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.

1907 ~ Birthday of L. Sprague de Camp, Science Fiction writer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Alexander Dubček, Czech politician.

1942 ~ Birthday of Jimi Hendrix, musician.

1946 ~ Indian Prime Minister 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".

1953 ~ Death of Eugene O'Neill, playwright.

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

2001 ~ A hydrogen atmosphere was detected on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the HST, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

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Eudaimonia

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.

1905 ~ Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin with a goal of independence for all of Ireland.

1939 ~ Death of James A Naismith, creator of basketball.

1954 ~ Death of Enrico Fermi, Physicist.

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

1989 ~ Velvet Revolution - The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gave up its monopoly on political power.

2000 ~ The eighth tar drop falls in the University of Queensland pitch drop experiment.

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1643 ~ Death of Claudio Monteverdi, Composer.

1797 ~ Birthday of Gaetano Donizetti, Opera Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Louisa May Alcott, Writer.

1890 ~ In West Point, New York, the Middies defeated West Point 24 to 0 in the first Army-Navy football game. Go Navy!

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

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.

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.

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1667 ~ Birthday of Jonathan Swift, Writer & Satirist.

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.

1954 ~ In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound meteorite crashed through her roof and hit Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio. This is the only documented case of anyone being hit by a meteorite.

1989 ~ Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen was killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.

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

2004 ~ Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings lost, having won more than $2,500,000.

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1083 ~ Birthday of Anna Comnena, Byzantine historian.

1640 ~ Portugal regained its independence from Spain.

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.

1918 ~ Founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).

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.

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

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

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

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

1804 ~ At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France.

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.

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

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

1991 ~ Apple release the first version of QuickTime.

2001 ~ Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

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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.

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 ~ U.S. President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released statements indicating that the cold war between their nations may be coming to an end.

1997 ~ Representatives from 121 countries signed a treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The U.S., PRC, and Russia are notable exceptions.

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

1999 ~ Death of Madeline Kahn, Actress & Comedian.

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1110 ~ The Crusaders captured Sidon.

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.

1952 ~ Great Smog of 1952: A "killer fog" descended on London. "Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" becomes a word.

1976 ~ Death of Benjamin Britten, Composer.

1991 ~ Pan American World Airways ceased operations.

1991 ~ Terry Anderson was released after seven years' captivity as a hostage in Beirut.

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1766 ~ James Christie held his first sale in London. He later founded Christie's, the world's oldest auction house.

1791 ~ Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1839 ~ Birthday of George Armstrong Custer, American general.

1890 ~ Birthday of Fritz Lang, film director.

1901 ~ Birthday of Werner Karl Heisenberg, physicist.

1901 ~ Birthday of Walt Disney, film producer.

1926 ~ Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, debuted.

1933 ~ Prohibition ends: 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.

1945 ~ A U.S. Navy training flight, Flight 19, was lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

1978 ~ The Soviet Union signs a "friendship treaty" with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

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1768 ~ First edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.

1884 ~ The Halifax Munitions Explosion killed more than 1900 people, and destroyed part of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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

1896 ~ Birthday of Ira Gershwin, Lyricist.

1920 ~ Birthday of Dave Brubeck, jazz musician.

1929 ~ Birthday of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor.

1933 ~ James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was judged not obscene.

1989 ~ Marc Lépine kills 14 young women in Montreal, Quebec.

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

2002 ~ Death of Philip Berrigan, civil rights activist.

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Eudaimonia

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

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

1817 ~ Death of William Bligh, British naval officer.

1905 ~ Birthday of Gerard Kuiper, Astronomer.

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, cartoonist.

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

1975 ~ Indonesia invaded East Timor.

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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.

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

1980 ~ Mark Chapman murdered former Beatle John Lennon.

1984 ~ The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed.

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.

1994 ~ .S. participation in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed into law by President Clinton.

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Eudaimonia

1608 ~ Birthday of John Milton, Poet & Writer.

1793 ~ New York City's first daily newspaper, the “American Minerva”, is established by Noah Webster.

1851 ~ First YMCA in North America established in Montreal.

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

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

1950 ~ Harry Gold sentenced to thirty years in jail for stealing United States nuclear weapon secrets for the Soviet Union.

1961 ~ Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes in Israel.

1987 ~ First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

1990 ~ Lech Wałęsa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland.

1996 ~ Death of Mary Leakey, Archeologist & Anthropologist.

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Eudaimonia

1815 ~ Birthday of Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer.

1822 ~ Birthday of César Franck, Composer & Organist.

1830 ~ Birthday of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

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

1901 ~ Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

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

1965 ~ The Grateful Dead played their first concert, at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

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

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

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Eudaimonia

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.

1918 ~ Birthday of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian author, 1970 Nobel laureate.

1931 ~ 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.

1943 ~ Birthday of John Kerry, US politician.

1981 ~ Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes UN Secretary-General.

1994 ~ A small bomb exploded on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. The bombing was a test of explosives that would have been used in Project Bojinka.

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

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