On this day in 1954, Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40% of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor off the New Jersey coast and named… read more »
1477 – William Caxton produced “Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres,” which was the first book to be printed in England.
1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica.
1865 – Samuel L. Clemens published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” under the pen name “Mark Twain” in the New York “Saturday Press.”
1883 – The U.S. and Canada adopted a system of standard time zones.
1903 – The U.S. and Panama signed a treaty that granted the U.S. rights to build the Panama Canal.
1916 – Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, called off the Battle of the Somme in France. The offensive began on July 1, 1916.
1928 – The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon premiered in New York. It was Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” starring Mickey Mouse.
Disney movies, music and books
1936 – Germany and Italy recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.
1942 – “The Skin of Our Teeth,” by Thornton Wilder opened on Broadway.
1959 – William Wyler’s “Ben-Hur” premiered at Loew’s Theater in New York City’s Times Square.
1966 – Sandy Koufax (Los Angeles Dodgers) announced his retirement from major league baseball.
1966 – U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.
1969 – Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean landed on the lunar surface during the second manned mission to the moon.
1976 – The parliament of Spain approved a bill that established a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
1983 – Argentina announced its ability to produce enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
1985 – Joe Theismann (Washington Redskins) broke his leg after being hit by Lawrence Taylor (New York Giants). The injury ended Theismann’s 12 year National Football League (NFL) career.
1987 – The U.S. Congress issued the Iran-Contra Affair report. The report said that President Ronald Reagan bore “ultimate responsibility” for wrongdoing by his aides.
1987 – CBS Inc. announced it had agreed to sell its record division to Sony Corp. for about $2 billion.
1988 – U.S. President Reagan signed major legislation provided the death penalty for drug traffickers who kill.
1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives joined the U.S. Senate in approving legislation aimed at protecting abortion facilities, staff and patients.
1993 – American Airlines flight attendants went on strike. They ended their strike only 4 days later.
1993 – Representatives from 21 South African political parties approved a new constitution.
1997 – First Union Corp. announced its purchase of CoreStates Financial Corp. for $16.1 billion. To date it was the largest banking deal in U.S. history.
2001 – Nintendo released the GameCube home video game console in the United States.
At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones …read more
1776 – British troops captured Fort Washington during the American Revolution.
1885 – Canadian rebel Louis Riel was executed for high treason.
1907 – Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state.
1915 – Coca-Cola had its prototype for a countoured bottle patented. The bottle made its commercial debut the next year.
1933 – The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations for the first time.
1952 – In the Peanuts comic strip, Lucy first held a football for Charlie Brown.
1957 – Jim Brown (Cleveland Browns) set an NFL season rushing record of 1163 yards after only eight games.
1966 – Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard was acquitted in his second trial of charges he had murdered his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954.
1969 – The U.S. Army announced that several had been charged with massacre and the subsequent cover-up in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968.
1973 – Skylab 3 carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, on an 84-day mission.
1973 – U.S. President Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law.
1981 – A vaccine for hepatitis B was approved. The vaccine had been developed at Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research.
1982 – An agreement was announced on the 57th day of a strike by National Football League (NFL) players.
1985 – Colonel Oliver North was put in charge of the shipment of HAWK anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
1988 – Estonia’s parliament declared that the Baltic republic “sovereign,” but stopped short of complete independence.
1994 – Major League Soccer announced that it would start its inaugural season in 1996.
1997 – China released Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident from jail for medical reasons. He had been incarcerated for almost 18 years.
1998 – In Burlington, WIsconsin, five high school students, aged 15 to 16, were arrested in an alleged plot to kill a carefully selected group of teachers and students.
1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court said that union members could file discrimination lawsuits against employers even when labor contracts require arbitration.
1999 – Chrica Adams, the pregnant girlfriend of Rae Carruth, was shot four times in her car. She died a month later from her wounds. The baby survived. Carruth was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years and 11 months in prison for his role in the murder.
2000 – Bill Clinton became the first serving U.S. president to visit Communist Vietnam.
2001 – The movie “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” opened in the U.S. and U.K.
2004 – A NASA unmanned “scramjet” (X-43A) reached a speed of nearly 10 times the speed of sound above the Pacific Ocean.
Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a Black veteran and factory worker, raped her. Montgomery, who was promptly thrown in jail, spent more than 25 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and he was …read more
Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins
HISTORY
November 14, 2022
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November 13, 2020
November 13, 2009
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