Archive Digger

1815-  Elizabeth Cady Stanton a leading crusader for both women’s rights and social reforms is born.

1847 – British doctor Sir James Young Simpson first to uses chloroform as an anaesthetic.

1927 – The Communist Party expels Leon Trotsky. Joseph Stalin retains total control of the Soviet Union.

1933 – Smile, Nessie! In Scotland Hugh Gray shoots the first photos of the famed and mysterious Loch Ness Monster.

1942 – The  naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins. In a pivotal Pacific theater victory, the Americans would ultimately defeat the Japanese.

1954- After 62 years and more than 20 million immigrants, Ellis Island closes.

1969 – The original “wikileaks”: Seymour Hersh, an independent investigative journalist publishes the story of  My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

1990 – Prince Akihito is formally crowned Emperor of Japan, the 125th Japanese monarch.

1990 – Tim Berners-Lee (not Al Gore) publishes his proposal for the “World Wide Web.”

1998 – Speaking of Al Gore, as VP  he signs the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the US.

2008- The first same-sex marriages commence in Connecticut.

1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council defines the doctrine of transubstantiation.

1620 – Before officially settling in the New World, 41 of the male pilgrims aboard the ship sign the The Mayflower Compact—a social contract which established a government for the colony.

1675 – Gottfried Leibniz first uses  calculus  to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x). High school seniors everywhere rue the day.

1864 – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman burns Atlanta, Georgia to the ground. This action is part of his infamous “March to the Sea” a 19th example of “total war.”

1889 – Washington “the Evergreen State” becomes the 42nd U.S. state.

1918 – “Armistice Day” World War I officially ends at 11:00 am. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is remembered in Britain and elsewhere with 2 minutes of silence.

1921 – President Warren G. Harding dedicates the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

1926 – The iconic US Route 66 is established.

1965 – The Ian Smith’s white-minority government declares Rhodesia’s independence sparking a long conflict with Britain and civil war.

1992 – In a vote, the Church of England decides to allow women to be ordained Anglican priests.

1993 – A sculpture honoring the women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1998— Israel narrowly ratifies a US brokered peace plan for the Middle East..

2004 – Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat dies.

2008 – The Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) begins her final voyage: a cruise to Dubai.

2008— Country singer Taylor Swift releases her album “Fearless” which will catapult her to music super-stardom.

1483— It’s hard to imagine it, but once Martin Luther was an infant (can’t you see him clutching his 95 thesis?). He is born this day in Eisleben, Germany.

1775 – Semper Fi. The United States Marine Corps is formed in Philadelphia.

1871 – Henry Morton Stanley finally discovers Dr. David Livigston, the British explorer who’d gone missing in Central Africa. According to the story, Stanley greeted the man with: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”. Well, he certainly had plenty of time to think up a clever salutation.

1951 – The first direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone services begin in the US making it possible to harass people 3,000 miles away any hour of the day.

1969— Can you tell me how to get, how to get to …“Sesame Street” makes its debut on PBS.

1982— Mia Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is first opened in Washington, D.C

1989 – The communist regime in Bulgaria crumbles in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall..

1997 – MCI Communications accepts a $37 billion take over bid from World Com.

2001— The World Trade Organization accepts China as a member.

Today is the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I went digging in the archives for stories from the day after. It’s interesting to read these newspaper reports and contrast them with the way the story would be told if it was happening TODAY in our, hyper active 24/7, pro-am media environment.

People Dance on Berlin Wall E. German Borders Open Up— Orlando Sentinel

East Germany on Thursday night opened both the Berlin Wall, the most dramatic and bitter symbol of the Cold War, and its border with West Germany to all of its citizens for the first time in 28 years. Thousands began streaming across to a delirious welcome in the West.

West Berliners, drinking champagne and cheering wildly, greeted the first East Germans to cross at Checkpoint Charlie and other crossing points along the 103-mile wall that was built across and around the city in 1961.

Action Shows that Anything is Possible Now— Sun Sentinel

Just as the wall evolved as a powerful symbol of division, so does its demise carry an equally strong message to all Europeans that, suddenly, almost anything is possible.

Those who dream of a continent undivided felt their goal a giant step closer to reality on Thursday as they watched another major chunk of the Iron Curtain fall away.

The long-held belief that Moscow would never permit East Germany, the westernmost cornerstone of its empire, to spin out of its orbit seems as dated as the wall itself.

As millions of East Germans paraded through the streets demanding an end to Communist rule, the 350,000 Soviet troops stationed in the country were conspicuous only by their absence from sight.

