades of blue and garnet stripes, hence nicknamed Blaugrana.

There is often a fierce rivalry between the two strongest teams in a national league, and this is particularly the case in La Liga, where the game between Barcelona and Real Madrid is known as El Clásico. From the start of national competitions the clubs were seen as representatives of two rival regions in Spain: Catalonia and Castile, as well as of the two cities. The rivalry reflects what many regard as the political and cultural tensions felt between Catalans and the Castilians, seen by one author as a re-enactment of the Spanish Civil War. Over the years, the head-to-head record between the two clubs is 103 victories for Madrid, 100 victories for Barcelona, and 52 draws

Also on 29th November...

1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California
1781 – The crew of the British slave ship Zong murders 54 Africans by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance, beginning the Zong massacre.
1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time
1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole
1947 – The United Nations General Assembly approves a plan for the partition of Palestine.
1952 – 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 – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbits the Earth twice and splashes down off the coast of Puerto Rico.
1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
1963 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 831 crashes shortly after takeoff from Montreal-Dorval International Airport, killing all 118 people on board.
1963 – "I Want to Hold Your Hand", recorded on October 17, 1963, is released by the Beatles in the United Kingdom.
1972 – Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

 

[leedswolf]

Just to add, Barcelona's official colours the blaugrana (blue and garnet) is attributed to Arthur and Ernest Witty who were very involved in the early years of the club. They proposed wearing blue and red stripes since these had been the colours of the rugby team at Merchant Taylors, the school where they'd studied in Crosby.

 

[darlowolf64]

30th November

1872 – The first-ever international football match, recognized by FIFA, takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England.

Following public challenges issued in Glasgow and Edinburgh newspapers by The FA secretary Charles Alcock, the first encounter of five matches between teams representing England and Scotland took place in London on 5 March 1870 at The Oval, resulting in a 1–1 draw. The second match was played on 19 November 1870, England 1–0 Scotland. This was followed by matches on 25 February 1871, England 1–1 Scotland; 18 November 1871, England 2–1 Scotland; and 24 February 1872, England 1–0 Scotland. Most players selected for the Scottish side in these early "internationals" were from the London area, although players based in Scotland were also invited. The only player affiliated to a Scottish club was Robert Smith of Queen's Park, Glasgow, who played in the November 1870 match and both of the 1871 games. Robert Smith and James Smith (both of the Queen's Park club) were listed publicly for the February 1872 game, but neither played in the match.

The 1872 association football match between the national teams of Scotland and England is officially recognised by FIFA as the sport's first international. It took place on 30 November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent, the West of Scotland Cricket Club's ground in Partick, Glasgow. The match was watched by 4,000 spectators and finished as a 0–0 draw.

All eleven Scottish players were members of the Queen's Park, the leading Scottish club at this time, although three players were also members of other clubs; William Kerr of Granville F.C. and the Smith brothers of South Norwood F.C.[7] Scotland had hoped to obtain the services of Arthur Kinnaird of The Wanderers and Henry Renny-Tailyour of Royal Engineers but both were unavailable. The teams for this match were gathered together "with some difficulty, each side losing some of their best men almost at the last moment". The Scottish side was selected by goalkeeper and captain Robert Gardner. The English side was selected by Charles Alcock and contained players from nine clubs; Alcock himself was unable to play due to injury. The match, initially scheduled for 2pm, was delayed for 20 minutes. The 4,000 spectators paid an entry fee of a shilling, the same amount charged at the 1872 FA Cup Final.

Also on 30th November...

1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to the French First Republic.
1936 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.
1939 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army crosses the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War.
1947 – Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins, leading up to the creation of the State of Israel and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
1953 – Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Buganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda.
1966 – Decolonization: Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1967 – Decolonization: South Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland and speaks in favor of the "Northern Ireland peace process" to a huge rally at Belfast City Hall; he calls IRA fighters "yesterday's men".
1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.

 

[darlowolf64]

1st December

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city's bus boycott.


The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

Before the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws mandated the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result of this segregation, African Americans were not hired as drivers, were forced to ride in the back of the bus, and were frequently ordered to surrender their seats to white people even though black passengers made up 75% of the bus system's riders. Many bus drivers treated their black passengers poorly beyond the law: African-Americans were assaulted, shortchanged, and left stranded after paying their fares.

