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Today in History 06/18/17

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Painting of the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, final battle of the War of 1812 (© Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty Images)(1812) War erupts between the US and UK just 30 years after revolution
A British blockade of French trade, America’s desire for Canadian territory, American sailors forced to serve in Britain’s navy, and unresolved issues from the Revolutionary War all culminate in US President James Madison signing a declaration of war against Great Britain.
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and the United Kingdom and their respective allies. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars; however, in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right.
Start date: Jun 18, 1812
End date: Feb 18, 1815

wiki/War_of_1812
Illustration of the Battle of Waterloo (© Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)(1815) Napoleonic Era comes to a bloody end at Waterloo
A once immensely powerful ruler and seemingly unstoppable military leader, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte fights his final battle at Waterloo, in the Netherlands. The coalition of forces arrayed against Napoleon, including the British and Prussian armies, prove insurmountable.
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: an Anglo-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt.
Date: Jun 18, 1815

wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo
USGA President John Clock, right, presents the US Open trophy to Arnold Palmer, left, at the Cherry Hills Country Club after Palmer won the golf tournament in Denver, Colorado (© AP)(1960) Final US Open golf round cinches victory for Palmer
Rising star in golf Arnold Palmer wins the prestigious US Open in a record-breaking final round, besting legendary veteran Ben Hogan and talented newcomer Jack Nicklaus. Palmer will go on to be arguably the greatest golfer of his time, and one of the wealthiest athletes in history.
The 1960 U.S. Open was the 60th U.S. Open, held June 16–18 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Englewood, Colorado, a suburb south of Denver. Arnold Palmer staged the greatest comeback in U.S. Open history, erasing a seven-stroke deficit during the final round to win his only U.S. Open title. It is remembered as a crossroads for the three primary contenders in the final round: Palmer, Ben Hogan, and amateur Jack Nicklaus, three of the greatest players in the history of golf.
Start date: Jun 16, 1960
End date: Jun 18, 1960

wiki/1960_U.S._Open_(golf)
Astronaut Sally Ride communicates with ground controllers from the flight deck of the Space Shuttle Challenger (© Rex Shutterstock)(1983) First American woman travels to space
Sally Ride boards the Space Shuttle Challenger and becomes the first American woman (and the youngest US astronaut) to travel to space. She will later contribute to investigations into the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters before passing away from pancreatic cancer in 2012.
Sally Kristen Ride was an American physicist and astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya. Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
Lived: May 26, 1951 – Jul 23, 2012 (age 61)
Height: 5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
Partner: Tam O’Shaughnessy (1985 – 2012)
Spouse: Steven Hawley (m. 1982 – 1987)
Founded: Sally Ride Science
Education: Stanford University · Swarthmore College · Gaspar De Portola Middle School · Harvard-Westlake School
Highlights
  • 1982: In 1982, she married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley.

  • 1983: On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on space shuttle Challenger for STS-7.

  • 1987: In 1987, Ride left her position in Washington, D.C., to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control.

  • 1989: In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the California Space Institute.

  • 2012: After Sally Ride’s death in 2012, General Donald Kutyna revealed that she had discreetly provided him with key information about O-rings (namely, that they become stiff at low temperatures) that eventually led to identification of the cause of the explosion.

  • 2012: Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.

wiki/Sally_Ride
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Today in History 05/11/17

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The Prajna paramita, also called the Diamond Sutra (© Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)(868) Book printed in China
Pre-dating the Gutenberg Bible by almost six centuries, a copy of the Buddhist ‘Diamond Sutra’ is created by woodblock printing on a 16-foot-long scroll and affixed with an exact date. The work will survive to become the oldest known printed and dated text in existence.
The Diamond Sūtra is a Mahāyāna sūtra from the Prajñāpāramitā, or “Perfection of Wisdom” genre, and emphasizes the practice of non-abiding and non-attachment. The Diamond sutra is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras in East Asia, and is a key object of devotion and study in Zen Buddhism.
Jingangjing

wiki/Diamond_Sutra
Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant (Stapleton Collection/Corbis)(1647) Stuyvesant arrives to run North American Dutch settlement
Peter Stuyvesant, of The Dutch West India Company, arrives in the New Netherland colony to take up his position as Director-General. He will head projects that include precursors to Wall Street and Broadway before turning over the colony to the English in 1664, who then rename the colony ‘New York.’
Peter Stuyvesant served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City and his name has been given to various landmarks and points of interest throughout the city.
Lived: 1612 – Aug 1672
Spouse: Judith Bayard (m. 1645 – 1672)
Education: University of Franeker
Children: Nicolas William Stuyvesant (Son) · Balthazar Lazarus Stuyvesant (Son)
Parents: Margaretha Hardenstein (Mother) · Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, ds. (Father) · Styntie (Steintje) Pieters (Mother) · Rev. Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant (Father) · Margarethe Stuyvesant (Mother)
Previous office: Director of New Netherland (1647 – 1664)
Highlights
  • 1645: In 1645, Stuyvesant married Judith Bayard (c. 1610–1687) of the Bayard family.

  • 1645: A year later, in May 1645, Stuyvesant was selected by the Dutch West India Company to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of the New Netherland colony, in present-day New York.

  • 1647: In September 1647, he appointed an advisory council of nine men as representatives of the colonists on New Netherland.

  • 1648: In 1648, a conflict started between him and Brant Aertzsz van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the patroonship Rensselaerwijck, which surrounded Fort Orange (present-day Albany).

  • 1649: In 1649, Stuyvesant marched to Fort Orange with a military escort and ordered bordering settlement houses to be razed to permit a better defense of the fort in case of an attack from the Native Americans.

  • 1672: He died in August 1672 and his body was entombed in the east wall of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, which sits on the site of Stuyvesant’s family chapel.

wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant
British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)(1812) British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval assassinated
Spencer Perceval’s meteoric rise in politics ends as a lone gunman, angry over perceived governmental injustices, enters the British House of Commons lobby and kills the prime minister with a single shot to the chest. The assassin, John Bellingham, will be hanged a week later.
Spencer Perceval, KC, PC was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 October 1809 until his death on 11 May 1812. He is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated. He is also the only solicitor general or attorney general to have been prime minister, and the only prime minister until recent years whose entire lifetime was spent in the reign of the sovereign under which he held office, George III.
Lived: Nov 01, 1762 – May 11, 1812 (age 49)
Romance: Jane Perceval
Children: John Thomas Perceval (Son) · Spencer Perceval (Son)
Successor: Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Prime Minister)
Party: Tories
Previous offices: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1809 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1809 – 1812) · First Lord of the Treasury (1809 – 1812) · Leader of the House of Commons (1809 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Exchequer (1807 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Exchequer (1807 – 1812) · Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1807 – 1812) · Attorney General for England and Wales
Highlights
  • 1782: After five years at Harrow he followed his older brother Charles to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the declamation prize in English and graduated in 1782.

  • 1783: Perceval’s mother had died in 1783, and Perceval and his brother Charles, now Lord Arden, rented a house in Charlton, where they fell in love with two sisters who were living in the Percevals’ old childhood home.

  • 1790: When Jane reached 21, in 1790, Perceval’s career was still not prospering, and Sir Thomas still opposed the marriage, so the couple eloped and married by special licence in East Grinstead.

  • 1796: He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, practised as a barrister on the Midland circuit and in 1796 became a King’s Counsel before entering politics at the age of 33 as a Member of Parliament for Northampton.

  • 1801: He was appointed solicitor general in 1801 and attorney general the following year.

