1492

Today in History 11/07/16

Today in History
(1492) A fireball ‘omen’ falls from the sky
1492 A boy just outside the walled village of Ensisheim, in what will one day be Alsace, France, witnesses a huge fireball fall from the sky and plunge a meter deep into a field. Locals, who view the meteorite as a good omen, will chisel pieces of the heavenly stone for themselves until a local official orders them to stop..
— Other: wiki/Ensisheim_(meteorite)
(1944) FDR wins an unprecedented fourth term as US president
Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats GOP candidate Thomas Dewey and becomes the only president in history to win four terms. Roosevelt had concealed his failing health during the campaign. He will die three months after he’s sworn into office.. 1944

The United States presidential election of 1944 was the 40th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee, sought his fourth term in office; he defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the general election.

Election year: Nov 07, 1944

— Source: wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1944
(1944) Japan executes ‘the best spy of all time’
1944 That’s how writer Tom Clancy will describe Soviet spy Richard Sorge. Before his execution, Sorge posed as a German journalist in Japan, where he’d discovered key information about Japan’s WWII strategy that helped change the course of the war for the USSR. .

Richard Sorge was a Soviet military intelligence officer, active before and during the Second World War, working as an undercover German journalist in both Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. His codename was “Ramsay”.

Born: Oct 04, 1895 · Baku, Azerbaijan
Died: Nov 07, 1944 · Tokyo, Japan
Spouse: Christiane Gerlach (m. 1921 – 1929)
Education: University of Hamburg

Highlights

  • 1921: Sorge and Christiane married in May 1921.

  • 1924: In 1924, he and Christiane moved to Moscow, where he officially joined the International Liaison Department of the Comintern, which was also an OGPU intelligence-gathering body.

  • 1929: In 1929, Sorge became part of the Red Army’s Fourth Department (the later GRU, or military intelligence).

  • 1932: In January 1932, Sorge reported on fighting between Chinese and Japanese troops in the streets of Shanghai.

  • 1933: In May 1933, the GRU decided to have Sorge organize an intelligence network in Japan.

  • 1940: Sorge is most famous for his service in Japan in 1940 and 1941, when he provided information about Adolf Hitler’s plan to attack the Soviet Union, although he did not succeed in finding out the exact date of the attack.

— Source: wiki/Richard_Sorge
(1991) NBA star Magic Johnson announces he’s HIV-positive
The gifted and popular Lakers basketball star stuns the world when he reveals he’s HIV-positive and that he’s retiring immediately from the sport. The 32-year-old promises to use his celebrity to raise AIDS awareness, and Johnson will go on to do precisely that. . 1991

Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr. is an American retired professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association for 13 seasons. After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time.

Born: Aug 14, 1959 (age 57) · Lansing, MI
Height: 6′ 9″ (2.06 m)
Net worth: $600 million USD (2016)
Spouse: Cookie Johnson (m. 1991)
Children: Elisa Johnson (Daughter) · Earvin Johnson III (Son)
Education: Everett High School · Michigan State University (1977 – 1979)

— Source: wiki/Magic_Johnson
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Today in History

Today in History
(1492) Columbus, having sailed the ocean blue, arrives in North America
1492 Rodrigo de Triana shouts from his lookout atop his ship the ‘Pinta’ that he’s spotted land after five weeks of an open-ocean crossing. The Italian leader of this Spanish-funded voyage, Christopher Columbus, will name the area of their first North American landfall ‘San Salvador.’ .

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World.

Lived: 1451 – May 20, 1506
Height: 6′ 0″ (1.83 m)
Spouse: Filipa Moniz Perestrelo (m. 1479)
Partner: Beatriz Enríquez de Arana (1487 – 1506)
Children: Diego Columbus (Son) · Ferdinand Columbus (Son)
Parents: Domenico Colombo (Father) · Susanna Fontanarossa (Mother)

— Source: wiki/Christopher_Columbus
(1810) Wedding party in Munich launches a Bavarian beer fest
Crown Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen throw a wedding party, and all of Munich, Germany is invited. The party is a hit, and festivities will be repeated a year later, starting an annual tradition of suds, song, and sauerkraut called Oktoberfest. . 1810

Oktoberfest is the world’s largest Volksfest. Held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, it is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid or late September to the first weekend in October, with more than 6 million people from around the world attending the event every year. Locally, it is often called the Wiesn, after the colloquial name for the fairgrounds. The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since 1810. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations that are modelled after the original Munich event.

First occurred: 1810

— Source: wiki/Oktoberfest
(1915) A saver of lives loses her own in front of a firing squad
1915 Having saved many lives both by providing medical aid and by cunningly smuggling Allied soldiers out of German-occupied Belgium, British nurse Edith Cavell is now executed by German authorities. Her death by firing squad will shock and anger a world only a year into WWI. .

Edith Louisa Cavell was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was accused of treason, found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death. Despite international pressure for mercy, she was shot by a German firing squad. Her execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage.

Born: Dec 04, 1865 · Swardeston, United Kingdom
Died: Oct 12, 1915 · Brussels, Belgium
Parents: Frederick V Cavell · Louisa Sophia Cavell

— Source: wiki/Edith_Cavell
(2000) Terrorists attack an American navy ship docked in Yemen
Upwards of 700 pounds of explosives blast a 40-by-60-foot hole into the port side of the USS Cole as it’s docked in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors will die and 40 are wounded in the bombing of the US Navy vessel, and authorities will suspect the terrorist group al-Qaeda is behind the attack.. 2000

The USS Cole bombing was a terrorist attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole on 12 October 2000, while it was being refueled in Yemen’s Aden harbor. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39 injured in the deadliest attack against a United States naval vessel since 1987.

Date: Oct 12, 2000

— Source: wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
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