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Industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in 1794.

Born to a poor family in Port Richmond, N.Y., Vanderbilt left school at the age of 11 to work with his father. At age 16, he opened his first shipping freight and transportation service, which ran between New York City and Staten Island. With a knack for ca

The treaty resulting from the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1972.

Between November 1969 and May 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the first in a series of arms control agreements. SALT I, a short-term agreement to freeze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers for both countries, sought t

Congress passed the first copyright law in 1790.

The Copyright Act of 1790 was enacted by the first U.S. Congress. It was based on a clause in the U.S. Constitution which stated that Congress could promote science and the arts “by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rig

The Brooklyn Bridge was opened to traffic in 1883.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which connects Brooklyn with Manhattan in New York, was an engineering achievement and a breakthrough in suspension bridge technology. The bridge was constructed over a period of 13 years and is about 6,000 feet long, with 1,595.5 feet

Captain William Kidd was hanged for piracy in 1701.

William Kidd, a native of Scotland, settled in New York as a sea captain. He worked as captain of a privateer for New York and other colonies, hunting pirates along the east coast of America. Privateers were private ships who had government permission to at

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, was born in 1859.

Pennsylvania Gazette. The political cartoon showed a snake severed into eight pieces and suggested that if the North American colonies didn't unite in their fight against

Militant members of the American Indian Movement, who had occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for 70 days, surrendered to federal officials in 1973.

Early in 1973, leaders of the Lakota Sioux, frustrated by a tribal government they claimed was corrupt, asked for help from the American Indian Movement. About 200 A.I.M. members and their supporters took over the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Re

The American Medical Association was founded in 1847.

The American Medical Association sets standards for medical practice, education, research and ethics in the U.S. It also serves as an advocate for patients and physicians, and as an agency for collecting and reporting medical information. The AMA was founde

The Eiffel Tower officially opened in Paris in 1889.

Built as the entrance arch for the 1889 World's Fair celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution, the Eiffel Tower is the second-tallest structure in France. Named for engineer Gustave Eiffel, it has three levels accessible to visitors who clim

Today is Free Comic Book Day!

Most Americans are familiar with the classic comic heroes—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman—and the idea of comic books often brings to mind the images of these slam! bam! pow! super heroes. Modern comics, however, offer a wide breadth of stories a

Cinco de Mayo is celebrated on May 5th.

Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday celebrating the defeat of the invading French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Its economy in crisis following a series of wars, Mexico suspended payment of foreign debt for a period of two years. Eager to estab

A storm system of an estimated 76 tornadoes hit the Midwest on this day in 1999, killing 44 people.

The large system was tracked continuously by the National Weather Service, and residents were warned to take precautions. Despite the early warnings, 44 people were killed, 748 people were injured and damage estimated at $1.485 billion was done when at leas

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Fletcher and Lieutenant Colonel William Benedict piloted the first plane to land at the North Pole in 1952.

While Fletcher and Benedict have the undisputed distinction of being the first to land a plane at the North Pole, Fletcher may arguably be the first man to stand on the exact geographic North Pole as well. Historically, explorer Robert Peary was considered

The Scottish newspaper Inverness Courier reported a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster in 1933, beginning a media and tourist frenzy.

While tales of a strange, giant creature in the Scottish Highlands’ Loch Ness had been part of the local lore as far back as A.D. 500, the modern legend began when a couple reported seeing the “monster” in 1933. After the Inverness

The Empire State Building officially opened in 1931.

When President Herbert Hoover pressed a button in Washington, D.C. to turn on the lights of the Empire State Building miles away in New York City, the engineering marvel was officially opened to the public. The Empire State Building, the tallest in the worl

The Louisiana Purchase was made in 1803.

On this day in 1803, the United States nearly doubled in size, making it one of the largest nations in the world. With the signing of the cession treaty and monetary agreements of the Louisiana Purchase, dated April 30, 1803, though actually signed two days

Jazz great Duke Ellington was born in 1899.

Duke Ellington (born Edward Kennedy Ellington) is considered one of the world’s greatest jazz composers and musicians. Of him Richard Nixon once said, “In the royalty of American music, no man swings more or stands higher than the Duke.”

The Allied occupation of Japan ended in 1952.

WHEREAS the Allied Powers and Japan are resolved that henceforth their relations shall be those of nations which, as sovereign equals, cooperate in friendly association to promote their common welfare and to maintain international peace and security, and ar

Samuel Morse was born in 1791.

Although Morse is often referred to as the inventor of the telegraph, the term “innovator” more aptly describes his role in the development of distance communication. Telegraphs already existed before Morse, a portrait painter with an interest i

John James Audubon was born in 1785 in Santo Domingo (present-day Haiti).

Artist, naturalist and ornithologist John James Audubon emigrated to the United States at age 18. Although he was not affiliated with the National Audubon Society, which was founded in 1905 to protect birds and other wildlife and their habitats, it is grace

Nobel Prize-winning mathematician Wolfgang Pauli was born in 1900.

Reportedly, the brilliant Wolfgang Pauli read Albert Einstein’s papers on relativity under his school desk during class while he was still in high school. In any case, he caught Einstein’s attention at a young age. Einstein said of the young Pau

William Butler Yeats' poem Easter 1916 remembers the Irish Easter rebellion which took place on this day in 1916.

Yeats' Easter 1916 reflects his sympathy with the Nationalist cause in his native Ireland. The Nationalist cause was led by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, of which Yeats was a member, and sought to remove British rule from Ireland and cr

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died on the same day in 1616.

Historians generally agree that famous playwright and poet William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, the same day and month in which he died in 1616. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to parents who, although they could not write,

The first national Earth Day was celebrated in 1970.

The first national Earth Day was proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson and was a grassroots effort modeled on earlier anti-war teach-ins. Earth Day was designed to raise public awareness of environmental concerns and to demonstrate to political leaders that th

Economist John Maynard Keynes died in 1946.

John Maynard Keynes’ theories revolutionized government’s role in the economy. Keynes was among the first to question the laissez-faire economic policies that were prevalent in governments prior to the 1930s. He argued that government spending,

Artist Joan Miro was born in 1893.

Miró was born in Barcelona in the Catalonian region of Spain, and also spent considerable time in Paris. Though a member of the Surrealist movement, Miró had a unique style that was influenced greatly by primitive works. His paintings an

The battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, began the American Revolutionary War.

As the British marched toward Concord on April 19, 1775 in search of the weapons stored there, they crossed the bridge into Lexington and were met by American militiamen. It was the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

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Longfellow's poem Paul Revere's Ride immortalized one of the riders who warned Boston colonists of the British invasion on this day in 1775.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...

Thus begins Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem that has shaped our perception of the historical events that occurred in 1775. In Longf

Mathematician and geometer Etienne Bobillier was born in 1798.

Bobillier lived and worked in France during the tumultuous period following the French Revolution. He served in the National Guard during the July Revolution of 1830, but returned to teaching mathematics in 1832. Bobillier’s most notable contributions

The first Book-of-the-Month Club selection was distributed in 1926.

The newly established Book-of-the-Month Club chose Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willows for its first selection. On this day in 1926, the book went out to over 5,000 club members. Today, there are countless spin-off

Walt Whitman wrote Oh Captain! My Captain! about the death of Abraham Lincoln, which occurred on this day in 1865.

Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln was first published in the Saturday Press in November, 1865, and demonstrated his profound respect for the President who had brought the warring nation together. Whitman, whose works celebrated democracy, freedom and Americ

The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912.

The Titanic was considered unsinkable because of its unique compartmentalized hull construction. However, when the luxury liner struck an iceberg just before midnight, four days into its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, the “unsinka

Golf great Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament in 1997.

Woods’ 12-stroke win at the 1997 Masters marked his first victory at one of the four major golf championships and was the largest margin of victory on record in the 20th century. Woods was the youngest golfer and the first person of either Asian or

Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin orbited the Earth on board Vostok 1 on this day in 1961. The historic event was a significant victory for the Soviet Union in the Cold War space race with the United States, which had scheduled its

Andrew Wiles, the mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, was born in 1953.

“I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain,” wrote mathematician and number theorist Pierre de Fermat beside a challenging math equation. Mathematicians around the world have tried to prove Fermat&rsquo

Journalist Joseph Pulitzer was born in 1847.

Along with William Randolph Hearst, with whom he competed in circulation wars for much of his career, Joseph Pulitzer is credited with changing the nature of newspapers and journalism. His news magazine The World was instrumental in establi

French poet Charles Baudelaire was born in 1821.

O Venus! On your isle what did I see
But my own image on the gallows tree?
O God, give me the strength to contemplate
My own heart, my own body without hate!

—Charles Baudelaire

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso died in 1973.

One of the most famous artists of the 20th century, Picasso created an estimated 20,000 works of art during his long career. He exhibited his first work at age twelve, and his productive career spanned more than 75 years until his death on this day in 1973

Gabriela Mistral, first Latin American woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in 1889.

No maguellers a la tierra
no aprietes a la olorosa,
Por el amor de ella abájate,
huéla y dale la boca.

(Do not trample the earth,&

The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens in 1896.

On this day in 1896, 280 athletes from 13 countries gathered in Athens, Greece, as the modern Olympic Games were born. The all-male participants competed in 43 events, including the first marathon ever run. The games were a revival of ancient Greek competit

Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1614.

The daughter of the Chief of the Powhatan Indians played an important role in the history of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Although her real name was Matoaka, she has been remembered by history as Pocahontas, a nickname

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot as he stood on the second story balcony of his motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King, who had recently turned his attention to issues of economic inequality, was in town to support a sanitation workers&

Howard Van Amringe, first President of the American Mathematical Society, was born in 1835.

In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit China. Cold War enemies, the U.S. and China had a very strained political relationship during the 1950s and 1960s. The U.S. refused to recognize the new Communist government, the People's Repub

John Mauchly proposed ENIAC, the first modern computer, in 1943.

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the predecessor of the modern digital computer, was a giant, cumbersome machine. It consumed two hundred kilowatts of power, weighed about thirty tons, filled an entire room and at first had to be manual

The first peace treaty between American colonists and an American Indian tribe was signed in 1621.

The April 1621 peace treaty was between Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags and the leaders of Plymouth Colony, acting for King James I. In the treaty, the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Wampanoags agreed to do no harm to each other and made provisions for punish

In a famous letter to her husband, dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams discussed women's rights.

...In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I would desire you would Remember the Ladies.... Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.... If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies

Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed to purchase Alaska from Russia for seven million dollars in 1867.

After the Senate ratified the treaty to purchase Alaska by just one vote, Seward was criticized both for the high price he paid for the frozen territory and for the secrecy surrounding the transaction. Alaska was known as “Seward’s Folly”

The Mariner 10 spacecraft visited Mercury in 1974.

Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to use a gravity-assisted trajectory and was responsible for testing the technique. Using this technique, the spacecraft sped up as it got close to Venus, using Venus’ gravity to propel itself away on a slightly dif

The most serious nuclear accident in the U.S. to date occurred at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history began in the predawn hours when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania malfunctioned. Contaminated water leaked into the building and the plant’s core began to overheat. H

The strongest earthquake to strike North America to date hit 80 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska, in 1964.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.2 and created a tsunami that measured over one hundred feet high at some points. The earthquake, which lasted only three minutes, killed fifteen people. The resulting tsunami claimed an additional one hundred

Poet Robert Frost was born in 1874.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-from "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

Although Robert Frost was born in San Francisc

The Mercedes was introduced by the Daimler Motor Corporation in 1901.

The Mercedes debuted at the “Week of Nice” races in Nice, France, dominating the field and reaching speeds of over 86 kilometers per hour. The car was named after the daughter of businessman Emile Jellinek. Jellinek inspired the new four-c

The Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, resulting in the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska, spilling an estimated 11 million gallons of oil in 1989. Cleanup attempts were largely unsuccessful, and more than 700 miles of coastline and thousands

Fannie Farmer, cookbook author and domestic scientist, was born in 1857.

With the 1896 publication of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer made history by making life easier for home cooks. For the first time, a cookbook contained specific measurements instead of estimates. By standardizing measure

The Joy Luck Club was first published in 1989.

Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, which explores the relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese mothers, spent over 40 weeks on the New York Time's Bestseller List and received the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction and the

Gilbert M. (Bronco Billy) Anderson was born in 1882.

Gilbert M. Anderson, better known as his character Broncho Billy, was the first real western movie star. Anderson’s career began when he played several small roles in The Great Train Robbery, one of the first movies ever made. He was

Navajo Indians left Fort Canby on the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1864.

