1338 – Jacob of Arteveld elected mayor of Ghent
1840 – 1st deep sea sounding by James Clark Ross in south Atlantic at 2425 fathoms (14,450 feet)
1919 – Herbert Hoover is placed in charge of war relief in Europe
1951 – 9 Jewish Kremlin physicians “exposed” as British/US agents
1959 – Alaska admitted as 49th US state
1972 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, injuring over 60 people
1988 – Margaret Thatcher becomes longest-serving British PM this century
1998 – Grandpa Jones suffers a stroke
2011 – Adrian Lewis of England wins his first PDC World Darts Championship with a 7-5 win over Scotsman Gary Anderson at the Alexandra Palace, London
2019 – Archaeologists in Mexico announce discovery of pre-Aztec temple to god Xipe Tótec in Puebla state (dated 900-1150 AD)
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 2nd January 2021
1788 – Georgia is 4th state to ratify US constitution
1943 – University of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team begins 129 home game winning streak that only ends in 1955; incorporates NCAA titles in 1948, 1949 and 1951
1960 – 1st redshank old world shore bird reported in North America (Halifax)
1961 – 27th Sugar Bowl: #2 Mississippi beats Rice, 14-6
1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. begins a drive to register black voters
1966 – National Football League Championship, Lambeau Field, Green Bay: Green Bay Packers beat Cleveland Browns, 23-12; first NFL title game televised in colour; last one played before Super Bowl era
1972 – “Rothschilds” closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC after 505 performances
1985 – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reappoints Coptic pope Shenuda III
2016 – Saudi Arabia executes 47 alleged terrorists, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr
2019 – Apple CEO Tim Cook blames below expectation Chinese iPhone sales for downturn in company’s outlook, rocking international stock markets
Historical Events for 1st January 2021
1527 – Croatian nobles elect Ferdinand I of Austria as king of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin
1785 – “Daily Universal Register” (Times of London) publishes 1st issue
1967 – FCC requires AM-FM sister stations to be at least 50% different
1968 – Netherlands gets color TV
1974 – With effect from this date the New Zealand government terminates all tariff preferences previously granted to South Africa
1977 – Belgium reapportions 2,359 communities into 596
1978 – Los Angeles Police chief Edward Davis retires from police force
1994 – Howard Stern’s New Year’s Eve Beauty Pageant
1995 – Last “Far Side” by cartoonist Gary Larson (started 1980)
1995 – “Shadow Box” closes at Circle in Sq Theater NYC after 49 performances
Historical Events for 31st December 2020
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as new capital of Canada
1967 – “Henry, Sweet Henry” closes at Palace Theater NYC after 80 performances
1974 – Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac
1977 – Amir Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir Al Sabah becomes leader of Kuwait
1980 – Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band’s “The River Tour” concert at Nassau Coliseum (Uniondale, New York) clocks in at almost 4 hours
1984 – NYC subway gunman Bernhard Goetz surrenders to police in NH
1989 – “Me and My Girl” closes at Marquis Theater NYC after 1420 performances
1997 – 27th Fiesta Bowl: #10 Kansas State beats #14 Syracuse, 35-18
1997 – Microsoft buys Hotmail email service for $400 million and re-launches it as MSN Hotmail
2017 – Ban on ivory trade in China comes into effect
Historical Events for 30th December 2020
1844 – Opera “Stradella” after being rewritten is produced (Hamburg)
1875 – Andrassy Note calls for Christian-Muslim religious freedoms
1879 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” premieres
1913 – Barnes takes 17 wickets vs South Africa (8-56 and 9-103)
1922 – Creation of the USSR formally proclaimed in Moscow from the Bolshoi Theatre, Soviet Union organized as a federation of RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Belorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SSR
1952 – Tuskegee Inst reports 1952 as 1st yr in 71 with no lynchings in US
1963 – “Let’s Make A Deal,” debuts on NBC-TV
1990 – 11th United Negro College Fund raises $10,000,000
1992 – Last day of Test Cricket for Michael Whitney
1992 – Shane Warne takes 7-52 to lead Australian MCG win v West Indies
Historical Events for 29th December 2020
1503 – Battle of Garigliano: Spanish army under General Cordoba defeats French forces
1812 – The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle
1851 – 1st American Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts
1862 – Bowling ball invented
1930 – Fred P. Newton completes longest swim ever (1826 miles), when he swam in the Mississippi River from Ford Dam, Minnesota, to New Orleans
1933 – New York Yankees refuses to release Babe Ruth to manage the Cincinnati Reds
1952 – 1st transistorized hearing aid offered for sale (Elmsford NY)
1965 – CBS purchases NFL TV rights for 1966-68 at $18.8 million per year
1972 – President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O Bradaigh is arrested and held under new legislation in Republic of Ireland
1979 – Red Army beats NY Islanders 3-2 at Nassau Coliseum
Historical Events for 28th December 2020
1065 – Westminster Abbey in London consecrated
1832 – John C. Calhoun becomes 1st VP to resign (differences with President Jackson)
1944 – Montreal right wing Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard becomes first player in NHL history to score 8 points in one game with 5 goals and 3 assists in the Canadiens’ 9-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings
1947 – National Football League Championship, Comiskey Park, Chicago: Chicago Cardinals beat Philadelphia Eagles, 28-21; Cardinals’ only title victory
1948 – The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida.
1958 – Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore with David Seville) hits #1
1970 – “Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen” opens at Majestic NYC for 19 performances
1973 – US President Nixon signs Endangered Species Act into law
1993 – Dutch Antilles government of Yandi Paula forms
1993 – John Maclean passes Kirk Muller as all-time NJ Devils scorer (521 pts)
Historical Events for 27th December 2020
795 – Leo III begins his reign as Pope after his election the previous day
1521 – The “Zwickau Prophets” appear in Wittenberg
1741 – Prussian forces took Olmutz, Czechoslovakia
1951 – 40th Davis Cup: Australia beats USA in Sydney (3-2)
1972 – New North Korean constitution comes into effect
1972 – LA Kings start Islanders on 12 game losing streak
1974 – Dear Abby show ends run on CBS radio after 11 years
1992 – “Les Miserables” opens at Ostregaswerks, Copenhagen
1992 – Harry Connick Jr is caught with 9mm gun in NY’s JFK airport
2013 – 29 people are killed after a bus plunged off the Huay Tong Bridge, Thailand
Historical Events for 26th December 2020
1809 – British invasionary troop leaves Vlissingen
1865 – James H Mason (Mass) patents 1st US coffee percolator
1917 – US Federal government took over operation of American railroads for duration of WW I
1918 – After spending Christmas with American troops in France, Wilson goes to London for preliminary discussions about the forthcoming peace conference
1962 – Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera “Katerina Ismailova” premieres in Moscow
1976 – The Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) is founded.
1977 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1991 – Chuck Knolls retires as NFL coach after 23 years
2001 – Crude oil prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) record one of their largest 1-day jumps of the year as traders become convinced that OPEC will follow through on production cuts
2005 – Boxing Day shooting on a busy shopping street in Toronto.
Historical Events for 25th December 2020
1194 – Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI crowned King of Sicily in Palermo Cathedral
1760 – Jupiter Hammon, an African American slave, composes poetry broadside “An Evening Thought” (1st poetry published by an African American 1761)
1923 – Imperial Theater opens at 249 W 45th St NYC
1928 – Christmas Day attendance at cricket MCG (Vic v NSW) Australia is 14,887
1934 – Four centuries for SA as they make 7-644 v Qld before 6,180
1938 – George Cukor announces Vivien Leigh will play Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”
1973 – Ballon d’Or: Ajax forward Johan Cruyff wins his second award for best European football player ahead of Juventus goalkeeper Dino Zoff and Bayern Munich striker Gerd Müller
1974 – Marshall Fields drives a vehicle through the gates of the White House, resulting in a four-hour standoff.
1979 – Ballon d’Or: Hamburg’s English forward Kevin Keegan wins his 2nd consecutive trophy as best football player in Europe; beats Bayern Munich forward Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Ajax sweeper Ruud Krol
1997 – Jerry Seinfeld announces the final season of his TV show “Seinfeld” will air the following year