1512 ~ Birthday of Gerardus Mercator, Flemish Geographer & Cartographer.

1658 ~ Birthday of Antoine Cadillac, founder of Detroit.

1887 ~ Birthday of Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian musician & Composer.

1908 ~ Birthday of Rex Harrison, English actor.

1946 ~ Winston Churchill delivered his famous Iron Curtain speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent…”.

1953 ~ Death of Josef Stalin, Soviet dictator.

1982 ~ Comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in Hollywood at age 33.

1993 ~ Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was banned from athletics for life after failing a drug test for a second time.

1953 ~ North and South Korean representatives met for the first time in 25 years for peace talks.

2004 ~ Martha Stewart was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to the government about why she dumped her Imclone Systems Inc. stock just before the price dropped.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1475 ~ Birthday of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian artist.

1806 ~ Birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet.

1853 ~ Giuseppe Verdi's opera "La Traviata" premiered in Venice, Italy.

1857 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.

1869 ~ Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.

1888 ~ Death of Louisa May Alcott, Novelist.

1926 ~ Birthday of Alan Greenspan, American economist.

1957 ~ The former UK colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.

1982 ~ Death of Ayn Rand, Author.

1987 ~ 197 people died when a car ferry capsized just outside the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1274 ~ Death of Thomas Aquinas, Philosopher.

1850 ~ U.S. Senator Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.

1875 ~ Birthday of Maurice Ravel, Composer.

1867 ~ Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone (patent # 174,464).

1945 ~ U.S. forces crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, during World War II.

1965 ~ In Selma, Alabama, State troopers and local law enforcement forcefully broke up a group of 600 civil rights marchers.

1967 ~ Death of Alice B. Toklas, inspiration for a million brownies.

1969 ~ Golda Meir elected Prime Minister of Israel.

1999 ~ Death of Stanley Kubrick, Film Director.

2004 ~ An investiture ceremony was held for V. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1714 ~ Birthday of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, Composer. Not to be confused with his father Johann Sebastian Bach.

1862 ~ The iron-clad CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) was launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

1869 ~ Birthday of Hector Berlioz, Composer.

1917 ~ The first stage of the Russian Revolution, the February Revolution started in St. Petersburg.

1942 ~ Death of José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player.

1948 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction in public schools violated the Constitution.

1950 ~ The Soviet Union claimed to have an atomic bomb.

1959 ~ George Lincoln Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party in Arlington, Virginia.

1983 ~ President Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire.

2001 ~ The wreck of Bluebird, Donald Campbell's speedboat, was recovered.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1454 ~ Birthday of Amerigo Vespucci, Explorer & Cartographer.

1862 ~ In a five-hour battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia the USS Monitor fought the CSS Virginia to a draw during the first battle between two ironclad warships.

1934 ~ Birthday of Yuri Gagarin, Cosmonaut, first human in space.

1943 ~ Birthday of Bobby Fischer, chess player.

1954 ~ CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy's anti-Communism campaign on "See It Now”.

1959 ~ The Barbie doll debuts.

1967 ~ Stalin's daughter defected to the West.

1990 ~ Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Clyde Wells confirmed he would rescind Newfoundland's approval of the Meech Lake Accord, effectively killing the Accord.

1996 ~ Death of George Burns, Actor.

2005 ~ The final broadcast by Dan Rather on CBS Evening News.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1844 ~ Birthday of Pablo de Sarasate, Violinist.

1893 ~ Côte d'Ivoire became a French colony.

1949 ~ Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as “Axis Sally”, was convicted in Washington, D.C., of treason.

1957 ~ Birthday of Osama bin Laden, Terrorist.

1965 ~ Neil Simon's play ''The Odd Couple'' opened on Broadway.

1969 ~ James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

1977 ~ Astronomers discovered rings around Uranus.

1982 ~ The U.S. placed an embargo on Libyan oil because of Libya’s support of terrorist groups.

1985 ~ Death of Konstantin Chernenko, Soviet leader.

1993 ~ Dr. David Gunn was shot to death outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1847 ~ Death of Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), Pioneer & Agronomist.

1941 ~ President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill.

1952 ~ Birthday of Douglas Adams, Science Fiction/Comedy novelist.

