On This Day in History
eBook - ePub

On This Day in History

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

On This Day in History

About this book

The abandoned Mary Celeste is mysteriously found drifting in the mid-Atlantic; Mozart is buried in an unmarked communal grave; and Prohibition in America is brought to an end. Although separated by centuries, these events all share the same anniversary: 5 December. On This Day in History looks back at all 365 days of the year and provides short, riveting entries on the most significant events in history that occurred on that day. One single day could see Alexander the Great cozying up to Winston Churchill and Fidel Castro, or Cleopatra could find herself sharing a page with Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi.This book traverses continents and timelines to give its own unique perspective on these historical events. A wide variety of familiar and lesser-known events are represented, providing fascinating facts that are guaranteed both to educate and entertain any history enthusiast.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access On This Day in History by Graeme Donald in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & History Reference. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

1

JANUARY

404
The last gladiatorial games are staged in Rome. The Games evolved from the funeral of Brutus in 264BC when men fought to the death to provide him with an escort in the afterlife.
1660
English naval administrator Samuel Pepys begins his famous diary with ‘Blessed be God’.
1772
With the rich indulging in their Grand Tours of Europe, the London Credit Exchange issues the first traveller’s cheques.
1892
Fifteen-year-old Annie Moore from Ireland becomes the first immigrant to be processed by the facilities on America’s Ellis Island.
1934
Alcatraz ceases to be a military prison when it is formally signed over to the civil prison authorities. Although notorious for its tough conditions, the 600-cell complex never holds more than 300 prisoners and by the time it closes in 1963 is considered a luxury stay by some inmates.
1959
After six years of strife, President Batista flees Cuba, which now falls to the forces of Fidel Castro and Ernie Guevara Lynch, better known today as Che Guevara.

2

JANUARY

1492
Arab control of Spain ends with the fall of Granada, the Moors’ last stronghold. ‘Blue-blooded’ was coined by the Spanish nobility during the occupation to distinguish themselves from the invaders, whose dark skin prevented their veins from showing blue at the wrist.
1757
Robert Clive recaptures the British fort at Calcutta, India, from the Nawab of Bengal and learns the fate of British captured by the Nawab’s troops: allegedly, of 146 British men and women imprisoned overnight in a tiny cell, 123 had died by morning in the stifling heat.
1833
Britain asserts sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
1955
José Remón Cantera, President of Panama, is assassinated.
1959
Soviets launch Luna 1, the first craft to get to the Moon, where it establishes the absence of any magnetic field.
1979
New York trial of Sex Pistols’ singer, Sid Vicious, for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, in Greenwich Village. While on bail, he takes a fatal overdose.

3

JANUARY

1868
Japan brings down the curtain on centuries of military rule as the Shogunate is replaced by the sixteen-year-old Emperor, Meiji.
1917
British physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford announces that he has split the atom.
1922
Howard Carter enters the burial chamber of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. Following several ‘mysterious’ deaths, the media reports a curse on anyone who disturbs the tomb, which is enough to frighten off the locals and would-be grave-robbers. No such inscription existed, either on the walls or on any artefact.
1925
Mussolini announces he is assuming the Dictatorship of Italy.
1967
Having killed Lee Harvey Oswald (the sniper who assassinated President John F. Kennedy), Jack Ruby himself dies in a Dallas hospital of natural causes.
1980
Conservationist Friederike Victoria Gessner, aka Joy Adamson, author of Born Free, is found murdered near her Kenyan home.

4

JANUARY

1809/13
The respective birthdays of two famous ‘code’ writers – Louis Braille and Isaac Pitman. Braille based his system for the visually impaired on an invention of Charles Barbier, a French Army officer, who had devised night writing for the distribution of orders among soldiers without having to use lanterns.
1847
The Texas Rangers give Samuel Colt his first order when they commission 1,000 of his new revolvers, soon to be advertised as The Equalizer.
1958
After circling the earth for about three months, the first artificial earth satellite Sputnik 1 succumbs to orbit-decay and crashes back to earth.
1960
Donald Campbell dies trying to break the water-speed record on Coniston Water in northern England. His body is not found until 2001.
2010
Dubai’s towering Burj Khalifa opens its doors as the world’s tallest building.

5

JANUARY

1781
In the American War of Independence, Richmond, Virginia, is put to the torch by a British force led by the American traitor, Benedict Arnold.
1896
Wilhelm Röntgen makes public his discovery of X-rays.
1919
Munich sees the registering of a new political faction, The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, led by an unemployed plumber called Anton Drexler; member 55 will be Adolf Hitler, who will later take over.
1925
Mrs Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes America’s first female State Governor.
1930
Stalin institutes his disastrous Collectivization of Farms across the Soviet Union.
1941
British aviator Amy Johnson crashes and dies in the Thames Estuary.
1975
The Khmer Rouge mounts an all-out and su...

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Dedication page
  5. FOREWORD
  6. Contents
  7. 1 JANUARY
  8. 2 JANUARY
  9. 3 JANUARY
  10. 4 JANUARY
  11. 5 JANUARY
  12. 6 JANUARY
  13. 7 JANUARY
  14. 8 JANUARY
  15. 9 JANUARY
  16. 10 JANUARY
  17. 11 JANUARY
  18. 12 JANUARY
  19. 13 JANUARY
  20. 14 JANUARY
  21. 15 JANUARY
  22. 16 JANUARY
  23. 17 JANUARY
  24. 18 JANUARY
  25. 19 JANUARY
  26. 20 JANUARY
  27. 21 JANUARY
  28. 22 JANUARY
  29. 23 JANUARY
  30. 24 JANUARY
  31. 25 JANUARY
  32. 26 JANUARY
  33. 27 JANUARY
  34. 28 JANUARY
  35. 29 JANUARY
  36. 30 JANUARY
  37. 31 JANUARY
  38. 1 FEBRUARY
  39. 2 FEBRUARY
  40. 3 FEBRUARY
  41. 4 FEBRUARY
  42. 5 FEBRUARY
  43. 6 FEBRUARY
  44. 7 FEBRUARY
  45. 8 FEBRUARY
  46. 9 FEBRUARY
  47. 10 FEBRUARY
  48. 11 FEBRUARY
  49. 12 FEBRUARY
  50. 13 FEBRUARY
  51. 14 FEBRUARY
  52. 15 FEBRUARY
  53. 16 FEBRUARY
  54. 17 FEBRUARY
  55. 18 FEBRUARY
  56. 19 FEBRUARY
  57. 20 FEBRUARY
  58. 21 FEBRUARY
  59. 22 FEBRUARY
  60. 23 FEBRUARY
  61. 24 FEBRUARY
  62. 25 FEBRUARY
  63. 26 FEBRUARY
  64. 27 FEBRUARY
  65. 28 FEBRUARY
  66. 29 FEBRUARY
  67. 1 MARCH
  68. 2 MARCH
  69. 3 MARCH
  70. 4 MARCH
  71. 5 MARCH
  72. 6 MARCH
  73. 7 MARCH
  74. 8 MARCH
  75. 9 MARCH
  76. 10 MARCH
  77. 11 MARCH
  78. 12 MARCH
  79. 13 MARCH
  80. 14 MARCH
  81. 15 MARCH
  82. 16 MARCH
  83. 17 MARCH
  84. 18 MARCH
  85. 19 MARCH
  86. 20 MARCH
  87. 21 MARCH
  88. 22 MARCH
  89. 23 MARCH
  90. 24 MARCH
  91. 25 MARCH
  92. 26 MARCH
  93. 27 MARCH
  94. 28 MARCH
  95. 29 MARCH
  96. 30 MARCH
  97. 31 MARCH
  98. 1 APRIL
  99. 2 APRIL
  100. 3 APRIL
  101. 4 APRIL
  102. 5 APRIL
  103. 6 APRIL
  104. 7 APRIL
  105. 8 APRIL
  106. 9 APRIL
  107. 10 APRIL
  108. 11 APRIL
  109. 12 APRIL
  110. 13 APRIL
  111. 14 APRIL
  112. 15 APRIL
  113. 16 APRIL
  114. 17 APRIL
  115. 18 APRIL
  116. 19 APRIL
  117. 20 APRIL
  118. 21 APRIL
  119. 22 APRIL
  120. 23 APRIL
  121. 24 APRIL
  122. 25 APRIL
  123. 26 APRIL
  124. 27 APRIL
  125. 28 APRIL
  126. 29 APRIL
  127. 30 APRIL
  128. 1 MAY
  129. 2 MAY
  130. 3 MAY
  131. 4 MAY
  132. 5 MAY
  133. 6 MAY
  134. 7 MAY
  135. 8 MAY
  136. 9 MAY
  137. 10 MAY
  138. 11 MAY
  139. 12 MAY
  140. 13 MAY
  141. 14 MAY
  142. 15 MAY
  143. 16 MAY
  144. 17 MAY
  145. 18 MAY
  146. 19 MAY
  147. 20 MAY
  148. 21 MAY
  149. 22 MAY
  150. 23 MAY
  151. 24 MAY
  152. 25 MAY
  153. 26 MAY
  154. 27 MAY
  155. 28 MAY
  156. 29 MAY
  157. 30 MAY
  158. 31 MAY
  159. 1 JUNE
  160. 2 JUNE
  161. 3 JUNE
  162. 4 JUNE
  163. 5 JUNE
  164. 6 JUNE
  165. 7 JUNE
  166. 8 JUNE
  167. 9 JUNE
  168. 10 JUNE
  169. 11 JUNE
  170. 12 JUNE
  171. 13 JUNE
  172. 14 JUNE
  173. 15 JUNE
  174. 16 JUNE
  175. 17 JUNE
  176. 18 JUNE
  177. 19 JUNE
  178. 20 JUNE
  179. 21 JUNE
  180. 22 JUNE
  181. 23 JUNE
  182. 24 JUNE
  183. 25 JUNE
  184. 26 JUNE
  185. 27 JUNE
  186. 28 JUNE
  187. 29 JUNE
  188. 30 JUNE
  189. 1 JULY
  190. 2 JULY
  191. 3 JULY
  192. 4 JULY
  193. 5 JULY
  194. 6 JULY
  195. 7 JULY
  196. 8 JULY
  197. 9 JULY
  198. 10 JULY
  199. 11 JULY
  200. 12 JULY
  201. 13 JULY
  202. 14 JULY
  203. 15 JULY
  204. 16 JULY
  205. 17 JULY
  206. 18 JULY
  207. 19 JULY
  208. 20 JULY
  209. 21 JULY
  210. 22 JULY
  211. 23 JULY
  212. 24 JULY
  213. 25 JULY
  214. 26 JULY
  215. 27 JULY
  216. 28 JULY
  217. 29 JULY
  218. 30 JULY
  219. 31 JULY
  220. 1 AUGUST
  221. 2 AUGUST
  222. 3 AUGUST
  223. 4 AUGUST
  224. 5 AUGUST
  225. 6 AUGUST
  226. 7 AUGUST
  227. 8 AUGUST
  228. 9 AUGUST
  229. 10 AUGUST
  230. 11 AUGUST
  231. 12 AUGUST
  232. 13 AUGUST
  233. 14 AUGUST
  234. 15 AUGUST
  235. 16 AUGUST
  236. 17 AUGUST
  237. 18 AUGUST
  238. 19 AUGUST
  239. 20 AUGUST
  240. 21 AUGUST
  241. 22 AUGUST
  242. 23 AUGUST
  243. 24 AUGUST
  244. 25 AUGUST
  245. 26 AUGUST
  246. 27 AUGUST
  247. 28 AUGUST
  248. 29 AUGUST
  249. 30 AUGUST
  250. 31 AUGUST
  251. 1 SEPTEMBER
  252. 2 SEPTEMBER
  253. 3 SEPTEMBER
  254. 4 SEPTEMBER
  255. 5 SEPTEMBER
  256. 6 SEPTEMBER
  257. 7 SEPTEMBER
  258. 8 SEPTEMBER
  259. 9 SEPTEMBER
  260. 10 SEPTEMBER
  261. 11 SEPTEMBER
  262. 12 SEPTEMBER
  263. 13 SEPTEMBER
  264. 14 SEPTEMBER
  265. 15 SEPTEMBER
  266. 16 SEPTEMBER
  267. 17 SEPTEMBER
  268. 18 SEPTEMBER
  269. 19 SEPTEMBER
  270. 20 SEPTEMBER
  271. 21 SEPTEMBER
  272. 22 SEPTEMBER
  273. 23 SEPTEMBER
  274. 24 SEPTEMBER
  275. 25 SEPTEMBER
  276. 26 SEPTEMBER
  277. 27 SEPTEMBER
  278. 28 SEPTEMBER
  279. 29 SEPTEMBER
  280. 30 SEPTEMBER
  281. 1 OCTOBER
  282. 2 OCTOBER
  283. 3 OCTOBER
  284. 4 OCTOBER
  285. 5 OCTOBER
  286. 6 OCTOBER
  287. 7 OCTOBER
  288. 8 OCTOBER
  289. 9 OCTOBER
  290. 10 OCTOBER
  291. 11 OCTOBER
  292. 12 OCTOBER
  293. 13 OCTOBER
  294. 14 OCTOBER
  295. 15 OCTOBER
  296. 16 OCTOBER
  297. 17 OCTOBER
  298. 18 OCTOBER
  299. 19 OCTOBER
  300. 20 OCTOBER
  301. 21 OCTOBER
  302. 22 OCTOBER
  303. 23 OCTOBER
  304. 24 OCTOBER
  305. 25 OCTOBER
  306. 26 OCTOBER
  307. 27 OCTOBER
  308. 28 OCTOBER
  309. 29 OCTOBER
  310. 30 OCTOBER
  311. 31 OCTOBER
  312. 1 NOVEMBER
  313. 2 NOVEMBER
  314. 3 NOVEMBER
  315. 4 NOVEMBER
  316. 5 NOVEMBER
  317. 6 NOVEMBER
  318. 7 NOVEMBER
  319. 8 NOVEMBER
  320. 9 NOVEMBER
  321. 10 NOVEMBER
  322. 11 NOVEMBER
  323. 12 NOVEMBER
  324. 13 NOVEMBER
  325. 14 NOVEMBER
  326. 15 NOVEMBER
  327. 16 NOVEMBER
  328. 17 NOVEMBER
  329. 18 NOVEMBER
  330. 19 NOVEMBER
  331. 20 NOVEMBER
  332. 21 NOVEMBER
  333. 22 NOVEMBER
  334. 23 NOVEMBER
  335. 24 NOVEMBER
  336. 25 NOVEMBER
  337. 26 NOVEMBER
  338. 27 NOVEMBER
  339. 28 NOVEMBER
  340. 29 NOVEMBER
  341. 30 NOVEMBER
  342. 1 DECEMBER
  343. 2 DECEMBER
  344. 3 DECEMBER
  345. 4 DECEMBER
  346. 5 DECEMBER
  347. 6 DECEMBER
  348. 7 DECEMBER
  349. 8 DECEMBER
  350. 9 DECEMBER
  351. 10 DECEMBER
  352. 11 DECEMBER
  353. 12 DECEMBER
  354. 13 DECEMBER
  355. 14 DECEMBER
  356. 15 DECEMBER
  357. 16 DECEMBER
  358. 17 DECEMBER
  359. 18 DECEMBER
  360. 19 DECEMBER
  361. 20 DECEMBER
  362. 21 DECEMBER
  363. 22 DECEMBER
  364. 23 DECEMBER
  365. 24 DECEMBER
  366. 25 DECEMBER
  367. 26 DECEMBER
  368. 27 DECEMBER
  369. 28 DECEMBER
  370. 29 DECEMBER
  371. 30 DECEMBER
  372. 31 DECEMBER
  373. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES
  374. INDEX