1489 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.
1558 – Ferdinand I appointed Holy Roman Emperor
1743 – First American town meeting in 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 with 21 inches of the white stuff
1918 – First concrete ship to cross the Atlantic (Faith) is launched, SF
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
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, late baroque composer
1800 – James Bogardus, builder of cast-iron buildings, some in Tribeca
1879 – Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate (theory of relativity)
1903 – Adolph Gottlieb American painter (d. 1974)
Deaths
1883 – Karl Marx, German philosopher (Communist Manifesto), dies at 64
1932 – George Eastman, US industrialist (Kodak-camera), suicide at 77
1933 – Balto, husky dog who saved the children of Nome, Alaska.
In the winter of 1925 there were signs a diphtheria epidemic was likely to afflict the town of Nome. The serum necessary to prevent the
outbreak was in Seattle, Washington 2,800 miles away.
After the aircraft that was to fly to Nome developed 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 were those who favored one dog and story over the other.
Afterward, Balto, having been neutered long ago, found work on the vaudeville circuit, sold to a company that sponsored novelty and freak shows 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.
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches