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View Full Version : December 31st 2013 - This Date in History.



henric
12-30-2013, 11:09 PM
20440



Events:C/P.

406 – Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul.
535 – Byzantine general Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Gothic garrison of Palermo (Panormos), and ending his consulship for the year.
1225 – The Lư Dynasty of Vietnam ends after 216 years by the enthronement of the boy emperor Trần Thái Tông, husband of the last Lư monarch, Lư Chiêu Hoàng, starting the Trần Dynasty.
1229 – James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (now known as Palma, Spain) thus consummating the Christian reconquest of the island of Majorca.
1501 – The First Battle of Cannanore commences.
1600 – The British East India Company is chartered.
1660 – James II of England is named Duke of Normandy by Louis XIV of France.
1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
1757 – Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia
1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today is published for the first time.
1796 – The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.
1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York, New York.
1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England, United Kingdom
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1906 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signs the Persian Constitution of 1906.
1907 – The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
1909 – Manhattan Bridge opens.
1923 – The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1944 – World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
1944 – World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1960 – The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
1961 – RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapses and splits into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
1965 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko.
1967 – The Youth International Party, popularly known as the "Yippies", is founded.
1981 – A coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1983 – In Nigeria a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.
1986 – A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
1988 – Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux becomes the only National Hockey League player to score goals in five different ways: even strength, shorthanded, power play, penalty shot, and empty net, during a 8–6 win over the New Jersey Devils.
1988 – First Winter Ascent of Lhotse (8,516m) by Krzysztof Wielicki (solo).
1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1993 – Brandon Teena and two others are shot to death inside a farmhouse in Humboldt, Nebraska by John Lotter and Tom Nissen after the two men discovered Teena was transgender.
1994 – This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.
1994 – The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year's storm of Grozny
1998– The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999 – First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
1999 – Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
2004 – The official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper at that time in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).
2009 – Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.
2011 – NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the moon.

henric
12-30-2013, 11:12 PM
20441


Today's Canadian Headline...


1929 SWEETEST MUSIC THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN
New York City - Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians play Auld Lang Syne to usher in the New Year for the very first time, in their first annual New Year's Eve Party at the Hotel Roosevelt Grill. The show is broadcast over the CBS radio network. Born in London Ontario, Guy founded the Lombardo Orchestra with his brother Carmen in 1916. Auld Lang Syne was his band's theme song before 1929, but tonight was the start of a New Year's Eve tradition. The Lombardo Orchestra is the longest running act in show business history, and has premiered over 500 hit songs, more than any other musical organization.. The Lombardo New Year's Eve Party, which later switched to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, was the longest running annual special program in radio history. The Lombardo Orchestra has performed for more than 1.5 billion TV viewers since they first telecast their New Year's Eve Party in 1954. Guy Lombardo died in 1977.

1775
Quebec Quebec - American Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery 1738-1775 orders the attack on Quebec from the Lower Town at 5 am during a bitterly cold blizzard; he is killed at a fortified gate during the fire fight; Benedict Arnold is wounded. Guy Carleton, Baron Dorchester 1724-1808 repels Americans with the aid of Col. Allan Maclean.


In Other Events...


1991 Port-au-Prince Haiti - Seventeen Haitian activists surrender to police after occupying Canadian Embassy for six weeks.
1982 Ottawa Ontario - Ottawa reports 12.8% unemployment, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
1980 Toronto Ontario - Marshall McLuhan 1911-1980 dies; University of Toronto writer, communications guru; born Jul. 21, 1911; famous for his statement that The Medium Is The Message.
1966 Ottawa Ontario - Lester B. Pearson 1897-1972 lights Centennial Flame at entrance to Parliament Hill to begin celebrations.
1963 North Bay Ontario - Nuclear warheads for Bomarc missiles arrive at RCAF base near North Bay.
1943 Canada - RCAF at peak, with 215,000 men and women, 78 squadrons, including 35 overseas and 6 heading there; Canada has produced 11,000 planes so far.
1941 Canada - RCAF has 14 squadrons operating overseas, 7 more authorized; plus 16 at home, including 8 on west coast.
1931 Canada - Canadian stock index plunges 37.2%; GNP declines 12.7%; worst business year on record in the country.
1931 Henderson Lake BC - Henderson Lake ends the year with a total of 319.78 inches of rain; wettest place on record in Canadian history.
1883 Fredericton New Brunswick - First mustering of 'A' Company of the Infantry School Corps; first unit of Canadian Permanent Force; later becomes Royal Canadian Regiment.
1860 Brockville Ontario - Canada's first railway tunnel opened in Brockville; connecting harbour and Grand Trunk Railway.
1857 Canada - Canada officially goes on system of decimal currency at midnight.
1857 Ottawa Ontario - Queen Victoria 1819-1901 chooses the town of Ottawa as the new capital of Canada; on advice of George-Etienne Cartier; official announcement made January 27th.
1853 London Ontario - Great Western Railway reaches London from Hamilton.
1799 Toronto Ontario - Asa Danforth completes Danforth Road from York 96 km to Hope Township.
1791 Ontario - William Osgoode 1754-1824 first chief justice of Upper Canada; gave his name to Osgoode Hall, HQ of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
1646 Quebec Quebec - Martial Piraubé, Governor Montmagny's secretary, plays the lead in 'Le Cid,' by Corneille; first play performed at Quebec.
1638 Huronia Ontario - A lunar eclipse in Huron country panics natives, who place blame on Jesuits.

End of C/P.