Eight hundred Navajos, mostly women, elderly men and children, left Fort Canby on a 300-mile march to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in east-central New Mexico. The Navajos made the forced march after surrendering to Kit Carson and his soldiers following mo

The first recorded bank robbery in the U.S. took place in 1831.

On this day in 1831, the City Bank on Wall Street in New York City was robbed of $245,000. The culprit, Edward Smith, opened the bank with duplicate keys. He was caught, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. In recent years, bank robberies have e

Mathematician Agnes Sime Baxter was born in 1870.

Canadian Agnes Sime Baxter was a pioneer in mathematics. She received a Masters in Mathematics from Dalhousie University in 1892. She was awarded the Sir William Young Gold Medal and was the first woman ever to graduate with honors from Dalhousie. When she

Today is St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick, born Maewyn Succat around AD 415, is the Patron Saint of Ireland and is credited with converting the Irish to Christianity. His feast day is a day of celebration in Ireland and many other countries around the world. The first St. Patrick’

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was born in 1933.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was born to Jewish-American immigrants in Brooklyn, NY, on this day in 1933. She attended Cornell University, Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School. Despite her excellent academic record and having made Law Review at both Harvard an

Julius Caesar, Roman dictator, was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C.

Julius Caesar won great public favor through his successful military campaigns and was named dictator perpetuus, or dictator for life, by the Roman Senate. He was stabbed to death on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. on the steps o

Albert Einstein was born in 1879.

Albert Einstein’s name is largely synonymous with genius. His contributions to physics radically changed the way we look at the universe. Perhaps best-known for his theories of relativity, Einstein also made major breakthroughs in the field of quantum

Tennessee made it unlawful to teach evolution in 1925.

The Tennessee Evolution Statutes passed on this day in 1925 made it illegal for any teacher at a public school or university “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man

Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died in 1925.

Often called the “Father of the Chinese Revolution” or the “Father of Modern China,” Sun Yat-sen was a key revolutionary leader, although he spent much of his life in exile from China. He was not directly involved in the 1911 uprisin

Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985.

Elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev quickly began instituting his policies of glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (transformation), intended to bring the Soviet

Harriet Tubman, the black abolitionist responsible for establishing the Underground Railroad, died in 1913.

After escaping to freedom in the North herself in 1849, Harriet Tubman returned to the South 19 times in 10 years to escort over 300 slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, including her aged parents. Dubbed “Moses” during her lifeti

Nicolaus Copernicus first recorded an astronomical observation in 1497.

Copernicus’ first recorded observation, made on this day in 1497, was of the moon eclipsing the star Aldebaran. He made the observation in Bologna, Italy while assisting an astronomy professor at Bologna University. Copernicus, Polish by birth, is oft

The New York Yankees signed Babe Ruth to a two-year contract worth $160,000 in 1930.

When baseball legend Babe Ruth was awarded the lucrative contract worth $160,000 in 1930, General Manager Ed Barrow predicted, “No one will ever be paid more.” Today, the average salary for a Major League Baseball player is $2,476,589. The highe

Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell emigrated first to Canada and later to the United States, where he was living when he developed his most important invention, the telephone. Five days after receiving his patent for the telephone,

U.S. author Louisa May Alcott died in 1888.

A prolific author of works ranging from short stories and poems to thrillers, Louisa May Alcott is best known for her young adult novel Little Women,which she published in 1868, and its sequels. In her youth, Alcott’s father was a New En

The U. S. launched Explorer 37 to study the Sun in 1968.

Also known as Solrad 9, this satellite was one of the more than 70 successful missions of the Explorer series. Together, the Explorer missions conducted a variety of scientific studies. Solrad 9 was launched into orbit specifically to collect data about the

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy, in 1678.

Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi is perhaps best known for his series of concerti called The Four Seasons, which is among the earliest examples of program music. Although Vivaldi composed in a wide range of forms, including opera and sacred mu

Today is National Grammar Day.

Established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, National Grammar Day offers an opportunity to consider how the rules of grammar can improve communication through better speaking and writing skills.&nb

The Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the American national anthem in 1931.

The American national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814 in the aftermath of the 25-hour bombardment of Fort Henry by British troops attempting to take Baltimore. The anthem was first published as a poem titled The Defence of Fort Henr

Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot died in Paris in 1895.

