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1489 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.
1558 – Ferdinand I appointed Holy Roman Emperor
1743 – First American town meeting (Boston’s Faneuil Hall)
1757 – On board HMS Monarch (his own flagship), British Admiral John Byng is executed by firing squad for neglecting his duty “Pour encourager les autres”.
1794 – Eli Whitney patents cotton gin
1888 – Second largest snowfall in NYC history
1918 – First concrete ship to cross the Atlantic (Faith) is launched
1933 – Civilian Conservation Corp begins tree conservation
1939 – Nazi Germany dissolves Republic of Czechoslovakia
1964 – Jack Ruby sentenced to death for Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder
1983 – OPEC cut oil prices for first time in 23 years
1992 – Soviet newspaper “Pravda” suspends publication
1995 – First time 13 people in space
2013 – Xi Jinping is named as the new President of the People’s Republic of China
Birthdays
1681 – Georg Philipp Telemann, Magdeburg Germany, late baroque composer
1800 – James Bogardus, US inventor/builder (made cast-iron buildings in Tribeca)
1879 – Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate (theory of relativity)
1903 – Adolph Gottlieb American painter (d. 1974)
Anniversaries
1906 – Film director D. W. Griffith (31) weds Linda Arvidson (21) at Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts
1946 – Author and journalist “The Old Man and the Sea” Ernest Hemingway marries Mary Welsh
Deaths
1883 – Karl Marx, German philosopher (Communist Manifesto), dies at 64
1932 – George Eastman, US industrialist (Kodak-camera), suicide at 77
1933 – Balto In the winter of 1925 there were signs that a diphtheria epidemic was likely to afflict the town of Nome Alaska. The serum necessary to prevent the outbreak was in Seattle, Washington 2,800 miles away. After the aircraft that was to fly to Nome had mechanical troubles, officials choose to move the medicine by way of multiple dog sled teams. Despite blizzard conditions with subzero temperatures, the serum arrived as the world watched with bated breath. Two hero dogs made the spotlight Balto and Togo. Human vanity intervened and there was those who favored one dog and story over the other.
Balto, having been neutered long ago, later found work on the vaudeville circuit while the rest of the team was sold to the highest bidder, the company that sponsored the show and the dogs were chained as part of novelty and freak show in Los Angeles.
When a former prize fighter turned businessman visited LA and saw the condition of the dogs, Balto and his six companions were brought to Cleveland and given a hero’s welcome parade. The dogs lived the rest of their lives in the local Zoo. After his death, Balto’s remained were mounted and are on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
1969 – Ben Shahn, US painter, dies at 70
2006 – Ann Calvello, Roller Derby Queen (b. 1929)
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