November 8th
 

1674 ~ Death of John Milton, English poet.

1847 ~ Birthday of Bram Stoker, Irish novelist.

1884 ~ Birthday of Hermann Rorschach, psychiatrist.

1895 ~ Wilhelm Röntgen discovered x-rays.

1942 ~ World War II: Operation Torch – U.S. and UK forces landed in French North Africa.

1950 ~ The first dog fight between jet aircraft.

1986 ~ Death of Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician.

1987 ~ An IRA bomb killed 11 people during a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

2002 ~ Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Iraq, requiring Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences". (requires Adobe Acrobat)

2008 ~ John Key is voted the new New Zealand Prime Minister.

November 9th
 

1888 ~ Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim.

1921 ~ Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

1934 ~ Birthday of Carl Sagan, American Astronomer & Writer.

1938 ~ Nazi Germany's first large-scale act of physical anti-Jewish violence, Kristallnacht, began.

1953 ~ Death of Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet.

1953 ~ Death of Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, first King of Saudi Arabia.

1965 ~ Several U.S. states and parts of Canada were hit by blackouts.

1970 ~ Death of Charles de Gaulle, French general and politician.

1995 ~ Garry Kasparov beat Anatoly Karpov to become the world chess champion.

2006 ~ Death of Markus Wolf, East German intelligence director.

November 10th
 

1775 ~ The Continental Congress passed a resolution creating the Continental Marines, later renamed the United States Marine Corps.

1871 ~ Henry Morton Stanley located missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

1925 ~ Birthday of Richard Burton, Actor.

1951 ~ Direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service began in the United States.

1975 ~ The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a song about the tragedy.

1978 ~ Birthday of Kyla Cole, Slovak Porn actress.

1982 ~ The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. opened to public.

1983 ~ Birthday of Sammie Rhodes, Porn actress.

1995 ~ Execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, writer and human rights activist.

2007 ~ Death of Norman Mailer, American author.

November 11th
 

1880 ~ Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly was hung in Melbourne.

1904 ~ Birthday of Alger Hiss, Spy.

1918 ~ Death of Henry Gunther, the last American to die in World War I.

1918 ~ The end of World War I: Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies.

1922 ~ Birthday of Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist.

1938 ~ Death of Mary Mallon, aka "Typhoid Mary", carrier of the typhoid disease.

1965 ~ Rhodesia proclaimed its independence from Britain.

1992 ~ The Church of England voted to allow women to become priests.

2000 ~ A cable car full of skiers and snowboarders, many of them children, caught fire in Austria, killing 155 people.

2004 ~ Death of Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority.

November 12th
 

1035 ~ Death of King Canute.

1833 ~ Birthday of Alexander Borodin, Russian composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Auguste Rodin, French sculptor.

1942 ~ The Battle of Guadalcanal began.

1944 ~ The German battleship Tirpitz was sunk off the coast of Norway.

1954 ~ Ellis Island closed.

1955 ~ Hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell.

1970 ~ The famous exploding whale incident.

1990 ~ Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

2001 ~ Taliban forces abandoned Kabul ahead of advancing Afghan Northern Alliance troops.

King Canute. A whole life distilled to a bloke on a beach delusionally ordering an incoming tide to retreat.

...

"Give the order, O great king, and it will obey," one of then assured him.

"Very well. Sea," cried Canute, "I command you to come no further! Waves, stop your rolling!. Surf, stop your pounding! Do not dare touch my feet!"

He waited a moment, quietly, and a tiny wave rushed up the sand and lapped at his feet.

"How dare you!" Canute shouted. "Ocean, turn back now! I have ordered you to retreat before me, and now you must obey! Go back!"

And in answer another wave swept forward and curled around the king's feet. The tide came in, just as it always did. The water rose higher and higher. It came up around the king's chair, and wet not only his feet, but also his robe. His officers stood before him, alarmed, and wondering whether he was not mad.

"Well, my friends," Canute said, "it seems I do not have quite so much power as you would have me believe. Perhaps you have learned something today. Perhaps now you will remember there is only one King who is all-powerful, and it is he who rules the sea, and holds the ocean in the hollow of his hand. I suggest you reserve your praises for him."

The royal officers and courtiers hung their heads and looked foolish. And some say Canute took off his crown soon afterward, and never wore it again.

November 13th
 

1850 ~ Birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson, Novelist.

1868 ~ Death of Gioacchino Rossini, Composer.

1940 ~ The animated film Fantasia was released.

1955 ~ Birthday of Whoopi Goldberg, American actress.

1956 ~ U.S. Supreme Court declared Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal.

1971 ~ Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

1985 ~ A mudslide triggered by the Nevado del Ruiz volcano buried the city of Armero, Colombia, killing some 23,000 people.

1990 ~ Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first known World Wide Web page.

1998 ~ President Bill Clinton agreed to pay Paula Jones $850,000, ending the four-year legal battle over her sexual harassment lawsuit that spurred impeachment proceedings against him. Clinton did not admit guilt or apologize.

2002 ~ Saddam Hussein's government agreed to the return of international weapons inspectors to Iraq.

November 14th
 

1719 ~ Birthday of Leopold Mozart, Austrian musician, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

1832 ~ Death of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Declaration of Independence signer.

1851 ~ Herman Melville's novel “Moby-Dick” was first published in the U.S.

1922 ~ The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began radio service in the UK.

1954 ~ Birthday of Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State.

1968 ~ Birthday of Janine Lindemulder, Porn actress.

1972 ~ The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 1,000 mark yesterday for the first time.

1977 ~ Birthday of Sara Jay, Porn actress.

1991 ~ Indictments handed down against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.

2001 ~ Northern Alliance fighters entered Kabul.

November 15th
 

1787 ~ Death of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Composer.

1887 ~ Birthday of Georgia O'Keeffe, Painter.

1920 ~ First assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva.

1940 ~ The Luftwaffe destroyed most of the English city of Coventry during World War II.

1942 ~ Birthday of Daniel Barenboim, Pianist & Conductor.

1960 ~ The Polaris missile became operational on the USS George Washington (SSBN-598).

1969 ~ The Soviet submarine K-19 collided with the American submarine USS Gato.

1971 ~ Intel released the first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1978 ~ Death of Margaret Mead, American anthropologist.

1998 ~ Death of Stokely Carmichael, American Black Power activist.

November 16th
 

1885 ~ Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader and "Father of Manitoba", executed for high treason.

1895 ~ Birthday of Paul Hindemith, Composer.

1920 ~ Qantas was registered under the name of “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited”.

1922 ~ Birthday of Gene Amdahl, computer scientist.

1933 ~ The U.S. and the USSR established diplomatic relations.

1938 ~ LSD was synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann.

1959 ~ The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway.

1960 ~ Death of Clark Gable, Actor.

1979 ~ Sir Anthony Blunt, a former security service officer, identified as the fourth man in the "Philby affair".

2006 ~ Death of Milton Friedman, American economist.

November 17th
 

1871 ~ The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.

1887 ~ Birthday of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

1917 ~ Death of Auguste Rodin, Sculptor.

1929 ~ Death of Herman Hollerith, Statistician.

1959 ~ Death of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian Composer.

1968 ~ Birthday of Amber Michaels, German Porn Star.

1970 ~ In one of the greatest successes of the Soviet lunar exploration program, The USSR landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle on the moon, the Lunokhod 1.

1970 ~ Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the first computer mouse.

1997 ~ An Islamic extremist group killed 60 tourists at Luxor, Egypt.

2003 ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th governor of California.

November 18th
 

1786 ~ Birthday of Carl Maria von Weber, Composer.

1836 ~ Birthday of Sir William S. Gilbert, Dramatist.

1916 ~ World War I: First Battle of the Somme, which started on July 1, ended in stalemate – Approx. 1,120,000 casualties, 310,000 killed or missing.

1945 ~ Operation Paperclip: The first of more than 700 German scientists arrived in the U.S. to help the development of rocket technology.

1968 ~ Death of Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, awarded the The Nobel Prize in Physics 1922.

1976 ~ Spain's parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after the dictatorship of General Franco.

1978 ~ Jonestown, Guyana mass suicide: 914 die, including 276 children.

2002 ~ UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.

2003 ~ The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 that the state constitution guarantees gay couples the right to marry.

2004 ~ Fox hunting outlawed in England and Wales.

November 19th
 

1493 ~ Christopher Columbus became the first European to go ashore on what would become Puerto Rico.

1805 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand de Lesseps, Suez Canal engineer.

1828 ~ Death of Franz Schubert, Austrian Composer.

1863 ~ U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1884 ~ Birthday of José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban Chess Grand Master.

1917 ~ Birthday of Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India.

1941 ~ World War II: The Royal Australian Navy cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran sank each other off the coast of Western Australia.

1969 ~ The second Apollo mission, Apollo 12, landed on the Moon – in “the Ocean of Storms”.

1977 ~ Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

1998 ~ Lewinsky scandal: The U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings against President Clinton.

November 20th
 

1889 ~ Birthday of Edwin Hubble, Astronomer.

1908 ~ Birthday of Alistair Cooke, Journalist.

1910 ~ Death of Leo Tolstoy, Novelist.

1924 ~ Birthday of Benoît Mandelbrot, Mathematician.

1945 ~ Nuremberg Trials began: Trials of 20 German Nazi leaders charged with war crimes during World War II started at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice.

1947 ~ The Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.

1995 ~ Diana, Princess of Wales, admitted to adultery during a television interview.

1998 ~ The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, was launched.

1998 ~ A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declared accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regards to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

2003 ~ Michael Jackson was arrested charges of child molestation.

November 21st
 

1695 ~ Death of Henry Purcell, Composer.

1787 ~ Birthday of Samuel Cunard, Shipping Magnate.

1898 ~ Birthday of René Magritte, Belgian painter.

1905 ~ Albert Einstein's paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, is published in the journal "Annalen der Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc².

1953 ~ Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announced that the skull of the "Piltdown Man" was a hoax.

1964 ~ Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened.

1969 ~ The first ARPANET link was established.

1979 ~ The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was attacked by a mob and razed.

1980 ~ Lake Peigneur drained into an underlying salt deposit.

1995 ~ Toy Story was released as the first feature-length film created using only computer-generated imagery.

November 22nd
 

1718 ~ English pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard was killed in battle off the coast of Virginia.

1890 ~ Birthday of Charles de Gaulle, General, President of France.

1900 ~ Death of Arthur S. Sullivan, Composer.

1913 ~ Birthday of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1963 ~ Death of C. S. Lewis, Author.

1963 ~ Death of Aldous Huxley, Author. (Brave New World)

1963 ~ President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

1968 ~ The Beatles released The White Album.

1977 ~ British Airways began London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.

1990 ~ UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigned.

November 23rd
 

1860 ~ Birthday of Billy the Kid, Outlaw.

1869 ~ The "Cutty Sark" was launched. It is the last example of a Clipper ship.

1887 ~ Birthday of Boris Karloff, Actor.

1888 ~ Birthday of Harpo Marx, Comedian.

1936 ~ The first edition of Life was published.

1943 ~ U.S. Marines seized control of the Tarawa and Makin atolls from the Japanese.

1955 ~ Death of Shemp Howard, actor, comedian (The Three Stooges)

1963 ~ The first episode of the science fiction TV series "Doctor Who" aired on the BBC.

1993 ~ Rachel Whiteread won both the Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.

2002 ~ Sectarian violence force the Miss World contest to move to London from Nigeria.

November 24th
 

1642 ~ Abel Tasman became the first European to discover the island of Tasmania.

1853 ~ Birthday of Bat Masterson, Gunslinger, Policeman, Sports Reporter.

1859 ~ British naturalist Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species", a book which argues that organisms gradually evolve through natural selection.

1868 ~ Birthday of Scott Joplin, Musician.

1941 ~ Birthday of Pete Best, original drummer of The Beatles.

1947 ~ The U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve citations of contempt of Congress against the so-called Hollywood 10 after they refused to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

1963 ~ Death of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassination suspect.

1991 ~ Death of Freddie Mercury, musician (Queen).

1993 ~ Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were convicted of the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger.

1998 ~ America Online announced it would acquire Netscape Communications.

November 25th
 

1844 ~ Birthday of Karl Benz, Engineer.

1867 ~ Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.

1913 ~ Birthday of Lewis Thomas, Physician & Essayist.

1926 ~ Birthday of Poul Anderson, Science Fiction writer.

1940 ~ Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the film "Knock Knock"

1968 ~ Death of Upton Sinclair, Journalist, Politician, Writer.

