UN
Day
International
Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development
World
Soil Day
Events
of the day
63 BC β Cicero gave the fourth
and final Catiline Orations.
663 β Fourth Council of Toledo takes place.
771 β Charlemagne becomes the sole King of the
Franks after the death of his brother Carloman.
1082 β Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona
is assassinated.
1408 β Emir Edigu of Golden Horde reaches Moscow.
1484 β Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes,
a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and
James Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged
witchcraft in Germany and leads to one of the
most oppressive witch hunts in European history.
1492 β Christopher Columbus becomes the first
European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola,
now Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
1496 β King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree
of expulsion of "heretics" from the
country.
1590 β NiccolΓ² Sfondrati becomes Pope Gregory
XIV.
1757 β Seven Years' War: Battle of Leuthen β Frederick
II of Prussia leads Prussian forces to a decisive
victory over Austrian forces under Prince Charles
Alexander of Lorraine.
1766 β In London, James Christie holds his first
sale.
1775 β At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins
his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
1776 β At The College of William and Mary, Phi
Beta Kappa is founded and becomes the first American
college fraternity.
1815 β Foundation of MaceiΓ³ in Brazil.
1831 β Former US President John Quincy Adams takes
his seat in the House of Representatives.
1847 β Jefferson Davis is elected to the US senate,
his first political post.
1848 β California Gold Rush: In a message before
the U.S. Congress, US President James K. Polk
confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered
in California.
1865 β Chincha Islands War: Peru allies with Chile
against Spain.
1876 β Brooklyn Theater Fire kills at least 278
people in Brooklyn, NY.
1914 β The Italian Parliament proclaims the neutrality
of the country.
1920 β Dimitrios Rallis forms a government in
Greece.
1932 β German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein
is granted an American visa.
1933 β Prohibition in the United States ends:
Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution,
thus establishing the required 75% of states needed
to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th
Amendment which had made the manufacture, sale,
or transportation of alcohol illegal in the United
States).
1934 β Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attack
Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture
the city.
1936 β The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution
and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established
as a full Union Republic of the USSR.
1941 β World War II: In the Battle of Moscow Georgy
Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack
against the German army, with the biggest offensive
launched against Army Group Centre.
1941 β World War II: Great Britain declares war
on Finland, Hungary and Romania.
1943 β World War II: U.S. Army Air Force begins
attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation
Crossbow.
1945 β Flight 19 is lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
1952 β Great Smog of 1952: A cold fog descends
upon London, combining with air pollution and
killing at least 12,000 in the weeks and months
that follow.
1955 β The American Federation of Labor and the
Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and
form the AFL-CIO.
1955 β E.D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery
Bus Boycott.
1957 β Sukarno expels all Dutch people from Indonesia.
1958 β Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated
in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks
to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to
Edinburgh.
1958 β The Preston bypass, the UK's first stretch
of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time.
It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.
1964 β Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle
earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded
the first Medal of Honor of the war.
1974 β In American football, the Birmingham Americans
would win what would eventually be the only World
Bowl in World Football League history.
1976 β The United Nations General Assembly adopts
Pakistan's resolution on security of non-Nuclear
States.
1977 β Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with
Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen. The
move is in retaliation for the Declaration of
Tripoli against Egypt.
1978 β The Soviet Union signs a "friendship
treaty" with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
1979 β Sonia Johnson is formally excommunicated
by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
for her outspoken criticism of the church concerning
the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States.
1983 β Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina.
1983 β ICIMOD is established and inaugurated with
its headquarters in Kathmandu, Nepal, and legitimised
through an Act of Parliament in Nepal in the same
year.
1993 β The mayor of Wien (Vienna), Helmut Zilk,
is wounded by a letter bomb.
1995 β The Sri Lankan government announces the
conquest of Tamil stronghold of Jaffna.
2005 β The Lake Tanganyika earthquake causes significant
damage, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
2005 β The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect
in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership
is registered there.
2006 β Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows
the government in Fiji.
2007 β Westroads Mall massacre: A gunman opens
fire with a semi-automatic rifle at an Omaha,
Nebraska mall, killing eight people before taking
his own life.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Abercius
Clement of Alexandria (Episcopal Church in the
United States of America)
Sabbas the Sanctified
Discovery Day (Haiti and Dominican Republic)
Faunalia, in honor of Faunus (Roman Empire)
International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social
Development (International)
Saint Nicholas Eve (Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Poland and
the UK)
Krampus (Austria)
The King's Birthday, National Day, and Father's
Day (Thailand)
For details, contact Datacentre
For details, contact Datacentre