Painter Berthe Morisot was the first woman to join the French Impressionist circle and is considered one of the most important female artists of the late 19th century. Women were often the subjects of her paintings, which play with light and color as is typ

Children's author Dr. Seuss was born in 1904.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, published 44 children's book that used rhyme, invented words, and imaginary characters to tell his stories.

Celebrate his birthday all month long by reading his books and ex

NASA launched Landsat 5 in 1984.

The fifth satellite in the Landsat program was launched on this day in 1984, carrying a remote sensor called a Thematic Mapper. This sensor enabled the satellite to record even more detailed images of the Earth than the first four satellites. Since 1972, th

February 29th occurs in leap years like 2012.

Leap years occur every four years, adding one extra day to the month of February. This brings the total days in a leap year to 366.

The day is added to bring the calendar into alignment with the earth's revolution around the sun, which actua

The Salem witch trials began in 1692.

On this day in 1692, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams named three women, Tituba (the Parris' slave), Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, as witches. The following day, warrants were issued for their arrest, thus beginning the fa

The Shanghai Communique was issued in 1972.

In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit China. Cold War enemies, the U.S. and China had a very strained political relationship during the 1950s and 1960s. The U.S. refused to recognize the new Communist government, the People's

The Grand Canyon National Park was established in Arizona by an act of Congress in 1919.

On this day in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Grand Canyon Park bill, establishing the Grand Canyon National Park and offering it the highest level of protection the nation can give. 27 years earlier, then-Senator Benjamin Harrison had introduced

Paper currency was introduced in the U.S. by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

In 1861, the United States government's financial situation was racked by civil war and becoming desperate. In the face of national bankruptcy, the government took an unprecedented step. Af

Wilhelm Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm, was born in Hanau, Germany in 1786.

The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob, were famous for their collections of folktales and songs, which they compiled from oral sources. The best known of these, Children's and Household Tales, also known asGrimm's Fairy Tales, included st

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868.

W.E.B. Du Bois was a champion of oppressed peoples, first at home in the United States and later as part of the Pan-African movement that raised the consciousness of the international commu

George Washington was born in Virginia in 1732.

George was born on February 22, 1732, to Mary Ball and Augustine Washington on his family's estate in Pope's Creek, Virginia, near the Potomac River. The family moved to what is now Mount Vernon when he was 3 years old, but Washington spent much of his boyh

Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892.

Born in Rockland, Maine on this day in 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems. She was also known for the bohemian lifestyle she led in Greenwich Village in t

Malcolm X was assassinated at New York City's Audubon Ballroom in 1965.

Malcolm X was a militant proponent of Black nationalism, Black separation and Black pride. An eloquent speaker, he became a spokesman for the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) after converting to the faith in 1946 while in prison for burglary. At odds with mo

Nature photographer Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, California in 1902.

Inspired by a family trip to Yosemite, California in 1916, Ansel Adams later became famous for his photographs of the western United States landscape. Adams worked closely with the Sierra Club, and his work documenting the national parks—for which he

The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station in 1986.

The culmination of the Russian space program's efforts to establish a long-term manned space presence, Mir(which in Russian means both "peace" and "world") spent 15 years in orbit. It served as both the model for the Internat

U.S. astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, then considered to be the ninth planet in our solar system, in 1930.

While conducting a systematic search at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, for a predicted planet beyond Neptune, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Pluto was named after the Roman god of t

The House of Representatives broke an electoral tie, resulting in the election of Thomas Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President in 1801.

Because members of the Electoral College failed to designate each of their two votes as for either the President or Vice President, presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson and his running m

Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after the overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

After more than three years of guerrilla fighting and with much popular support, Castro and his forces forced President Fulgencio Batista from power and set up a provisional government. On

The philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death in 399 BC.

Forefather of Western philosophy, fifth-century BC Athenian Socrates served as a teacher to the youth of Athens, challenging many popular notions of the day. As unpopular with their parents as he was popular with the young people themselves, Socrates was se

Black abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was born a slave in 1818.

Often called the father of the civil rights movement, Frederick Douglass was born a slave on this day in 1818 on Holmes Hill Farm in eastern Maryland. Although it was against the law for slaves to do so, Douglass learned to read and write. At the age of 20

Joseph L. Searles III became the first Black member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1970.

Joseph Searles graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science in 1963. After serving as an aide to New York City Mayor John Lindsey, Searles resigned to become one of the three floor traders, and a general partner, for

Abraham Lincoln was born at Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1809.

One of America's most well-known leaders, Lincoln held the office of the presidency during the Civil War years. As Preside

Robert Fulton patented the steamboat in 1809.

Although John Fitch was granted the first United States patent for the steamboat in 1791, Robert Fulton is generally regar

The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War in 1763.

The French and Indian War, fought between England and France and its Algonquin and Iroquois allies, arose out of territorial disputes over the Ohio Territory and parts of Canada. It eventually became a fight for colonial dominance in North America. On this

The National Weather Service was authorized by Congress in 1870.

On this day in 1870, the Secretary of War was authorized by joint resolution of Congress to establish a national weather service. Under the theory that military discipline would ensure gr

The Confederate States of America began its short, ill-fated existence in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861.

On this day in 1861, representatives from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, states that had already seceded from the United States, met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a new republic. They named themselves the Conf

The nation of Grenada gained independence from Britain in 1974.

Located in the Caribbean, the island of Grenada was traded several times between Great Britain and France during the colonial period. When nutmeg was introduced to Grenada in the 1800s, the island, then a British colony, quickly became an important source o

The House of Representatives began determining grounds for the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974.

Prompted by Nixon's attempts to cover up the White House's involvement in an illegal breaking-and-entering and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, the House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings

Today is Constitution Day (Dia de la Constitucion) in Mexico.

The federal and state governments shall organize the penal system within their respective jurisdictions on the basis of labor, training and education as a means of social readjustment of the offender.

-from Article 18 o

George Washington was unanimously elected the first President of the United States in 1789.

After leading the American army as General in the American Revolution, George Washington stopped attempts by his senior officers to declare him king, only to be pressed into elected office by the citizens of the fledgling nation. After being inundated by le

The 16th Amendment, establishing the legal basis for a federal income tax, was ratified in 1913.

The 16th Amendment, which forms the basis of all federal income tax legislation, gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived." Sensitive to issues of taxation by a federal power, the founding fathers

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War in 1848.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, between the United States and Mexico, marked the end of a border dispute that began in May of 1846 with the secession of Texas from Mexico and its annexation by the United States. By the terms of the treaty, Texas, which had

The first civil rights sit-in began at Woolworth's in Greensboro, NC in 1960.

On this day in 1960 four young black students from North Carolina's A&T State University, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr. and David Richmond, sat down at an all-white lunch counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro, NC. By this simple act of

Zane Grey, American author of Old West stories, was born on this day in 1872.

Zane Grey, author of over 90 books, was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1872, where he enjoyed fishing, playing baseball, and writing. He used his baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania to study dentistry but he was not devoted to this professio

The Yogi Bear Show premiered in 1961.

Yogi Bear is smarter than the average bear,

Yogi Bear is always in the ranger's hair.

At a picnic table you will find him there,

Stuffing down more goodies than the average bear.

John Beckley was appointed the first Librarian of Congress in 1802.

Arriving in Virginia as an indentured servant at the age of 12, John Beckley went on to graduate from William and Mary, was an early member of Phi Beta Kappa, and was twice elected mayor of Richmond. He is considered to be the first political campaign manag

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, 73 seconds into flight.

And I want to say something to the school children of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes, painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration

Lewis Carroll was born in 1832.

If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line "Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder som

Today is Republic Day in India.

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and politi

Nellie Bly completed a journey - around the world in less than 80 days - in 1890.

Very well. Start the man and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.

–Nellie Bly on the subject of whether she or a man would be better suited to undertake an historic journey around the

In 1916, the Supreme Court upheld the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ruling that the federal government had the authority to collect taxes on income.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

–Amendment XVI t

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1964.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United

The Chinese Telephone Exchange, in San Francisco's Chinatown, was closed in 1949.

The telephone is one of the most important inventions of the last 150 years, and there are a lot of milestones in its history:

- February 14, 1876 - Alexander Graham Ball filed his first patent on the telephon

George Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950.

George Orwell, activist, anti-Stalinist and famed author of books such as Animal Farm and 1984, suffered—and eventually died—from one of the world’s most deadly diseases. Tuberculosis, also called TB and

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died in 1924.

Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov in 1870. The son of a Russian civil service official, Lenin was quite intellectual; he excelled in school and took a great interest in philosophy. In 1887, after h

The National Institutes of Health director announced in 1999 that the NIH would fund research using master cells.

