EVENTS
- 515 BC – Construction is completed on the Temple in Jerusalem.
- 1609 – The island of Bermuda was colonized by the British after a ship on its way to Virginia was wrecked on the reefs.
- 1888 – The Great Blizzard of ’88 struck the northeastern U.S. The storm lasted 36 hours with snowfall totaling over 40 inches in New York City where over 400 persons died from the surprise storm.
The Great Blizzard of ’88 - 1894 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time
- 1912 – The Girl Scouts are founded in the US.
- 1913 – Canberra becomes the capital of Australia.
- 1918 – Moscow becomes Russia’s capital city. St. Petersburg lost its status as the Russian capital following the Revolution of 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy.
- 1930 – Mahatma Gandhi embarks on his Salt March. The 240-mile march was an act of civil disobedience to protest the British monopoly on salt. It was one of the most significant events during the Indian independence movement.
- 1933 – FDR holds his first fireside “chat.”
- 1938 – Nazis invaded Austria, then absorbed the country into Hitler’s Reich.
- 1947 – The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed.
- 1951 – The first Dennis the Menace comic strip appears.
- 1967 – Suharto rises to power in Indonesia. His presidency, which lasted 31 years, was overshadowed by crass human rights violations and the occupation of East Timor.
- 1994 – The Church of England ordained 32 women as its first female priests. In protest, 700 male clergy members and thousands of church members left the church and joined the Roman Catholic Church which does not allow women priests.
- 1999 – Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became full-fledged members of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) less than ten years after exchanging communist rule for democracy and ending their Cold War military alliances with Soviet Russia.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1864 – W.H.R (Rivers (English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist, psychiatrist)
- 1881 – The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was born in Salonika, Greece
- 1922 – Jack Kerouac (American author, poet)
- 1932 – Andrew Young (Mayor of Atlanta)
- 1946 – Liza Minelli (Actress)
Liza Minelli - 1947 – Mitt Romney (American businessman, politician, 70th Governor of Massachusetts)
- 1948 – James Taylor (Singer)
- 1959 – Marlon Jackson (Singer)
- 1962 – Darryl Strawberry (Baseball Player)
- 1979 – Pete Doherty (English singer-songwriter, guitarist)
DEATHS
- 1914 – George Westinghouse (American engineer, inventor)
George Westinghouse - 1925 – Sun Yat-sen (Chinese revolutionary, politician, 1st President of the Republic of China)
- 1955 – Charlie Parker (American saxophonist, composer)
- 1999 – Yehudi Menuhin (American/Swiss violinist, conductor)
- 2015 – Terry Pratchett (English author)