1955 ~ Death of Alexander Fleming, Biologist.

1968 ~ Death of John Wyndham, Author.

1985 ~ Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader.

1993 ~ Janet Reno was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, becoming the first female U.S. Attorney General.

1996 ~ John Howard became the twenty-fifth Prime Minister of Australia.

1997 ~ Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

2004 ~ Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid, Spain, killed 191 people and wounded at least 1,800 in an attack linked to al-Qaida.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1912 ~ The Girl Scouts (née Girl Guides) were started in the U.S.

1913 ~ Canberra officially named.

1922 ~ Birthday of Jack Kerouac, Writer.

1925 ~ Birthday of Harry Harrison, Science Fiction author.

1938 ~ Anschluss: German troops occupied Austria; annexation declared the following day.

1947 ~ The “Truman Doctrine” established.

1950 ~ "Dennis the Menace" made its syndicated debut.

1987 ~ ”Les Misérables” opened on Broadway.

1999 ~ Death of Sir Yehudi Menuhin, violinist.

2001 ~ The Taliban destroyed two giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1781 ~ The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.

1855 ~ Birthday of Percival Lowell, Astronomer.

1868 ~ The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate.

1906 ~ Death of Susan B. Anthony, civil rights and women's suffrage activist.

1925 ~ A law in Tennessee, the Butler Act, was passed, prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

1938 ~ Death of Clarence Darrow, Attorney.

1947 ~ The musical “Brigadoon” opened on Broadway.

1964 ~ Kitty Genovese was murdered in an incident which shocked the world and prompted investigation into the Bystander effect.

1979 ~ The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousted Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d'etat in Grenada.

1996 ~ A gunman opened fire on a class of kindergarteners at an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1681 ~ Birthday of Georg Philipp Telemann, German Composer.

1804 ~ Birthday of Johann Strauss Sr.

1835 ~ Birthday of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian Astronomer.

1879 ~ Birthday of Albert Einstein, physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in physics 1921.

1883 ~ Death of Karl Marx, political theorist.

1900 ~ The Gold Standard Act was ratified, placing U.S. currency on the gold standard.

1964 ~ A jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

1984 ~ Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Féin, was wounded in an assassination attempt in central Belfast.

1994 ~ Linux kernel version 1.0.0 was released.

1995 ~ Astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to enter space aboard a Russian rocket as he and two cosmonauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for the Mir space station..

__________________
Eudaimonia

44 B.C. ~ Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of Roman senators.

1877 ~ The first Test cricket match, between England and Australia.

1898 ~ Death of Henry Bessemer, English metallurgist.

1906 ~ Rolls-Royce Ltd. was registered.

1916 ~ Addressing a joint session of Congress, President Lyndon Johnson called for new legislation to guarantee every American's right to vote.

1937 ~ Death of H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer.

1956 ~ ”My Fair Lady” opened in New York City. Rex Harrison played Henry Higgins, and Julie Andrews was Eliza Doolittle.

1975 ~ Death of Aristotle Onassis, shipping magnate.

1990 ~ British journalist Farzad Bazoft was executed for spying.

1991 ~ Germany formally regained complete independence after World War II.

__________________
Eudaimonia

Ides heard that one about Caesar, jseal.

__________________
Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Popped in for the first time in a while. Thanks, jseal, for keeping this thread alive; I'd never have thought it would last anywhere near as long as it has!!

You are an inspiration sir, and I salute you.

DM

__________________
The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind

__________________
Eudaimonia

1521 ~ Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines, where he was killed by natives the following month.

1736 ~ Death of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian composer.

1789 ~ Birthday of Georg Ohm, German physicist and developer of Ohm's Law.

1850 ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter" was first published.

1898 ~ Death of Aubrey Beardsley, British Artist.

1926 ~ Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1968 ~ The My Lai Massacre was carried out by U.S. troops under the command of Lt. William L. Calley.

1978 ~ Aldo Moro was kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas in Italy and was later killed by his captors.

1984 ~ William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists; he died in captivity.

1988 ~ The Kurdish town of Halabjah in Iraq was attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents killing 5,000.

__________________
Eudaimonia