Previous transport boycott in the US;

In 1841 Frederick Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum entered a train car reserved for white passengers in Lynn, Massachusetts, when the conductor ordered them to leave the car, they refused. Following the action, widespread organizing led Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which grant equal rights to Black citizens in public accommodations. In 1883 the Supreme Court overturned this victory declaring it unconstitutional.

Pressure increased across the country. The related civil suit was heard in federal district court and, on June 5, 1956, the court ruled in Browder v. Gayle (1956) that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. As the state appealed the decision, the boycott continued. The case moved on to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling.

The bus boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956, after 382 days. The Montgomery bus boycott resounded far beyond the desegregation of public buses. It stimulated activism and participation from the South in the national Civil Rights Movement and gave King national attention as a rising leader.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 1st December...

1824 – United States presidential election: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1878 – President Rutherford B. Hayes gets the first telephone installed in the White House.
1913 – The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the Southern Hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation
1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament (MP) to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
1924 – The National Hockey League's first United States-based franchise, the Boston Bruins, plays their first game in league play at home, at the still-extant Boston Arena indoor hockey facility
1934 – Sergei Kirov is assassinated, paving way for the repressive Great Purge, and Vinnytsia massacre by General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin
1941 – World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.


1988 – World AIDS Day is proclaimed worldwide by the UN member states.
1988 – Benazir Bhutto, is named as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader to lead a Muslim nation.
1989 – Cold War: East Germany's parliament abolishes the constitutional provision granting the Communist Party the leading role in the state.
1990 – Channel Tunnel sections started from the United Kingdom and France meet beneath the seabed.
1991 – Cold War: Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.
2006 – The law on same-sex marriage comes into force in South Africa, legaliszing same-sex marriage for the first time on the African continent.
2009 – The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in the European Union.

 

[darlowolf64]

2nd December

1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed by police in Medellín.


Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician, who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Escobar was also involved in philanthropy in Colombia and paid handsomely for the staff of his cocaine lab. Escobar spent millions developing some of Medellín's poorest neighborhoods. He built housing complexes, parks, football stadiums, hospitals, schools, and churches. Escobar also entered politics in the 1980s and participated in and supported the formation of the Liberal Party of Colombia. In 1982, he successfully entered the Colombian Congress. Although only an alternate, he was automatically granted parliamentary immunity and the right to a diplomatic passport under Colombian law. At the same time, Escobar was gradually becoming a public figure, and because of his charitable work, he was known as "Robin Hood Paisa." He alleged once in an interview that his fortune came from a bicycle rental company he founded when he was 16 years old.

In Congress, the new Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara-Bonilla, had become Escobar's opponent, accusing Escobar of criminal activity from the very first day of Congress. Escobar's arrest in 1976 was investigated by Lara-Bonilla's subordinates. A few months later, Liberal leader Luis Carlos Galán expelled Escobar from the party. Although Escobar fought back, he announced his retirement from politics in January 1984. Three months later, Lara-Bonilla was murdered. Escobar still held a grudge against Luis Carlos Galán for kicking him out of politics, so Galán was assassinated on 18 August 1989 at Escobar's orders. Escobar then planted a bomb on Avianca Flight 203 in an attempt to assassinate Galán's successor, César Gaviria Trujillo, who missed the plane and survived. All 107 people were killed in the blast. Because two Americans were also killed in the bombing, the U.S. government began to intervene directly.

Escobar faced threats from the Colombian police, the U.S. government and his rival, the Cali Cartel. On 2 December 1993, Escobar was found in a house in a middle-class residential area of Medellin by Colombian special forces using technology provided by the United States. Police tried to arrest Escobar, but the situation quickly escalated to an exchange of gun fire. Escobar was shot and killed while trying to escape from the roof. He was hit by bullets in the torso and feet, and a bullet which struck him in the head, killing him. This sparked debate about whether he killed himself or whether he was shot and killed.

Soon after Escobar's death and the subsequent fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel, the cocaine market became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel until the mid-1990s when its leaders were either killed or captured by the Colombian government. The Robin Hood image that Escobar had cultivated maintained a lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor whom Escobar had aided while he was alive, mourned his death, and over 25,000 people attended his funeral. Some of them consider him a saint and pray to him for receiving divine help.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 2nd December...

