On This Day: Sunday October 12, 2014 This is the 285th day of the year, with 80 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: statues and marble The ability to transmit light is important for statuary marble, which achieves its luster from light penetrating from about 0.5 - 1.5 inches from where it is reflected at the surfaces of deeper lying crystals. Holidays Feast day of St. Maximilian of Lorch, Saints Felix and Cyprian, St. Edwin, St. Wilfred of York, and St. Ethelburga of Barking. Bahamas: Discovery Day. Equatorial Guinea: Independence Day. Mexico: Dia de la Raza/Day of the Race. Spain: National Holiday. Events 1492 - Christopher Columbus arrived with his expedition in the present-day Bahamas, believing he had found Asia. 1576 - Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeded his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor. 1609 - The song Three Blind Mice was published in London; it was believed to be the earliest printed secular song. 1810 - The Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to attend the festivities, held for Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwigs (later King Ludwig I of Bavaria) wedding to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The decision to repeat the festivities in the subsequent year gave rise to the tradition of the annual Oktoberfest. 1822 - Brazil gained independence from Portugal. 1901 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt renamed the Executive Mansion The White House. 1915 - British nurse Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. 1917 - Lions International was founded in Dallas, Texas. 1928 - Graf Zeppelin, the first commercial dirigible to cross the Atlantic Ocean, embarked on its maiden voyage. It made more than 500 transatlantic flights before being retired in favor of the ill-fated Hindenburg. 1928 - The first iron lung was used, at Boston Childrens Hospital, Massachusetts. 1933 - Alcatraz Island was made a federal maximum-security prison. 1942 - U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that Italian nationals in the U.S. would no longer be considered enemy aliens. 1945 - Private First Class Desmond T. Ross, of Lynchburg, Virginia, was presented the Congressional Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery as a medical corpsman. Ironically, Ross had registered as a conscientious objector upon entering the service. 1950 - The Burns and Allen Show had its TV premiere. 1953 - The Bob Hope Show debuted on television. 1964 - The Russian Voskhod 1 was the first spacecraft to carry a multi-person crew; it orbited the Earth on a two-day mission. 1971 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equal Rights Amendment (354-23). 1971 - Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, opened at the Mark Hellinger Theater on Broadway. 1973 - President Richard Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president. 1997 - Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted in the United States of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. 1999 - Pakistans military overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. 1999 - The world population reached six billion, according to the United Nations. 2000 - A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. destroyer USS Cole in Yemen killed 17 sailors. 2002 - A bomb destroyed a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda were blamed. Births 1537 - Edward VI, King of England. 1935 - Joan Rivers (Molinsky), American comedienne, author, TV host. 1935 - Luciano Pavarotti, Italian operatic tenor. Deaths 1870 - American Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee. 1969 - Sonja Henie, Norwegian-born figure skater and movie actress. 1997 - John Denver (Deutschendorf), American singer-songwriter, while flying an aircraft he built.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 19:06:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015