1519 – Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan left Spain to find a route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Magellan was killed during the trip, but one of his ships eventually made the journey.

1870 – The Papal States came under the control of Italian troops, leading to the unification of Italy.

1881 – Chester A. Arthur became the 21st president of the U.S. President James A. Garfield had died the day before.

1884 – The Equal Rights Party was formed in San Francisco, CA. 

1921 – KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, started a daily radio newscast. It was one of the first in the U.S.

1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival premiered. The original premier was delayed in 1939 due to World War II.

1946 – WNBT-TV in New York became the first station to promote a motion picture. Scenes from “The Jolson Story” were shown.

1953 – Jimmy Stewart debuted on the radio western “The Six Shooter” on NBC.

1962 – James Meredith, a black student, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Governor Ross R. Barnett. Meredith was later admitted. 

1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed a joint U.S.-Soviet expedition to the moon in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

1967 – The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was launched. It went out of service on November 27, 2008.

1977 – The first of the “boat people” arrived in San Francisco from Southeast Asia under a new U.S. resettlement program.

1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that the U.S., France, and Italy were going to send peacekeeping troops back to Beirut.

1988 – The United Nations opened it 43rd General Assembly. 

1989 – F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as president of South Africa.

1991 – U.N. weapons inspectors left for Iraq in a renewed search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

1992 – French voters approved the Maastricht Treaty.

1995 – AT&T announced that it would be splitting into three companies. The three companies were AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and NCR Corp.

1995 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted to drop the national speed limit. This allowed the states to decide their own speed limits.

Too many workers spend strenuous days in extreme heat without enough water or cool places to rest. That’s why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed its first-ever extreme heat safety standard to protect workers.

OSHA is now seeking public comments – this is our chance to tell them to quickly finalize a strong heat safety standard and save lives.

Federal data suggests that in an average year, about 40 workers die and nearly 3,400 others miss at least one day of work from heat-related causes. And these numbers “are likely vast underestimates” according to OSHA.

OSHA’s proposal would require employers to provide basic and common sense services on hot days: water, cool places to rest, and training and education on how to keep workers safe. Though the proposal is a good place to start, OSHA needs to hear from us that we want a strong heat standard with requirements like mandatory, rather than encouraged, breaks.

The current proposal would protect about 36 million outdoor and indoor workers – do your part to help workers survive extreme heat.

Urge OSHA to quickly finalize the first-ever federal safety standard to help protect workers from extreme heat.

With the signing of the Electoral Bill by Governor Lord Glasgow, New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant national voting rights to women. The bill was the outcome of years of suffragette meetings in towns and cities across the country, with women often traveling considerable distances to hear lectures and speeches, pass resolutions, and sign petitions. New Zealand women first went to the polls in the national elections of November 1893.

The United States granted women the right to vote in 1920, and Great Britain guaranteed full voting rights for women in 1928.

Source: history.com

1356 – The Battle of Poitiers was fought between England and France. Edward “the Black Prince” captured France’s King John.

1777 – The Battle of Saratoga was won by American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

1796 – U.S. President Washington’s farewell address was published.

1819 – John Keats wrote “Ode to Autumn.”

1876 – Melville R. Bissell patented the carpet sweeper.

1891 – “The Merchant of Venice” was performed for the first time at Manchester.

1893 – In New Zealand, the Electoral Act 1893 was consented to giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote.

1942 – The first advertisement to announce Little Golden Books appeared in Publishers Weekly.

1955 – Eva Marie Saint, Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman starred in the “Producer’s Showcase” presentation of “Our Town” on NBC-TV.

1955 – Argentina President Juan Peron was ousted after a revolt by the army and navy.

1957 – The U.S. conducted its first underground nuclear test. The test took place in the Nevada desert. 

1959 – Nikita Khruschev was not allowed to visit Disneyland due to security reasons. Khrushchev reacted angrily.

1960 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in New York to visit the United Nations, checked out of the Shelburne Hotel angrily after a dispute with the management.

1982 – Scott Fahlman became the first person to use 🙂 in an online message.

1983 – Lebanese army units defending Souk el-Gharb were supported in their effort by two U.S. Navy ships off Beirut.

1984 – China and Britain completed a draft agreement transferring Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule by 1997.

1986 – U.S. health officials announced that AZT, though an experimental drug, would be made available to AIDS patients.

1988 – Israel successfully launched the Horizon-I test satellite.

1990 – Iraq began confiscating foreign assets of countries that were imposing sanctions against the Iraqi government.

1992 – The U.N. Security Council recommended suspending Yugoslavia due to its role in the Bosnian civil war.

1994 – U.S. troops entered Haiti peacefully to enforce the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

1995 – The U.S. Senate passed a welfare overhaul bill. 

1995 – The commander of American forces in Japan and the U.S. ambassador apologized for the rape of a schoolgirl committed by three U.S. servicemen.

1996 – The government of Guatemala and leftist rebels signed a peace treaty to end their long war.

2002 – In Ivory Coast, around 750 rebel soldiers attempted to overthrow the government. U.S. troops landed on September 25th to help move foreigners, including Americans, to safer areas.

2003 – It was reported that AOL Time Warner was going to drop “AOL” from its name and be known as Time Warner Inc. The company had announced its merger and name change on January 10, 2000.

On 1/29/1850 – Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a * Compromise of 1850 Bill* on slavery that included the admission of California into the Union as a free state. 1850 Senator Henry Clay drafted the Compromise of 1850 to defuse tensions between slave states and free states over territories won during the Mexican–American War

Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.

Sources: battlefields.org , on-this-day.com

The American Civil War devastated much of the country between 1861 and 1865, but the conflict could have actually happened much sooner. In 1850, a major dispute between slave states and free states arose regarding the status of lands acquired after the Mexican-American War (1846-48).

Many Southern states wanted to expand slavery into these new territories, which was opposed by the Northerners. These disputes, and others relating to the territorial expansion of the state of Texas. In early 1850, senator Henry Clay drafted a compromise that included the admission of California as a free state, the cession by Texas of some of its northern and western territorial claims in return for debt relief, the establishment of New Mexico and Utah territories, a ban on the importation of slaves into the District of Columbia for sale, and a more stringent fugitive slave law.

The compromise initially failed to gain wide support, but after President Zachary Taylor died, his successor Millard Fillmore and Democratic senator Stephen Douglas took the lead in passing Clay’s compromise through Congress as a series of five bills. The tensions were diffused, and the risk of conflict in the immediate term ended, but the debate over slavery did not end. Many years of controversy and debate eventually led to the secession of the Southern states and the Civil War in 1861.

Document Info

Author(s): Henry Clay
Location signed: USA

Source: National Archives

Related Events

• 1850-01-29 Senator Henry Clay drafts the Compromise of 1850 to defuse tensions between slave states and free states over territories won during the Mexican–American War
• 1850-03-07 Daniel Webster endorses the Compromise of 1850
• 1850-09-18 US Congress passes Fugitive Slave Law as part of Compromise of 1850

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