1974 ~ Death of U Thant, Burmese UN Secretary-General.

1986 ~ The Iran-Contra affair became public knowledge.

1998 ~ The Turkish government led by PM Mesut Yilmaz collapsed after losing a no-confidence motion over corruption allegations.

1999 ~ Six-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez was rescued by a pair of sport fishermen off the coast of Florida.

November 26th
 

1862 ~ Lewis Carroll sent the handwritten manuscript of “Alice's Adventures Underground” to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

1922 ~ Birthday of Charles M. Schulz, Cartoonist.

1939 ~ Birthday of Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock & Roll.

1942 ~ President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning in December.

1968 ~ Cream played their farewell concert.

1976 ~ The Band played their farewell concert.

1981 ~ Birthday of Aurora Snow, Porn Actress.

1981 ~ Death of Max Euwe, World Chess Master.

1983 ~ £25m in gold was stolen from a warehouse near Heathrow airport.

2003 ~ Last ever flight by Concorde.

November 27th
 

8 BC ~ Death of Horace, poet. Remembered for, among other things, “Carpe Diem” (seize the day).

1095 ~ Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

1895 ~ Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1921 ~ Birthday of Alexander Dubcèk, Czech politician.

1942 ~ Birthday of Jimi Hendrix, musician.

1946 ~ Indian P.M. Jawaharlal Nehru appealed to the U.S. and the USSR to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster".

1973 ~ The U.S. Senate confirmed President-to-be Gerald Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro Agnew, who'd resigned.

1977 ~ Birthday of Mika Tan, American Porn Star.

1978 ~ Birthday of Shy Love, Porn Star.

1990 ~ John Major followed Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of the UK.

November 28th
 

1520 ~ Ferdinand Magellan became the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

1632 ~ Birthday of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Composer.

1820 ~ Birthday of Friedrich Engels, social philosopher.

1859 ~ Death of Washington Irving, writer.

1943 ~ President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during World War II.

1954 ~ Death of Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

1969 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album Let It Bleed.

1969 ~ Birthday of Lexington Steele, Porn Actor.

1989 ~ Velvet Revolution – The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced it would give up its monopoly on political power.

1994 ~ Norway voted to reject membership in the European Union for the second time.

November 29th
 

1643 ~ Death of Claudio Monteverdi, Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Louisa May Alcott, Writer.

1898 ~ Birthday of C. S. Lewis, Writer.

1947 ~ The UN passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews.

1975 ~ The name "Micro-soft" (for "microcomputer software") is first used in a letter from Bill Gates to Paul Allen.

1981 ~ Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, California.

1982 ~ The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 37/37, stating that the Soviet Union forces should withdraw from Afghanistan.

1982 ~ Birthday of Krystal Steal, Porn Actress.

1990 ~ The UN Security Council passed Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

2001 ~ Death of George Harrison, musician.

November 30th
 

1667 ~ Birthday of Jonathan Swift, Writer & Satirist.

1804 ~ The impeachment trial of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase began.

1835 ~ Birthday of Mark Twain, Writer (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court).

1872 ~ First international soccer match played at Hamilton Crescent, Scotland.

1874 ~ Birthday of Sir Winston Churchill, British political leader & Writer.

1936 ~ In London, the Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire. It had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

1900 ~ Death of Oscar Wilde, Writer.

1994 ~ the burning Achille Lauro abandoned off east Africa.

1995 ~ President Clinton became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.

1999 ~ The anti-globalization movement caught police unprepared and forced the cancellation of opening ceremonies of a WTO meeting.

December 1st
 

1083 ~ Birthday of Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian.

1824 ~ U.S. presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the House of Representatives was given the task to decide the winner, as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment.

1835 ~ Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of fairy tales.

1919 ~ Lady Astor became the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons.

1935 ~ Birthday of Woody Allen, Film Director & Actor & Comedian.

1955 ~ Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man and was arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws.

1959 ~ The Antarctic Treaty signed, which set aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and banned military activity.

1964 ~ Death of J. B. S. Haldane, Scottish geneticist.

1990 ~ English and French Channel Tunnel workers met beneath the English Channel.

1991 ~ Ukrainian voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum for independence from the Soviet Union.

