History Today : Gas refrigerator patented, Ivory Coast gained independence

• 43 BC Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and politician is assassinated in Formiae
• 185 Emperor Lo-Yang, China sees supernova (MSH15-52)
• 1354 Margaretha van Bavarian's son earl Willem V signs peace treaty
• 1696 Connecticut Route 108, one of the oldest highways in the U.S. is completed to Trumbull.
• 1724 Tumult of Thorn - religious unrest was followed by the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
• 1732 The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London.
• 1741 Elisabeth Petrovna becomes tsarina of Russia
• 1783 Theatre Royal opens in Covent Garden, London
• 1787 Delaware becomes 1st state to ratify the US constitution
• 1842 New York Philharmonic's 1st concert
• 1862 Battle of Hartsville, TN
• 1862 Battle of Prairie Grove, AR
• 1864 Skirmish at Ebenezer Creek/Cypress Swamp, Georgia
• 1872 HMS Challenger sets sail on 3½ year world oceanographic cruise
• 1875 Natives Sons of the West organized
• 1876 NY Mutuals & Philadelphia A's expelled from NL for not completing sked
• 1885 49th Congress (1885-87) convenes
• 1889 Gilbert & Sullivan's "Gondoliers" premieres in London
• 1891 52nd US Congress (1st to appropriate $1 billion) holds 1st session
• 1895 Battle at Amba Alagi: Abyssinians beat Italian armies
• 1900 Max Planck, in his house at Grunewald, on the outskirts of Berlin, discovers the law of black body radiation.
• 1902 Britain and Germany issue an ultimatum to Venezuela demanding that President Cipriano Castro pay claims for damages caused during his takeover of the government in 1899
• 1907 Eugene Corri becomes 1st referee in a boxing ring
• 1907 The First Egyptian Nationalist Congress meets under the leadership of Mustafa Kamil Pasha
• 1909 Belgian-born Leo Baekeland of Yonkers, New York, patents 1st thermosetting plastic (Bakelite)

• 1911 Leslie J Stuart's musical "Betsy" premieres in NYC
• 1911 National Hockey Association forms with New Westminster, Vancouver & Victoria
• 1912 Bust of Queen Nefertiti found in El-Amarna, Egypt
• 1920 NSW make 802 against South Australia, then Mailey takes 8-81
• 1920 USPD-KPD parties merge into Vereinigte Communist Party of Germany
• 1921 KWG-AM in Stockton CA begins radio transmissions
• 1924 German election (Social Democrats win, Nazis & Communists lose)
• 1925 Biltmore Theater opens at 261 W 47th St NYC
• 1925 Noel Coward's "Easy Virtue" premieres in NYC
• 1926 Gas refrigerator patented
• 1929 Leo Diegel wins PGA golf tournament
• 1930 13th PGA Championship: Tommy Armour at Fresh Meadows CC Flushing
• 1931 Bradman scores 219 NSW v South Africa, 234 mins, 15 fours
• 1932 1st gyro-stabilized vessel to cross Atlantic arrives in NY
• 1934 Wiley Post discovers jet stream
• 1935 CFL Grey Cup: Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat Ham Tigers, 18-12 at Hamilton
• 1937 Dutch Minister Romme proclaims married women are forbidden to work
• 1937 Russian chess player Alekhine recaptures world title from Max Euwe
• 1938 Philip Barry's "Here Come the Clowns" premieres in NYC
• 1938 W9XZY broadcasts facsimile of St Louis Post-Dispatch by radio

1939 William Walton's violinist concert premieres in Cleveland

1940 28th CFL Grey Cup (Game 2): Toronto Balmy Beach defeats Ottawa, 12-5

1940 North Africa: British counter offensive under general O'Connor

1940 The first prototype Fairey Barracuda flew

1941 Australian bombers land on Timor/Ambon

1941 Futshida's air fleet passes coastline of Oahu

1941 German siege of Tobruk ends after 8 months

1941 Imperial Japanese Navy with 353 planes attack US fleet at Pearl Harbour Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people

1941 Nacht & Nebel Erlass, resistance fighter sent to concentration camps

1941 1st Japanese midget submarine (No. 20) attacked by a US ship (USS Ward)

1943 Cairo: president Roosevelt travels back to the US

1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation drawn up in Chicago

1944 General Radescu forms Romanian government

1946 Fire at Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta, kills 119

1949 15th Heisman Trophy Award: Leon Hart, Notre Dame (E)

