On This Day in History

Graeme Donald

• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781782432708
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History Reference
• Index: History

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.

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

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• FOREWORD
• Contents
• 1 JANUARY
• 2 JANUARY
• 3 JANUARY
• 4 JANUARY
• 5 JANUARY
• 6 JANUARY
• 7 JANUARY
• 8 JANUARY
• 9 JANUARY
• 10 JANUARY
• 11 JANUARY
• 12 JANUARY
• 13 JANUARY
• 14 JANUARY
• 15 JANUARY
• 16 JANUARY
• 17 JANUARY
• 18 JANUARY
• 19 JANUARY
• 20 JANUARY
• 21 JANUARY
• 22 JANUARY
• 23 JANUARY
• 24 JANUARY
• 25 JANUARY
• 26 JANUARY
• 27 JANUARY
• 28 JANUARY
• 29 JANUARY
• 30 JANUARY
• 31 JANUARY
• 1 FEBRUARY
• 2 FEBRUARY
• 3 FEBRUARY
• 4 FEBRUARY
• 5 FEBRUARY
• 6 FEBRUARY
• 7 FEBRUARY
• 8 FEBRUARY
• 9 FEBRUARY
• 10 FEBRUARY
• 11 FEBRUARY
• 12 FEBRUARY
• 13 FEBRUARY
• 14 FEBRUARY
• 15 FEBRUARY
• 16 FEBRUARY
• 17 FEBRUARY
• 18 FEBRUARY
• 19 FEBRUARY
• 20 FEBRUARY
• 21 FEBRUARY
• 22 FEBRUARY
• 23 FEBRUARY
• 24 FEBRUARY
• 25 FEBRUARY
• 26 FEBRUARY
• 27 FEBRUARY
• 28 FEBRUARY
• 29 FEBRUARY
• 1 MARCH
• 2 MARCH
• 3 MARCH
• 4 MARCH
• 5 MARCH
• 6 MARCH
• 7 MARCH
• 8 MARCH
• 9 MARCH
• 10 MARCH
• 11 MARCH
• 12 MARCH
• 13 MARCH
• 14 MARCH
• 15 MARCH
• 16 MARCH
• 17 MARCH
• 18 MARCH
• 19 MARCH
• 20 MARCH
• 21 MARCH
• 22 MARCH
• 23 MARCH
• 24 MARCH
• 25 MARCH
• 26 MARCH
• 27 MARCH
• 28 MARCH
• 29 MARCH
• 30 MARCH
• 31 MARCH
• 1 APRIL
• 2 APRIL
• 3 APRIL
• 4 APRIL
• 5 APRIL
• 6 APRIL
• 7 APRIL
• 8 APRIL
• 9 APRIL
• 10 APRIL
• 11 APRIL
• 12 APRIL
• 13 APRIL
• 14 APRIL
• 15 APRIL
• 16 APRIL
• 17 APRIL
• 18 APRIL
• 19 APRIL
• 20 APRIL
• 21 APRIL
• 22 APRIL
• 23 APRIL
• 24 APRIL
• 25 APRIL
• 26 APRIL
• 27 APRIL
• 28 APRIL
• 29 APRIL
• 30 APRIL
• 1 MAY
• 2 MAY
• 3 MAY
• 4 MAY
• 5 MAY
• 6 MAY
• 7 MAY
• 8 MAY
• 9 MAY
• 10 MAY
• 11 MAY
• 12 MAY
• 13 MAY
• 14 MAY
• 15 MAY
• 16 MAY
• 17 MAY
• 18 MAY
• 19 MAY
• 20 MAY
• 21 MAY
• 22 MAY
• 23 MAY
• 24 MAY
• 25 MAY
• 26 MAY
• 27 MAY
• 28 MAY
• 29 MAY
• 30 MAY
• 31 MAY
• 1 JUNE
• 2 JUNE
• 3 JUNE
• 4 JUNE
• 5 JUNE
• 6 JUNE
• 7 JUNE
• 8 JUNE
• 9 JUNE
• 10 JUNE
• 11 JUNE
• 12 JUNE
• 13 JUNE
• 14 JUNE
• 15 JUNE
• 16 JUNE
• 17 JUNE
• 18 JUNE
• 19 JUNE
• 20 JUNE
• 21 JUNE
• 22 JUNE
• 23 JUNE
• 24 JUNE
• 25 JUNE
• 26 JUNE
• 27 JUNE
• 28 JUNE
• 29 JUNE
• 30 JUNE
• 1 JULY
• 2 JULY
• 3 JULY
• 4 JULY
• 5 JULY
• 6 JULY
• 7 JULY
• 8 JULY
• 9 JULY
• 10 JULY
• 11 JULY
• 12 JULY
• 13 JULY
• 14 JULY
• 15 JULY
• 16 JULY
• 17 JULY
• 18 JULY
• 19 JULY
• 20 JULY
• 21 JULY
• 22 JULY
• 23 JULY
• 24 JULY
• 25 JULY
• 26 JULY
• 27 JULY
• 28 JULY
• 29 JULY
• 30 JULY
• 31 JULY
• 1 AUGUST
• 2 AUGUST
• 3 AUGUST
• 4 AUGUST
• 5 AUGUST
• 6 AUGUST
• 7 AUGUST
• 8 AUGUST
• 9 AUGUST
• 10 AUGUST
• 11 AUGUST
• 12 AUGUST
• 13 AUGUST
• 14 AUGUST
• 15 AUGUST
• 16 AUGUST
• 17 AUGUST
• 18 AUGUST
• 19 AUGUST
• 20 AUGUST
• 21 AUGUST
• 22 AUGUST
• 23 AUGUST
• 24 AUGUST
• 25 AUGUST
• 26 AUGUST
• 27 AUGUST
• 28 AUGUST
• 29 AUGUST
• 30 AUGUST
• 31 AUGUST
• 1 SEPTEMBER
• 2 SEPTEMBER
• 3 SEPTEMBER
• 4 SEPTEMBER
• 5 SEPTEMBER
• 6 SEPTEMBER
• 7 SEPTEMBER
• 8 SEPTEMBER
• 9 SEPTEMBER
• 10 SEPTEMBER
• 11 SEPTEMBER
• 12 SEPTEMBER
• 13 SEPTEMBER
• 14 SEPTEMBER
• 15 SEPTEMBER
• 16 SEPTEMBER
• 17 SEPTEMBER
• 18 SEPTEMBER
• 19 SEPTEMBER
• 20 SEPTEMBER
• 21 SEPTEMBER
• 22 SEPTEMBER
• 23 SEPTEMBER
• 24 SEPTEMBER
• 25 SEPTEMBER
• 26 SEPTEMBER
• 27 SEPTEMBER
• 28 SEPTEMBER
• 29 SEPTEMBER
• 30 SEPTEMBER
• 1 OCTOBER
• 2 OCTOBER
• 3 OCTOBER
• 4 OCTOBER
• 5 OCTOBER
• 6 OCTOBER
• 7 OCTOBER
• 8 OCTOBER
• 9 OCTOBER
• 10 OCTOBER
• 11 OCTOBER
• 12 OCTOBER
• 13 OCTOBER
• 14 OCTOBER
• 15 OCTOBER
• 16 OCTOBER
• 17 OCTOBER
• 18 OCTOBER
• 19 OCTOBER
• 20 OCTOBER
• 21 OCTOBER
• 22 OCTOBER
• 23 OCTOBER
• 24 OCTOBER
• 25 OCTOBER
• 26 OCTOBER
• 27 OCTOBER
• 28 OCTOBER
• 29 OCTOBER
• 30 OCTOBER
• 31 OCTOBER
• 1 NOVEMBER
• 2 NOVEMBER
• 3 NOVEMBER
• 4 NOVEMBER
• 5 NOVEMBER
• 6 NOVEMBER
• 7 NOVEMBER
• 8 NOVEMBER
• 9 NOVEMBER
• 10 NOVEMBER
• 11 NOVEMBER
• 12 NOVEMBER
• 13 NOVEMBER
• 14 NOVEMBER
• 15 NOVEMBER
• 16 NOVEMBER
• 17 NOVEMBER
• 18 NOVEMBER
• 19 NOVEMBER
• 20 NOVEMBER
• 21 NOVEMBER
• 22 NOVEMBER
• 23 NOVEMBER
• 24 NOVEMBER
• 25 NOVEMBER
• 26 NOVEMBER
• 27 NOVEMBER
• 28 NOVEMBER
• 29 NOVEMBER
• 30 NOVEMBER
• 1 DECEMBER
• 2 DECEMBER
• 3 DECEMBER
• 4 DECEMBER
• 5 DECEMBER
• 6 DECEMBER
• 7 DECEMBER
• 8 DECEMBER
• 9 DECEMBER
• 10 DECEMBER
• 11 DECEMBER
• 12 DECEMBER
• 13 DECEMBER
• 14 DECEMBER
• 15 DECEMBER
• 16 DECEMBER
• 17 DECEMBER
• 18 DECEMBER
• 19 DECEMBER
• 20 DECEMBER
• 21 DECEMBER
• 22 DECEMBER
• 23 DECEMBER
• 24 DECEMBER
• 25 DECEMBER
• 26 DECEMBER
• 27 DECEMBER
• 28 DECEMBER
• 29 DECEMBER
• 30 DECEMBER
• 31 DECEMBER
• BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES
• INDEX