Hard Line to Sweeping Reforms— A Chronology— LA Times

East Germans Open Berlin Wall- Chicago Tribune

At Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing normally reserved for foreigners, East German police made no attempt to keep their own people from using it. The West Germans sent special shuttle buses to the other side to collect jubilant East Germans for a trip to Kurfuerstendamm, the glittering street of shops in the heart of West Berlin.

“Can you believe this is happening?“ exclaimed Angela Ebertus, an East Berlin clerk, as she and her husband strolled through Checkpoint Charlie early Friday morning. “No,“ he replied. “No, this must be a dream.“

The emotional scenes at the checkpoint, where more than 2,000 West Berliners gathered, were repeated at all 12 crossing points in Berlin. Early Friday, huge traffic jams developed in the center of West Berlin as the curious flocked to the wall.

1494 – The infamous, scheming and art loving Medici family is expelled from Florence.

1620 – After long months at sea on the Mayflower,  English separatist “pilgrims” first spot land at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

1799 – In France, Napoleon leads a coup d’état leading to the end of the Directory and the creation of the Consulate. 

1857 – The Atlantic Magazine is founded in Boston.

1867 – Tokugawa Shogunate cedes power to Japan’s Emperor,  the Meiji Restoration “enlightened rule” begins.

1906 – Theodore Roosevelt leaves the US to visit the Panama Canal. He is the first acting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country. Woodrow Wilson follows up a little more than a decade later with his trip to Europe for the Treaty of Versailles.

1918 – Kaiser Wilhelm II  abdicates following the German Revolution, Germany is proclaimed a Republic, a period later known as the “Weimar Republic”.

1921 – Albert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics.

1967 – Rolling Stone Magazine is first published.

1989 – The Fall of the Berlin Wall begins when   East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall and allows East Germans to travel to West Germany. 

1998 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom is completely abolished.

2004— Roger Clemens wins a record seventh Cy Young award.

1519 – Aztec ruler Montezuma naively allows Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés to enter Tenochtitlán, going so far as to allow Cortes to live in his palace. History tells us this was a very bad idea, reminiscent of the fall of Troy.

1602 – Oxford University opens the Bodleian library to the public.

1793 – The French Revolutionary government opens the Louvre (formerly a royal palace) as a museum open to the public.

1889 – Montana “Big Sky Country” and the “Last Best Place” becomes the 41st state.

1895 – Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray during some experiments with electricity.

1900—Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With The Wind”, is born. Romantics rejoice.

1917 – In Russia, the People’s Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin— a potent combination.

1923 – Adolf Hitler attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic with his poorly thought out Beer Hall Putsch.

1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the creation of the Civil Works Administration, part of the New Deal which would seek to employ millions of Americans.

1994— Deja vu? Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.

2000— Florida’s recount of the presidential election ballots begins.

2004 – In Iraq, the siege of Fallujah, a rebel held city, begins.

1605 – Remember, remember the 5th of November. The Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament is thwarted when the infamous Guy Fawkes is discovered in the basement of the House of Lords.

1688 – The Glorious (and bloodless) Revolution begins. William of Orange lands in England to remove James II from the throne.

1831 – Nat Turner, leader of a slave rebellion in Virginia, is convicted, and sentenced to death for his actions.

1872 – Suffragette leader, Susan B. Anthony, place her vote in the election, in violation of woman’s disenfranchisement.

1912- Woodrow Wilson is defeat incumbent William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 presidential election.

1937 – In a secret meeting, Adolf Hitler declares his strategy to achieve  “lebensraum” or  “living space” for the Germany.

1994-Ronald Reagan reveals he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

1996 – Pakistan’s president, Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari dismisses Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, her government and the National Assembly.

1999- A federal judge rules that Microsoft Corp. is a monopoly.

2006 – Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death for crimes against humanity perpetrated while he was president of Iraq.

2009 – US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 30 at Fort Hood, Texas.

1429 – Joan of Arc liberates Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier from the British.

1918 – 40,000 sailors revolt at the end of WWI  in Kiel Germany, beginning the German Revolution .

1922 – British archaeologists find Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

1924- Nellie T. Ross is elected governor of Wyoming, becoming the first female governor in the US.

1942—Axis forces led by Erwin Rommel retreat from El Alamein— a major victory for the Allies in North Africa.

1952 – The National Security Agency is created.

1979 – The Iran hostage crisis begins.

1995 – An Orthodox Israeli assassinates Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

2001-  The first  “Harry Potter” movie premieres in London. Global hysteria ensues.

2008 – Barack Obama defeats John McCain to win the presidency. 

1839— Talk about a drug bust— the first Opium War begins in China.

1868— Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour for the presidency. 

1913 – The US institutes an income tax.

1936 - Franklin D. Roosevelt wins his second term in a landslide victory over “some guy” named Alfred ”Alf” Landon.

1986 – The Iran-Contra affair begins when a Lebanese magazine reveals that the US had been selling weapons to Iran.

1992—  Bill Clinton defeats incumbent President George H.W. Bush to become the 42nd  US President.

1992—  Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun is elected to the US Senate, the first African-American to hold  this office.

1997 – The US imposes economic sanctions against Sudan.

2007 – Pervez Musharraf declares emergency rule across Pakistan.

Today is Election Day, make sure you exercise your democratic and civic duty. It’s a chance to make history.

1570 – A North Sea tidal wave kills more than 1,000 people along the coast of a number of Scandinavian countries.

1772 – In a move to unite the colonies, Massachusetts patriots Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren create the Committee of Correspondence.

1889 – Happy Dakota Day! North and South Dakota become the 39th and 40th U.S. states.

1898 – The first cheerleading team is started at the University of Minnesota. Despite its long history in the US, it is still not considered a sport.

1917 – The British support the Balfour Declaration which creates the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

1936 – Mussolini announces the Rome-Berlin Axis, creating the alliance of the Axis Powers.

1963 – South Vietnamese President Ngô Ðình Diệm is assassinated in a military coup after the US withdraw their support of the leader.

1976- Jimmy Carter defeats Gerald R. Ford in the presidential election. He is the first U.S. president elected from the Deep South since the Civil War.

2004-President George W. Bush is elected to his second term.

2009- Afghanistan’s election commission proclaims  Hamid Karzai victor and president after contested election.

1825— The Erie Canal opens, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River in upstate New York.

1881—The infamous gunfight at the OK Corral takes place in Tombstone, Ariz.

1905 – Norway wins its independence from Sweden.

1944 – The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the biggest naval battle in history, ends. The Americans emerge victorious.

1972—  Henry Kissinger announces that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam.

1984— Baby Fae, born with a severe heart defect, receives a baboon heart transplant. She survives  for 21 days.

1999 – Britain’s House of Lords, limits their own power, when they put an end to the right of hereditary peers to vote in Britain’s upper chamber of Parliament.

2001— As part of the war on terror,President George W. Bush signs the USA Patriot Act.

2004—  Hamid Karzai  is elected President of Afghanistan.    

2005—The Chicago White Sox win their first World Series since 1917.

1520 – While circumnavigating the globe, Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan: a (somewhat) navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of  the Tierra del Fuego.

1797 –The Navy frigate USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” is launched in Boston Harbor, where is remains to this day except for occasional tall-ship voyages.

1805 – Rule Brittania, Brittania Rules the Waves! During the Napoleonic Wars, atthe Battle of Trafalgar Admiral Lord Nelson’s British fleet defeats the French and Spanish off the coast of Spain. The victory confirmed Britain’s place as the Naval power of Europe/the world for the next century.

1854 – “The Lady with the Lamp” Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 female nurses are sent aid British troops in the Crimean War.

1879 – The first, eureka moment: Thomas Alva Edison tests the first electric incandescent light bulb. It remains lit for 13.5 hours.

1917— American soldiers take part in their first action in the trenches of France in World War I.

 1967— Vietnam War protesters march on Washington, D.C.

1975 – The Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds play game 6 of the World Series. The Red Sox win the game when Carlton Fisk’s foul ball turns into a home run when it bounces off the left field foul pole at Fenway Park. Of course, the Red Sox don’t win the Series because of the Curse of the Bambino.

1988— Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, she of the many shoes are indicted in New York on charges of fraud and racketeering.

1994 –The United States and North Korea sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.

2003— Florida Gov. Jeb Bush orders a feeding tube reinserted into Terry Schiavo, keeping the brain dead woman alive.

1740 – Maria Theresa is crowned queen of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honor the “Pragmatic Sanction” (which allowed her to become queen) thus beginning the War of the Austrian Succession. I’ve always liked Maria Theresa, a tough female ruler who did not back down.

1803 – US Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase, which doubles the US in size.

1818 – The Convention of 1818 is signed by the United States and Britain, establishing the 49th parallel  as the border between the US and Canada.

1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communists in Hollywood during the “Red Scare’. The resulting blacklist ruins many a Hollywood career and reputation.

1968 – Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1973 – In Australia, the iconic Sydney Opera House opens.

2000— Ali Mohamed pleads guilty to helping plan the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

2009 —Afghanistan’s election commission orders a runoff in the disputed presidential poll. (The runoff is later canceled, President Hamid Karzai wins.)