This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1924 Adolf Hitler freed from jail early, having served only nine months of five-year sentence for "Beer Hall Putsch"

1941 World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" in Kunming, China.

1944 Battle of Bastogne: Germans surround 101st Airborne (NUTS!)

1957 Elvis Presley receives his draft notice to join the US Army for National Service.

1960 Auschwitz commandant Richard Bar arrested in German FR

1963 Berlin Wall opens for 1st time to West Berliners.

2007 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.

[Jimbuna]

1939 Adolf Hitler names Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B", responsible for evictions and Jewish immigration.

1958 Charles de Gaulle wins 7 year term as 1st President of the 5th Republic of France.

1988 Lockerbie disaster: A terrorist bomb destroys Pan Am Flight 103 mid-air, over Scotland; kills all 259 passengers and crew on board, and 11 people on the ground.

1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves as 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves as 11 of 12 republics sign treaty forming Commonwealth of Independent States.

...someone is currently disPutin' that percieved mistake of Russian history...and he's already up one having annexed the Crimea!

[Jimbuna]

1888 Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear with a razor, after argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and sends to a prostitute for safe keeping.

1920 Government of Ireland Act / Home Rule Act passed partitioning Ireland.

1941 American forces on Wake Island surrender to Japanese.

1943 General Bernard Montgomery told he is appointed commandant for D-day.

1947 Transistor invented by John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley in Bell Labs.

1961 Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food & medical supplies.

[Aktungbby]

2003: a 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck the town of Bam in Iran, killing at least 26,000 people. Most of the mud-brick construction is totally destroyed. 2004: More than 230,000 people in southern Asia are killed by a hundred foot tsunami triggered by 9.1 magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean.

[Jimbuna]

1932 Emperor Hirohito of Japan narrowly evades an assassination attempt by a Korean independence activist, Lee Bong-chang.

1942 1st Japanese women camp (Ambarawa) goes into use.

1943 German warship "Scharnhorst" sinks in Barents Sea.

1943 Montgomery discusses Overlord with Eisenhower & Bedell Smith.

1988 Bulgaria stops jamming Radio Free Europe after more than 3 decades.

1996 Taliban forces retake the strategic Bagram air base which solidifies their buffer zone around Kabul.

2008 Israel launches Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, beginning with an airstrike that hits 100 targets in 220 seconds killing around 250 people.

[Aktungbby]

1895: The Lumière brothers, August and Louis, held their first public showing of their 1400 movies (dubbed actualities) in Paris. Le flique was titled "Lumière Workers Leaving the Factory"... alas there was no popcorn for this nailbiter.... for the 40 paying viewers and invited relations at history's first commercial screening!

[Jimbuna]

1860 The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched.

1890 US 7th Cavalry massacre 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

1939 First flight of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber prototype.

1940 Worst German air raid on London as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on the city as part of the Blitz.

1944 Belgian Walloon Nazi collaborator Léon Degrelle sentenced to death.

1944 General Eisenhower's train returns to Versailles.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1944 Belgian Walloon Nazi collaborator Léon Degrelle sentenced to death.

...upon which, he flew to Spain; crash landed; changed his name to José León Ramirez Reina; went into the construction business building airbases for the US, and died of cardiac failure in 1994...his mortal remains were denied repatriation by Belgium.

1879: Thomas Edison publically demonstrated his incandescent light by illuminating 40 bulbs at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

[Jimbuna]

1942 Battle of the Barents Sea between British Navy and German Kriegsmarine off North Cape, Norway.

1946 US President Harry Truman officially proclaims end of WW II

1970 Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve The Beatles.

1974 Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks join Fleetwood Mac.

1997 More Swedes died than were born in 1997, 1st time since 1809

[Jimbuna]

1801 The Irish Parliament votes to join the Kingdom of Great Britain, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1901 The Commonwealth of Australia is formed when the British (Imperial) Parliament Act, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, comes into effect.

1910 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to rear-admiral.

1919 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to full admiral.

1946 Emperor Hirohito of Japan announces he is not a god.

1958 European Economic Community, better known as the European Common Market starts operation.

[Jimbuna]

1941 World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program to build freighters in support of the war effort.

1942 World War II: the 28 nations at war with Axis powers pledge to make no separate peace deals.

1942 The United States Navy opens a blimp base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1944 1st use of helicopters during warfare (British Atlantic patrol)

[Jimbuna]

1895 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later exonerated.

1919 German Workers' Party forms, precursor to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi)

1971 Globetrotters lose 100-99 to NJ Reds, ending 2,495-game winning streak.

1972 US President Nixon signs a bill for NASA to begin research on a manned space shuttle.

1981 Peter Sutcliffe, a truck driver confesses that he is the "Yorkshire Ripper" and murdered 13 women.

[Jimbuna]

1835 US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history.

1877 Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).

1940 Britain's first WW II rationing (bacon, butter & sugar)

2004 RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II

[Jimbuna]

1916 In retaliation for President Woodrow Wilson's recognition of the Carranza government, members of Pancho Villa's revolutionary army take 17 US mining engineers from a train and shoot 16 of them in cold blood.

1925 Allies refuse to evacuate the Cologne area of Germany as agreed.

1943 Soviet offensive against German 6th and 4th Armies near Stalingrad.

1946 UN General Assembly meets for first time in London.

1946 US Army bounces first radar signal off the Moon from Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.

1947 Greek steamer "Himara" strikes a wartime mine in Saronic Gulf south of Athens with loss of 392 of 637 aboard.

1994 Ukraine says it will give up world's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal.