1118 Thomas Becket (born), English archbishop (died 1170)
1620 William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
1682 Calico Jack (born), English pirate (died 1720)
1804 Benjamin Disraeli (born), English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1881)
1824 James Parkinson (died), English physician and paleontologist (b. 1755)
1826 American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declare their independence, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.
1861 Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.
1872 HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth, England
1879 World première of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1889 Friedrich August von Quenstedt (died), German geologist (b. 1809)
1889 Sewall Wright (born), American biologist (died 1988)
1913 Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross”, the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.
1915 Werner von Trapp (born), Austrian-American singer (died 2007)
1919 American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia.
1922 Paul Winchell (born), American ventriloquist and voice actor (died 2005)
1926 Joe Paterno (born), American football player and coach (died 2012)
1933 Knud Rasmussen (died), Greenlandic explorer and anthropologist (b. 1879)
1937 Jane Fonda (born), American actress
1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first full-length animated feature, premieres at the Carthay Circle Theatre.
1940 F. Scott Fitzgerald (died), American author (b. 1896)
1940 Frank Zappa (born), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (The Mothers of Invention) (died 1993)
1943 Albert Lee (born), English guitarist and songwriter (Heads Hands & Feet and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings)
1945 George S. Patton (died), American military commander (b. 1885)
1946 Carl Wilson (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Beach Boys) (died 1998)
1966 Kiefer Sutherland (born), English-Canadian actor, director, and producer
1967 Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the transplant.
1968 Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.
1969 The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
1988 A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.
1988 Nikolaas Tinbergen (died), Dutch ornithologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1907)
1992 Albert King (died), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1924)
1994 Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts gases and ash.
1995 The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017