1697 – St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt to the design of Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London, is consecrated.[3]
1763 – Dedication of the Touro Synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island, the first synagogue in what will become the United States.
1766 – Swedish parliament approves the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act and implements it as a ground law, thus being first in the world with freedom of speech.
1804 – At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French.
1845 – Manifest Destiny: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President James K. Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
1848 – Franz Joseph I becomes Emperor of Austria.
1851 – French President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic.
1852 – Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French as Napoleon III.
1859 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
1865 – Alabama ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, followed by North Carolina, then Georgia; U.S. slaves were legally
free within two weeks.
1867 – At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
1927 – Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
1930 – Great Depression: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Herbert Hoover proposes a $150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
1939 – New York City's LaGuardia Airport opens.
1942 – World War II: During the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
1943 – World War II: A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks numerous cargo and transport ships, including the American SS John Harvey, which is carrying a stockpile of mustard gas.
1947 – Jerusalem Riots of 1947: Arabs riot in Jerusalem in response to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.
1949 – Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others is adopted.
1970 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm al-Quwain form the United Arab Emirates.
1976 – Fidel Castro becomes President of Cuba, replacing Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado.
1982 – At the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
1993 – Space Shuttle program: STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
1999 – The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Executive following the Good Friday Agreement.
2001 – Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
2020 – Cannabis is removed from the list of most dangerous drugs of the international drug control treaty by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

 

[leedswolf]

The UAE was previously referred to as the 'Trucial States'. Seven states afforded British Protectorate status until the treaties were revoked on 01/12/1971. Six of the Sheikdoms formed the UAE with the 7th, Ras Al Khairmah joining on 10/02/1972.

 

[darlowolf64]

3rd December

1925 – Final agreement is signed between the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom formalising the Partition of Ireland.

The partition of Ireland was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland was duly created with a devolved government (Home Rule) and remained part of the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic. On 6 December 1922, a year after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the territory of Southern Ireland left the UK and became the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland.

Michael Collins had negotiated the treaty and had it approved by the cabinet, the Dáil (on 7 January 1922 by 64–57), and by the people in national elections. Regardless of this, it was unacceptable to Éamon de Valera, who led the Irish Civil War to stop it. Collins was primarily responsible for drafting the constitution of the new Irish Free State, based on a commitment to democracy and rule by the majority.

De Valera's minority refused to be bound by the result. Collins now became the dominant figure in Irish politics, leaving de Valera on the outside. The main dispute centred on the proposed status as a dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) for Southern Ireland, rather than as an independent all-Ireland republic, but continuing partition was a significant matter for Ulstermen like Seán MacEntee, who spoke strongly against partition or re-partition of any kind.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty (signed 6 December 1921) contained a provision (Article 12) that would establish a boundary commission, which would determine the border "...in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions...". The terms of Article 12 were ambiguous – no timetable was established or method to determine "the wishes of the inhabitants". Article 12 did not specifically call for a plebiscite or specify a time for the convening of the commission (the commission did not meet until November 1924).

he commission consisted of only three members Justice Richard Feetham, who represented the British government. Feetham was a judge and graduate of Oxford. In 1923 Feetham was the legal advisor to the High Commissioner for South Africa.

Eoin MacNeill, the Irish governments Minister for Education, represented the Irish Government. In 1913 MacNeill established the Irish Volunteers and in 1916 issued countermanding orders instructing the Volunteers not to take part in the Easter Rising which greatly limited the numbers that turned out for the rising. On the day before his execution, the Rising leader Tom Clarke warned his wife about MacNeill: "I want you to see to it that our people know of his treachery to us. He must never be allowed back into the national life of this country, for so sure as he is, so sure he will act treacherously in a crisis. He is a weak man, but I know every effort will be made to whitewash him."

Joseph R. Fisher was appointed by the British Government to represent the Northern Ireland Government (after the Northern Government refused to name a member). It has been argued that the selection of Fisher ensured that only minimal (if any) changes would occur to the existing border. A small team of five assisted the commission in its work.

The final agreement between the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom (the inter-governmental Agreement) of 3 December 1925 was published later that day by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The agreement was enacted by the "Ireland (Confirmation of Agreement) Act" and was passed unanimously by the British parliament on 8–9 December. The Dáil voted to approve the agreement, by a supplementary act, on 10 December 1925 by a vote of 71 to 20. With a separate agreement concluded by the three governments, the publication of Boundary Commission report became an irrelevance. Commission member Fisher stated to the Unionist leader Edward Carson that no area of importance had been ceded to the Irish Government: “If anybody had suggested twelve months ago that we could have kept so much I would have laughed at him”. The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State W. T. Cosgrave informed the Irish Parliament (the Dail) that "...the only security for the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland now depended on the goodwill of their neighbours."

The commission's report was not published in full until 1969.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 3rd December...

• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones.

1800 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden: French General Jean Victor Marie Moreau decisively defeats the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this will force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war.
1800 – United States presidential election: The Electoral College casts votes for president and vice president that result in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.
1898 – The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club defeats an all-star collection of early football players 16–0, in what is considered to be the very first all-star game for professional American football.
1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.
1938 – Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Utilization of Jewish Property forcing Jews to sell real property, businesses, and stocks at below market value as part of Aryanization.
1944 – Greek Civil War: Fighting breaks out in Athens between the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army.
1959 – The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration.
1965 – Soviet Union, Space probe of the Luna program, called Luna 8, is launched, but crashes on the Moon.
1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).
1979 – Iranian Revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.
1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom later died from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
1989 – In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact may be coming to an end.
1992 – The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo.
1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.
1997 – In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.

 

[darlowolf64]

4th December

• 1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste is discovered drifting in the Atlantic. Her crew is never found.

Mary Celeste often erroneously referred to as Marie Celeste was a Canadian built, American-registered merchant brigantine that was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. The last entry in her log was dated ten days earlier. She had left New York City for Genoa on November 7 and was still amply provisioned when found. Her cargo of alcohol was intact, and the captain's and crew's personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever seen or heard from again.

The keel of the future Mary Celeste was laid in late 1860 at the shipyard of Joshua Dewis in the village of Spencer's Island, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The ship was constructed of locally felled timber, with two masts, and was rigged as a brigantine; she was carvel-built, the hull planking flush rather than overlapping. She was launched on May 18, 1861, given the name Amazon, and registered at nearby Parrsboro on June 10, 1861.

For her maiden voyage in June 1861, Amazon sailed to Five Islands, Nova Scotia to take on a cargo of timber for passage across the Atlantic to London. After supervising the ship's loading, Captain McLellan fell ill; his condition worsened. The Amazon returned to Spencer's Island where McLellan died on June 19. John Nutting Parker took over as captain, and resumed the voyage to London, in the course of which Amazon encountered further misadventures. She collided with fishing equipment in the narrows off Eastport, Maine, and after leaving London ran into and sank a brig in the English Channel.

In October 1867, at Cape Breton Island, Amazon was driven ashore in a storm, and was so badly damaged that her owners abandoned her as a wreck. On October 15, she was acquired as a derelict by Alexander McBean, of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Within a month, McBean sold the wreck to a local businessman, who in November 1868, sold it to Richard W. Haines, an American mariner from New York. Haines paid US$1,750 for the wreck, and then spent $8,825 restoring it. He made himself her captain, and, in December 1868, registered her with the Collector of the Port of New York as an American vessel, under a new name, Mary Celeste.

In October 1869, the ship was seized by Haines's creditors, and sold to a New York consortium headed by James H. Winchester. During the next three years, the composition of this consortium changed several times, although Winchester retained at least a half-share throughout. No record of Mary Celeste's trading activities during this period have been found. Early in 1872, the ship underwent a major refit, costing $10,000, which enlarged her considerably.

Benjamin Briggs was the Captain of the ship and he chose the crew for this voyage with care. First mate Albert G. Richardson was married to a niece of Winchester and had sailed under Briggs before. Second mate Andrew Gilling, aged about 25, was born in New York, and was of Danish extraction. The steward, newly married Edward William Head, was signed on with a personal recommendation from Winchester. The four general seamen were Germans from the Frisian Islands: the brothers Volkert and Boz Lorenzen, Arian Martens, and Gottlieb Goudschaal.

On Tuesday morning (November 5), Mary Celeste left Pier 50 with Briggs, his wife and daughter, and seven crew members, and moved into New York Harbor. The weather was uncertain, and Briggs decided to wait for better conditions. He anchored the ship just off Staten Island, where Sarah used the delay to send a final letter to her mother-in-law. The weather eased two days later, and Mary Celeste left the harbor and entered the Atlantic.