  • 1804: He kept the position of attorney general when Addington resigned and Pitt formed his second ministry in 1804.

wiki/Spencer_Perceval
'Cats' marquee over New York's Winter Garden theater in 2000. (© Mitsu Yasukawa/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)(1981) ‘Cats’ begins its memorable run
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical debuts in London, where it will run for 8,949 performances over 21 years. The following year it will open in New York, where it will win seven Tony Awards and become the longest-running Broadway show until 2006, when its record will be broken.
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as “the Jellicle choice” and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard “Memory”. The first performance of Cats was in 1981.
Author: Andrew Lloyd Webber
First performed: 1980
Adaptations: Cats (1998)

wiki/Cats_(musical)
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Today in History 02/07/17

Undated photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows a landslide trench and ridge east of Reelfoot Lake in Obion County, Tenn., made by the New Madrid earthquakes in the early 1800s (© U.S. Geological Survey/AP)(1812) Earthquake causes Mississippi River to flow backwards
The last of four massive earthquakes that began the previous December strikes in what will be the state of Missouri with a force strong enough to spawn a fluvial tsunami, causing the mighty Mississippi River to run backwards for many hours.
The 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes were an intense intraplate earthquake series beginning with an initial earthquake of moment magnitude 7.5–7.9 on December 16, 1811, followed by a moment magnitude 7.4 aftershock on the same day. They remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains in recorded history. They, as well as the seismic zone of their occurrence, were named for the Mississippi River town of New Madrid, then part of the Louisiana Territory, now within the US state of Missouri.
Start date: Dec 16, 1811
End date: Feb 07, 1812

wiki/1811–12_New_Madrid_earthquakes
Family playing a game of Monopoly, circa 1935 (© SSPL/Getty Images)(1935) Beloved board game Monopoly debuts
Parker Brothers begins selling a board game centered on buying and selling property, with locale names based on the names of streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It will become one of history’s best-selling board games.
The history of the board game Monopoly can be traced back to the early 20th century. The earliest known version of Monopoly, known as The Landlord’s Game, was designed by an American, Elizabeth Magie, and first patented in 1904 but existed as early as 1902. Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally intended The Landlord’s Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo’s Law of Economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation. A series of board games were developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1933, a board game had been created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its related companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the Midwestern United States and near the East Coast, contributed to the game’s design and evolution.
wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly
The Beatles at Kennedy Airport in New York, Feb. 7, 1964 (© Redferns/Getty Images)(1964) British Invasion begins as Fab Four land in US
British rock n’ rollers The Beatles land at New York’s Kennedy Airport, where fans welcome the quartet with a high-pitched hysteria that will become a hallmark of the ‘British Invasion.’
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several musical styles, ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as “Beatlemania”, but as the group’s music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s.
Lead singers: John Lennon (1960 – 1969) · Paul McCartney (1960 – 1970)
Founded: Apple Records · Northern Songs · Apple Boutique
Tours: The Beatles’ 1966 US tour · The Beatles’ 1964 world tour · The Beatles’ 1965 US tour · The Beatles’ 1965 European tour
Awards: Grammy Award for Album of the Year (1968) · Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2014) · Grammy Award for Best New Artist (1965) · Grammy Hall of Fame (2011, 2008, 2004, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1995, 1993)
Nominations: Grammy Award for Record of the Year (1971, 1969, 1966, 1965) · MTV Video Music Award for Best Visual Effects (1996) · American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album (1997) · NME Award for British Instrumental Unit

wiki/The_Beatles
A bushfire burns through a forest on the outskirts of Labertouche, 90km (56 miles) east of Melbourne Feb 7, 2009 (© Mick Tsikas/Reuters)(2009) Bushfires cause a Black Saturday in Australia
An unrelenting heat wave, lightning, and arson contribute to a conflagration of bushfires near Melbourne, Australia, the worst in the continent’s recorded history. The fires will kill 173 and injure 414.
The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that ignited or were burning across the Australian state of Victoria on and around Saturday, 7 February 2009 and were Australia’s all-time worst bushfire disasters. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire-weather conditions and resulted in Australia’s highest ever loss of life from a bushfire; 173 people died and 414 were injured as a result of the fires.
Fatalities: 173

wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
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Today in History

Today in History
(1716) Colonies’ first lighthouse shines over Boston Harbor
1716 Rising 75 feet over Little Brewster Island, the new Boston Light goes into service guiding vessels in and out of Boston Harbor. The Massachusetts lighthouse, the first lit in the American colonies, will be twice set on fire, and then demolished completely, in the coming revolution. .
Boston Light is a lighthouse located on Little Brewster Island in outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The first lighthouse to be built on the site dates back to 1716, and was the first lighthouse to be built in what is now the United States. The current lighthouse dates from 1783, is the second oldest working lighthouse in the United States, and is the only lighthouse to still be actively staffed by the United States Coast Guard, being automated in 1998 though there is still a keeper acting as tour guide. The structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

Address: 87 Mount Vernon St, Boston, MA 02108
Phone: (617) 523-1800
Website: http://lightboston.org/
Automated: 1998
First lit: 1783
Opened: 1716

— Source: wiki/Boston_Light
(1812) Retreating Russians lead Napoleon to his downfall
Napoleon Bonaparte and his troops enter Moscow as conquerors only to find the huge Russian city virtually abandoned. Almost all have fled ahead of the French forces, and fires begin to break out that will burn almost the entire city, dooming Napoleon to a disastrous retreat from Russia.. 1812
The 1812 Fire of Moscow broke out on September 14, 1812 in Moscow on the day when Russian troops and most residents abandoned the city and Napoleon’s vanguard troops entered the city following the Battle of Borodino. The fire raged until September 18, destroying an estimated three-quarters of Moscow.

Start date: Sep 14, 1812
End date: Sep 18, 1812

— Source: wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_(1812)
(1901) Roosevelt becomes US president after McKinley’s assassination
1901 President William McKinley dies eight days after being shot by an assassin, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th president of the United States. At 42, Teddy is the youngest US president, and will go on to be reelected in 1904 in a landslide victory. .
The first inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt as the 26th President of the United States, took place at the Ansley Wilcox House in Buffalo, New York on September 14, 1901, following the death of President William McKinley. McKinley had been shot by Leon Czolgosz eight days earlier, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.

Date: Sep 14, 1901

— Source: wiki/First_inauguration_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
(1959) Spacecraft lands on the moon
Two days after launching, the Soviet Union’s space probe ‘Luna 2’ crash-lands on the moon’s surface near Mare Imbrium in the Palus Putredinis region. The spherical spacecraft becomes the first man-made object to reach another celestial body, and the first of many future moon visitors.. 1959
Luna 2 or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union’s Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 14, 1959, it successfully impacted east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus.

Date: Sep 12, 1959

— Source: wiki/Luna_2
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Today in History

Today in History
(1812) The British score an easy win against America
1812 Recognizing that his enemy is massing forces he can’t take on, and fearing for his family, General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit to the British. The action will result in a death penalty, but Hull’s sentence will be pardoned due to his previous Revolutionary War heroism..
(1896) Gold fever hits in remote northwest Canada
Rabbit Creek in Canada’s Yukon Territory will soon be renamed Bonanza Creek, because it’s along this waterway that George Carmack and Skookum Jim Mason first discover gold deposits. An estimated 100,000 hopeful prospectors will soon stampede to stake a claim in the Klondike Gold Rush.. 1896
(1974) Four ‘brothers’ from Queens take the stage in downtown NYC
1974 Johnny, Tommy, Dee Dee, and Joey Ramone play the Bowery’s CBGB club in matching leather jackets, jeans, and attitudes, belting out their set of blistering songs in a style soon to be dubbed ‘punk.’ Rocketing from this first gig, the Ramones will change the course of rock ‘n’ roll. .
(1989) Space storms crash a stock market’s computers
All trading is halted on the Toronto Stock Exchange as three disc drives fail and computers crash. Scientists trace the failure to microchip interference from a geomagnetic storm caused by a massive solar flare, even larger than the one that took down Quebec’s power grid months earlier.. 1989