1895

Today in History 12/28 (Westminster Abbey)

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Westminster Abbey in London (© Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images)(1065) Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London
King Edward the Confessor is near death and unable to attend the consecration ceremony of the church he commissioned as a burial place and to atone to the pope for a broken vow. Edward will die eight days later. The abbey will be completed in 1090 but rebuilt in the Gothic style by Henry III.
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom’s most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. The building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England “Royal Peculiar”—a church responsible directly to the sovereign.
Address: 20 Dean’s Yard, London SW1P 3PA
Phone: 020 7222 5152
Construction completed: 960 AD
Height: 225 feet (Architectural)
Denomination: Church of England
Architects: Christopher Wren · Nicholas Hawksmoor · Henry Yevele · John of Gloucester · Robert of Beverley · Henry of Reyns

Panorama of Westminster North Entrance
North entrance of Westminster Abbey
wiki/Westminster_Abbey
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(1065) Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London.
Also on this day,

1846 | Iowa becomes the 29th US state
President James K. Polk signs a law making an area that was part of the Louisiana Purchase the 29th state. Iowa, named for a Native American tribe, joins the nation as a slave-free state and will support the Union in the Civil War.
1895 | Audience pays admission to see a movie
At the Grand Cafe in Paris, brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière charge admission to see short films they made about ordinary French life. It marks the first time an audience has paid money to see a movie. The films are shown on a hand-cranked camera-projector the brothers invented: the Cinematographe.
1958 | ‘Greatest’ football game as Baltimore Colts win ‘Greatest Game Ever Played’
The 1958 National Football Championship Game between the Colts and the New York Giants is the first playoff game in NFL history to go into sudden-death overtime. The Colts win 23-17 in Yankee Stadium and the matchup will become known as the ‘Greatest Game Ever Played.’

Today in History 12/28/17

US and Iowa state flags (© Brian Snyder/Reuters)(1846) Iowa becomes the 29th US state
President James K. Polk signs a law making an area that was part of the Louisiana Purchase the 29th state. Iowa, named for a Native American tribe, joins the nation as a slave-free state and will support the Union in the Civil War.
Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest, and Minnesota to the north.
Population: 3.13 million (2016)
Area: 56,272 sq miles (145,743 km²)
Colleges and universities: Iowa State University · University of Iowa · University of Northern Iowa · Drake University · Grinnell College
Capital: Des Moines
Governor: Kim Reynolds
Senators: Joni Ernst · Chuck Grassley

Iowa in United States
Map of the United States with Iowa highlighted

wiki/Iowa
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Today in History 10/03 (Germany Reunited)

Young people light flares in front of Berlin's Reichstag early October 3, 1990, to celebrate German unification (© Diether Endlicher/AP)(1990) A nation carved up by the Cold War is made whole
In what will later be celebrated as ‘Unity Day,’ a country torn in two after the Second World War is reunited as the once Soviet-controlled East Germany is dissolved and its territory and citizens merged with the Federal Republic of Germany, formerly known as West Germany.
The Day of German Unity is the national day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, when the goal of a united Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled again. Therefore, the name addresses neither the re-union nor the union, but the unity of Germany. The Day of German Unity on 3 October has been the German national holiday since 1990, when the reunification was formally completed.
Observed by: Germany
Significance: Commemorates the German reunification in 1990
Frequency: annual
Date: 3 October

Berlin, deutsche Vereinigung, vor dem Reichstag
For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. ADN-ZB-Grimm-3.10.90-Berlin: Vereinigung/Hunderttausende waren dabei, als vor dem Reichstag die schwarz-rot-goldene Bundesfahne gehißt wurde.
wiki/German_Unity_Day
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(1990) A nation carved up by the Cold War is made whole.
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52 BCE | Caesar conquers the Gauls at Battle of Alesia
The Gallic Wars have raged for eight years, with Julius Caesar leading much of the Roman Republic’s charge against the tribes of Gaul in Western Europe. An inability to band together against their common enemy dooms the Gallic tribes, and the struggle ends at the Battle of Alesia.
1895 | Crane sees the Civil War through a young soldier’s eyes in ‘The Red Badge of Courage’
Stephen Crane’s novel ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ is released in book form for the first time. Not yet born when the Civil War ended, the young author weaves a narrative of America’s great cataclysm, now 30 years gone, with such verisimilitude that critics will call him a master of Realism.
1942 | V-2 rocket crosses a cosmic threshold
A new Nazi ‘Wunderwaffen,’ or ‘weapon of wonder,’ is fired in a test flight, and the missile’s top 52.5-mile altitude is so high it becomes the first manmade object to enter outer space. In less than two years Germany will begin launching thousands of V-2 rockets, mainly against Belgium and the UK.

Today in History 10/03/17

Launching site for V2 rockets in Germany during WWII (© Roger Viollet/Getty Images)(1942) Missile crosses a cosmic threshold
A new Nazi 'Wunderwaffen,' or 'weapon of wonder,' is fired in a test flight, and the missile's top 52.5-mile altitude is so high it becomes the first manmade object to enter outer space. In less than two years Germany will begin launching thousands of V-2 rockets, mainly against Belgium and the UK.
The V-2, technical name Aggregat 4, was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile with a liquid-propellant rocket engine was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon", assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into outer space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.
Sectional view of the missile Aggregat 2 / V 2
Layout of a V-2 rocket

wiki/V-2_rocket
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