Dei Gratia had reached a position of 38°20′N 17°15′W, midway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 1872, land time. Captain Morehouse came on deck, and the helmsman reported a vessel heading unsteadily towards Dei Gratia at a distance of about six miles. The ship's erratic movements and the odd set of her sails led Morehouse to suspect that something was wrong. As the vessel drew close, he could see nobody on deck, and he received no reply to his signals, so he sent Deveau and second mate John Wright in a ship's boat to investigate. The pair established that this was the Mary Celeste by the name on her stern; they then climbed aboard and found the ship deserted. They found the ship's daily log in the mate's cabin, and its final entry was dated at 8 a.m. on November 25, nine days earlier. It recorded Mary Celeste's position then as 37°1′N 25°1′W off Santa Maria Island in the Azores, nearly 400 nautical miles from the point where Dei Gratia encountered her. Deveau saw that the cabin interiors were wet and untidy from water that had entered through doorways and skylights, but were otherwise in reasonable order. He found personal items scattered about Briggs' cabin, including a sheathed sword under the bed, but most of the ship's papers were missing along with the captain's navigational instruments.

Deveau returned to report these findings to Morehouse, who decided to bring the derelict into Gibraltar 600 nautical miles away. Under maritime law, a salvor could expect a substantial share of the combined value of rescued vessel and cargo, the exact award depending on the degree of danger inherent in the salvaging. Morehouse divided Dei Gratia's crew of eight between the two vessels, sending Deveau and two experienced seamen to Mary Celeste while he and four others remained on Dei Gratia. The weather was relatively calm for most of the way to Gibraltar, but each ship was seriously undercrewed and progress was slow. Dei Gratia reached Gibraltar on December 12; Mary Celeste had encountered fog and arrived on the following morning. She was immediately impounded by the vice admiralty court to prepare for salvage hearings.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 4th December...

771 – Austrasian king Carloman I dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne as sole king of the Frankish Kingdom.
1259 – Kings Louis IX of France and Henry III of England agree to the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry renounces his claims to French-controlled territory on continental Europe (including Normandy) in exchange for Louis withdrawing his support for English rebels.
1619 – Thirty-eight colonists arrive at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia. The group's charter proclaims that the day "be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."
1745 – Charles Edward Stuart's army reaches Derby, its furthest point during the Second Jacobite Rising.
1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
1864 – American Civil War: In the Battle of Waynesboro, Georgia, Union cavalry forces defeated Confederate cavalry, opening the way for Sherman's army to approach the coast.
1865 – North Carolina ratifies 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, followed soon by Georgia, and U.S. slaves were legally free within two weeks.
1875 – Notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison; he is later recaptured in Spain.
1881 – The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.
1906 – Alpha Phi Alpha the first intercollegiate Greek lettered fraternity for African-Americans was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
1909 – In Canadian football, the First Grey Cup game is played. The University of Toronto Varsity Blues defeat the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, 26–6.
1909 – The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club, the oldest surviving professional hockey franchise in the world, is founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association
1919 – Ukrainian War of Independence: The Polonsky conspiracy is initiated, with an attempt to assassinate the high command of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine.
1928 – Cosmo Gordon Lang was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first bachelor to be appointed in 150 years.
1939 – World War II: HMS Nelson is struck by a mine (laid by U-31) off the Scottish coast and is laid up for repairs until August 1940.
1943 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes down the Works Progress Administration, because of the high levels of wartime employment in the United States.
1945 – By a vote of 65–7, the United States Senate approves United States participation in the United Nations. (The UN had been established on October 24, 1945.)
1950 – Korean War: Associated Press photographer Max Desfor photographs hundreds of Korean refugees crossing a downed bridge in the Taedong River: 1951 Pulitzer Prize winner Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea.

1956 – The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studio for the first and last time.
1965 – Launch of Gemini 7 with crew members Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. The Gemini 7 spacecraft was the passive target for the first crewed space rendezvous performed by the crew of Gemini 6A.
1969 – Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot and killed during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein becomes San Francisco's first female mayor.
1979 – The Hastie fire in Hull kills three schoolboys and eventually leads police to arrest Bruce George Peter Lee, a British serial killer and arsonist. He confessed to a total of 11 acts of arson, pleading guilty to 26 counts of manslaughter.
1991 – Terry A. Anderson is released after seven years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut; he is the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.