We know this is ethically sensitive territory, but the prospects of benefit to living human beings...are dramatic.

–National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus

At the confluence of eth

Daniel Webster was born in 1782.

Politician, statesman, accomplished lawyer and famed orator, Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, just at the birth of the nation he came to serve so ably. Webster, a member of the Federalist Party, was elected to the U.S. House of Rep

A 6.9 magnitude earthquake destroyed over one hundred thousand buildings in Kobe, Japan, in 1995.

The planet Earth is an active place. The atmosphere is in constant motion, creating wind and weather; the sea swells with the pull of the sun and the moon, creating tides and waves; even the earth below is constantly shifting; and the entire planet is both

Ellen Russell Emerson, American ethnologist, was born in 1837.

Ethnology is a branch of anthropology in which the origins, distribution and specific characteristics of human ethnic groups are studied. The science involves the systematic comparison of the social structures, languages, religions and technologies of diffe

January 15th is the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr. became a well-known clergyman and activist during the Civil Rights Movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest speakers in American history and was the youngest person to receive the

New York's William Strong appointed Colonel George E. Waring as Commissioner of Street Cleaning in 1895,

For most of the 19th century, the City of New York was horribly polluted—not by smog, but by rotting garbage, human and animal waste, fetid water, mud, ash and long-dead animals. In many places, this layer of pollution was more than knee-deep. At th

Matthew Fontaine Maury, a pioneer in oceanography and hydrography, was born in 1806.

Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, known as the "father" of oceanography, may not have been the first oceanographer, but he made tremendous and vital contributions to the fields of oceanography, hydrography (the science of measuring and mapping

Andrew Jackson wrote a letter to Martin van Buren regarding the Nullification Crisis in 1833.

The War Between the States, which took place beginning in 1861, had root causes going back far earlier in American history. The primary issues—slavery and states’ rights (the relationship between individual states and the whole Union)&mdas

John Hancock, first signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in 1737.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Govern

Painter Charles E. Burchfield died in 1967.

The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best.

–Edward Hopper, artist

Artist Charles E. Burchfield was born on April 9, 1893,

The phrase Where's the Beef? was uttered for the first time on a television commercial for Wendy's in 1984.

Some may now be too young to have seen them or have been too young to remember, but the Wendy’s restaurant’s “Where’s the beef?” commercials were wildly popular and considered extremely amusing. The commercial depicted an eld

President Richard M. Nixon was born in 1913.

Richard Nixon himself once said that it would be at least fifty years before anyone could write about him objectively, and that may indeed be so. As a result of the fallout from the Watergate break-in, Nixon became the only president ever to resign from off

Marco Polo died in 1324.

I have only told you half of what I saw.

–Marco Polo, on his deathbed in 1324

Marco Polo, born in Venice in 1254, is known as one of the most famous of the European

The closing day of the 7th Annual Conference of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) occurred in 2003.

The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential im

The Blizzard of 1996 hit the East Coast.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “a blizzard is defined as a combination of winds 35 mph or greater with snow or blowing snow reducing visibility to less than 1/4 mile for three or more hours.” Such

George Washington Carver died in 1943.

George Washington Carver, one of the most accomplished and talented men in American history, was born into slavery in the early 1860s in Missouri. While just an infant, he and his mother were kidnapped by raiders—outlaws who looted and stole from Mi

Monster.com went live in 1998.

When trying to decide when the Internet was “born,” there are a few different choices. Some people say that a good choice is the first day of 1983, when the computers of ARPANET were required to switch to TCP/IP protocols. Others suggest Septemb

Potter Josiah Wedgwood died in 1795.

Josiah Wedgwood, an 18th century innovator in the field of pottery, drew inspiration from the pottery and earthenware of past civilizations too. Wedgwood, who barely survived a childhood bout of smallpox, began his life as a potter as an apprentice under hi

Isaac Asimov, acclaimed science fact and fiction writer, was born in 1920.

In nearly every field of human endeavor, there is a name that stands out from the rest—someone whose contributions to that field become nearly synonymous with the field itself. In the arena of science fiction writing, Isaac Asimov is such a name. Born

The World Trade Organization was established in 1995.

Trade barriers are chiefly injurious to the countries imposing them.

–Classical philosopher John Stuart Mill

What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and fore