• 1952 KKTV TV channel 11 in Colorado Spgs-Pueblo, CO (CBS) 1st broadcast
• 1953 Israel's PM Ben-Gurion retires
• 1953 WCCB TV channel 18 in Charlotte, NC (IND/ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Japanese government of Joshida resigns
• 1954 KCTS TV channel 9 in Seattle, WA (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1956 Helen O'Connell joins Today Show panel
• 1957 Tony Kubek of the Yanks selected as AL Rookie of the Year
• 1958 Romulo Betancourt elected President of Venezuela
• 1959 "Saratoga" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 80 performances
• 1960 Ivory Coast claims independence from France
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• 1962 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1963 Ian Meckiff no-balled for throwing against the South Africans
• 1963 Instant replay is used for the first time in a Army-Navy game
• 1965 Pope Paul VI & Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led to split of 2 churches in 1054
• 1966 A fire at an army barracks in Erzurum, Turkey kills 68 people.
• 1967 "How Now, Dow Jones" opens at Lunt Fontanne Theater NYC for 220 performances
• 1967 Otis Redding records "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"
• 1968 Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 launched into Earth orbit
• 1968 Richard Dodd returns a library book his great grandfather took out in 1823 from the University of Cincinnati
• 1970 Taizan Maezumi Roshi, head of LA Zen Center, receives dharma
• 1970 West Germany & Poland normalize relations
• 1971 "Wild & Wonderful" opens/closes at Lyceum Theater NYC
• 1971 Wings release their 1st album "Wild Life"
• 1971 An off duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment is shot dead by members of the Irish Republican Army in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
• 1972 Apollo 17 (US), final manned lunar landing mission, launched1973 Orioles sell pitcher Eddie Watt to the Phillies
• 1973 Phillies sell infielder-outfielder Cesar Tovar to the Texas Rangers
• 1973 Wings release "Band on the Run"
• 1975 10th Islander shut-out opponent-Glenn Resch 3-0 vs Sabres
• 1975 Archbishop Makarios returns Cyprus
• 1975 Indonesian army occupies East Timor
• 1980 69th Davis Cup: Czechoslovakia beats Italy in Prague (4-1)
• 1981 Spain becomes a member of the NATO
• 1982 Suriname army under Desi Bouterse fires on radio station building
• 1982 In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the US.
• 1983 2 jets collided at Madrid Airport killing 93
• 1983 France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island
• 1984 Allan Border's 1st Test Cricket match as captain (v WI Adelaide)
• 1985 51st Heisman Trophy Award: Bo Jackson, Auburn (RB)
• 1985 Atlantis (61-B) returns to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB
• 1986 Juli Inkster/Tom Purtzer wins LPGA J C Penney Golf Classic
• 1986 NBC premiere of miniseries "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna" (Part 1)
• 1987 43 die in Pacific Southwest Airline crash in California (man shot pilots)
• 1987 Gorbachev arrives in US for a summit meeting
• 1987 Palestinian uprising against Israel in West Bank
• 1988 6.9 earthquake in Spitak, Armenia kills 25,000 and leaves 5,000,000 homeless
• 1988 Gorbachev announces 10% unilateral Soviet troop reductions at UN
• 1991 A J Kitt, US, wins World Skiing Cup
• 1992 Galileo spacecraft passes North Pole of Moon (Peary Crater)
• 1993 Henri Konan Bedie names himself President of Ivory coast
• 1995 NBA settles strike of referees, refs to return on Dec 12
• 1995 US space probe Galileo begins orbiting Jupiter
• 1996 Space Shuttle STS 80 (Columbia 21), lands
• 1996 5th SEC Championship Game: #4 Florida beats #11 Alabama, 45-30
• 1996 1st Big 12 Championship Game: Texas beats #3 Nebraska, 37-27
• 1997 Amy Fruhwirth & Clarence Rose win LPGA J C Penney Classic
• 1999 The RIAA files a lawsuit against the Napster file-sharing client, on charges of copyright infringement.
• 2002 11th SEC Championship Game: #4 Georgia beats #22 Arkansas, 30-3
• 2003 The Conservative Party of Canada is officially recognized after the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
• 2005 Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of US federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
• 2006 A tornado struck Kensal Green, North West London, seriously damaging around 150 properties.
• 2007 The Hebei Spirit oil spill began in South Korea after a crane barge being towed by tug collided with the very large crude carrier, Hebei Spirit.
• 2010 Iceland officially leaves the recession with growth of 1.2% in the third quarter
• 2013 22nd SEC Championship Game: #3 Auburn beats #5 Missouri, 59-42
• 2013 9th ACC Championship Game: #1 Florida State beats #20 Duke, 45-7
• 2014 Typhoon Hagupit hits central Philippines; millions flee homes for shelter
• 2014 The Syrian military accuse Israel of carrying out two air strikes on Syria
• 2014 Mayor of Paris calls for diesel cars to be banned from the French Capital by 2020, in order to reduce pollution
• 2014 The Archbishop of Canterbury claims that he is more shocked by the plight of Britain's hunger-stricken poor than suffering in African refugee camps
• 2014 Human Rights Watch Asia Division call for investigation into Indonesian security forces shooting of peaceful protesters
• 2015 Beijing issues its 1st ever red alert for pollution