December 2rd
 

1547 ~ Death of Hernán Cortés, Spanish explorer and conqueror.

1814 ~ Death of Marquis de Sade, Writer.

1859 ~ Militant abolitionist leader John Brown was hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper's Ferry.

1923 ~ Birthday of Maria Callas, Opera Singer.

1942 ~ Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1954 ~ Senator McCarthy was censured for conduct unbecoming to a senator.

1961 ~ Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.

1981 ~ Birthday of Isabella Soprano, Porn Actress.

1990 ~ War on Drugs: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was shot and killed in Medellín.

1991 ~ Apple release the first version of QuickTime.

December 3rd
 

1815 ~ Death of John Carroll - First Roman Catholic Archbishop in the U.S.

1857 ~ Birthday of Joseph Conrad, Writer.

1894 ~ Death of Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer.

1919 ~ Death of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Painter.

1947 ~ ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway.

1967 ~ At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, Lewis Washkansky became the first human to receive a heart transplant. The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.

1984 ~ Bhopal Disaster: A leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed nearly 3,000 people in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1989 ~ Formal end of the Cold War.

1999 ~ NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander just before it entered the Martian atmosphere.

1999 ~ Death of Madeline Kahn, Actress & Comedian.

December 4th
 

1642 ~ Death of Cardinal Richelieu, French statesman.

1674 ~ Father Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan which would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois.

1679 ~ Death of Thomas Hobbes, political philosopher.

1849 ~ Birthday of Crazy Horse, American Indian leader.

1872 ~ The Mary Celeste was found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for 9 days but was only slightly damaged.

1945 ~ The U.S. Senate approved United States participation in the United Nations.

1976 ~ Death of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1980 ~ Led Zeppelin announced its breakup.

1981 ~ Birthday of Courtney Cummz, Porn actress.

1991 ~ Pan American World Airways ceased operations.

November 5th
 

1791 ~ Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1839 ~ Birthday of George Armstrong Custer, American general.

1847 ~ Jefferson Davis was elected to the U.S. Senate.

1890 ~ Birthday of Fritz Lang, film director. It was in his film "Frau im Mond" that the countdown (10, 9, 8 ...) was first used; in this instance, for dramatic effect.

1901 ~ Birthday of Werner Heisenberg, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1932.

1901 ~ Birthday of Walt Disney, film producer.

1926 ~ Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, debuted.

1933 ~ Prohibition ended: The Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. This overturned the 18th Amendment, which had outlawed the inter-state sale of alcohol.

1969 ~ Time Magazine reported the My Lai Massacre.

1995 ~ The Sri Lankan armed forces took Jaffna from the Tamil Tigers.

December 6th
 

1768 ~ First edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.

1884 ~ The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, banning slavery, was ratified.

1889 ~ Death of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America.

1917 ~ A munitions explosion kills more than 1,900 people and destroys part of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1920 ~ Birthday of Dave Brubeck, jazz musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor.

1947 ~ Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.

1989 ~ Marc Lépine killed 14 women in Montreal, Quebec.

1992 ~ In Ayodhya, India, Hindus demolished the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque.

2002 ~ Death of Philip Berrigan, civil rights activist.

December 7th
 

43 BC ~ Death of Cicero, Roman politician and author.

1787 ~ Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1928 ~ Birthday of Noam Chomsky, Linguist.

1941 ~ The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II.

1965 ~ Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.

1970 ~ Death of Rube Goldberg, best known for his cartoons depicting Rube Goldberg machines.

1971 ~ Birthday of Chasey Lain, Porn Actress.

1972 ~ Launch of Apollo 17, the last manned lunar landing mission.

1975 ~ Indonesia invaded East Timor.

1988 ~ Yasser Arafat recognized the right of Israel to exist.

December 8th
 

1542 ~ Birthday of Mary, Queen of Scots.

1864 ~ Death of George Boole, Mathematician.

1925 ~ Birthday of Sammy Davis Jr., Actor & Singer.

1939 ~ Birthday of James Galway, Irish flutist.

1941 ~ The U.S. entered World War II when Congress declared war against Japan.

1953 ~ President Eisenhower gave the "Atoms for Peace" speech.

1978 ~ Death of Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel.

1980 ~ Mark Chapman murdered former Beatle John Lennon.

1991 ~ Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed an agreement ending the U.S.S.R. and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1993 ~ U.S. participation in The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by President Clinton.

December 9th
 

1608 ~ Birthday of John Milton, Poet & Writer.

1868 ~ Birthday of Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel prize winner in 1918.

1906 ~ Birthday of Grace Murray Hopper, American computer pioneer.

1937 ~ Battle of Nanjing began. The Rape of Nanjing followed.

1968 ~ First demonstration of the computer mouse.

1992 ~ Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.

1993 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was repaired by astronauts of STS-61.

1996 ~ Death of Mary Leakey, Archeologist & Anthropologist.

2000 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court stayed the sixth Florida recount.

2004 ~ Canada's Supreme Court ruled that homosexual marriage was constitutional.

December 10th
 

1815 ~ Birthday of Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer.

1830 ~ Birthday of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

1896 ~ Death of Alfred Nobel, chemist, founder of the Nobel Prize.

1907 ~ President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1941 ~ Japanese forces landed in the Philippines, captured Guam and sank the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.

1948 ~ the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

1953 ~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1978 ~ Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1999 ~ Death of Rick Danko, Canadian bassist and singer (The Band).

2002 ~ The High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the internet defamation case of Gutnick v Dow Jones.

December 11th
 

1725 ~ Birthday of George Mason, "Father of the Bill of Rights".

1803 ~ Birthday of Hector Berlioz, Composer.

1882 ~ Birthday of Max Born, physicist and 1954 Nobel laureate.

1931 ~ The Statute of Westminster gave legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Newfoundland.

1941 ~ Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

1969 ~ Birthday of Vishwanathan Anand, former World Chess Champion.

1981 ~ Birthday of Nikki Benz, Porn Actress.

1994 ~ Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya.

1997 ~ The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was made available for signature.

2001 ~ The People's Republic of China joined the World Trade Organization.

December 12th
 

1531 ~ Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City.

1911 ~ The capital of India moved from Calcutta to New Delhi.

1915 ~ Birthday of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

1927 ~ Birthday of Robert Noyce, one of the men credited with the invention of the integrated circuit.

1963 ~ Kenya gained its independence from the UK. Uhuru!

1967 ~ Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones avoided a prison term for narcotics.

1979 ~ Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe.

1984 ~ birthday of Andy O'Neill, Brazilian Porn Actor.

1999 ~ Death of Joseph Heller, Author.

2000 ~ The U.S.Supreme Court released its decision in Bush v. Gore.

December 13th
 

1577 ~ Sir Francis Drake began his circumnavigation from Plymouth, England.

1642 ~ Abel Janszoon Tasman reached New Zealand.

1784 ~ Death of Samuel Johnson, Essayist.

1818 ~ Birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady.

1925 ~ Birthday of Dick Van Dyke, Actor & Comedian.

1939 ~ The Admiral Graf Spee engaged Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles in the Battle of the River Plate.

1945 ~ Execution of Irma Grese, Nazi war criminal.

1981 ~ Martial law imposed in Poland to try to control the Solidarity labor movement.

1996 ~ Kofi Annan elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

2003 ~ Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured near Tikrit.

December 14th
 

1546 ~ Birthday of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer.

1900 ~ Max Planck published his study of the quantum theory.

1911 ~ First expedition reached the South Pole, led by Roald Amundsen.

1939 ~ USSR was expelled from the League of Nations.

1946 ~ The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

1962 ~ Birthday of Ginger Lynn Allen, Porn Actress.

1981 ~ Israel annexed the Golan Heights.

1985 ~ Death of Roger Maris, NYY Home Run King.

1989 ~ Death of Andrei D. Sakharov, Russian physicist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 ~ The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris to end the Yugoslav wars.

December 15th
 

37 ~ Birthday of Nero, Roman emperor.

1791 ~ The U.S. Bill of Rights ratified.

1852 ~ Birthday of Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

1890 ~ Death of Sitting Bull, leader of Lakota tribe.

1916 ~ France defeated Germany in Battle of Verdun.

1958 ~ Death of Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist.

1961 ~ An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentenced Adolph Eichmann to death.

1966 ~ Death of Walt Disney, Animator & Cartoonist.

1982 ~ Spain reopened the border with Gibraltar.

1994 ~ Netscape Navigator 1.0 first released.