On This Day November 11

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On This Day November 4

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1922 – British archaeologist Howard Carter and his crew discover the entrance to King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

1924 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected as the first female governor in the United States, winning a special election to succeed her husband, who died just a year and 10 months into his term. Ross remains the only woman ever to have served as a Wyoming governor.

1939 – America’s first air-conditioned car goes on display at the 40th National Automobile Show in Chicago. The mechanical refrigeration unit of the 1940 Packard 180 prototype automatically switched to heating in winter and therefore was not called an air conditioner, but rather a “Weather Conditioner.” It was a $279 option that Packard stopped offering after 1942.

1948 – The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to T.S. Eliot “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.”

1952 – The National Security Agency (NSA) is established by order of President Harry Truman to coordinate communications intelligence work across the entire federal government.

1979 – An angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries storms the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran and takes 90 Americans hostage. Two weeks later, about half are released. The remaining hostages are held captive for the next 14 months in what is known as the Iran Hostage Crisis.

1990 – “Dances With Wolves,” starring Kevin Costner as an American Civil War-era soldier who forms a bond with a tribe of Sioux Indians, premieres in Los Angeles. The movie, which also marks Costner’s directorial debut, goes on to capture seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and proves the Western genre is not dead.

1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated. The 73-year-old leader was walking to his car following a peace rally in Tel Aviv when he was shot by a 27-year-old Israeli extremist who is arrested at the scene of the shooting, and later confesses to the crime.

2008 – Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) defeats Senator John McCain (R- Arizona) to become the 44th U.S. president and the first African American elected to the White House. 

On This Day October 28

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On This Day October 21

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1879 – Thomas Edison throws the switch on his newly invented incandescent lamp, which burns for nearly 14 hours.

1921 – President Warren Harding delivers a speech in Alabama condemning lynchings that were being committed primarily by white supremacists against African Americans in the Deep South. Harding is the first U.S. president to address the controversial subject.

1941 – Nazi troops massacre thousands of men, women and children across Yugoslavia in retaliation for that country’s rejection of an alliance with Germany.

1959 – The distinctive and world-renowned Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City. Designed by acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the museum houses one of the world’s top collections of contemporary art.

1959 – President Dwight Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring renowned rocket engineer Wernher von Braun and his team from the U.S. Army to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Von Braun, who masterminded America’s space program, developed the lethal V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany during World War II, and had been a member of the Nazi Party and an SS officer.

1967 – In Washington, D.C., thousands of Vietnam War protesters stage a peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial before attempting to storm the Pentagon. Police arrest 250 of the demonstrators.

2014 – South African Oscar Pistorius, the first double amputee runner to compete at the Olympics, is sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of culpable homicide (manslaughter) in the 2013 death of his girlfriend, 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp. His sentence is later doubled by a higher court.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1958 – Rock and roll legend Buddy Holly’s last recording session takes place in a New York City studio. Among the songs he records is “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” which was written by Paul Anka and becomes a No. 13 hit following Holly’s death in a February 1959 plane crash.

1967 – Lulu begins a five-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart with the theme from the movie “To Sir With Love,” starring Sidney Poitier.

1972 – Curtis Mayfield begins four weeks on top of the Billboard album chart with the soundtrack to the movie “Super Fly.” Sales of the album, which contains the hits “Freddy’s Dead” and “Super Fly,” go on to surpass the movie’s box office performance.

1973 – “Angie” begins a week as a No. 1 single for The Rolling Stones. The track is from the band’s “Goats Head Soup” album and becomes their seventh U.S. chart-topper.

1989 – Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much” is mid-way through a four-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100.

1995 – Mariah Carey holds on to the top spot on the pop chart for a fourth week with “Fantasy.” The track remains there for another four weeks.

2000 – “Come on Over Baby (All I Want Is You)” becomes the third No. 1 single of Christina Aguilera’s music career. This track stays on top for four weeks.

2000 – Radiohead’s fourth album, “Kid A,” debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

2006 – Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” marks its seventh and final week at No. 1 on the singles chart. The track captures a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording in 2007.

On this Day May 31

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1790 – The first U.S. copyright law is enacted to protect books, maps and other original materials.

1889 – Heavy rains cause the South Fork Dam to collapse, sending 20 million tons of water into Johnstown, Pennsylvania and claiming the lives of more than 2,200 people.

1911 – An estimated 100,000 people gather in Belfast, Ireland for the launch of the RMS Titanic into the River Lagan. The ill-fated passenger liner, still missing its distinctive smokestacks, is towed to a berth where its engines, stacks and superstructure are installed and the interior is fitted out. Less than a year later, in one of the world’s greatest disasters, the ship sinks on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. More than 1,500 passengers are crew are killed.

1921 – In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a White mob begins a horrific two-day attack on Black residents of the city’s thriving Greenwood district, burning homes and businesses to the ground and killing at least 300 Black Americans. Long misrepresented as a race riot rather than mass murder, the Tulsa Race Massacre becomes one of the bloodiest incidents of racial violence in American history.

1962 – The architect of the Holocaust is executed in Israel. Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question,” hangs for his crimes against humanity.

1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline is completed. Built after the 1973 oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States, it is one of the largest pipeline systems in the world.

1996 – Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres is narrowly defeated in national elections by Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu.