Skip to main content

TODAY IN HISTORY

 




2012 The trial of Anders Behring Breivik begins in Oslo

The right-wing extremist had killed 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Oslo with a car bomb and at a youth camp on Utøya island. After doubts about his mental health emerged before the trial, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.



2003 Ten new member states are admitted to the European Union

The Treaty of Accession admitted countries including Poland, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic to the EU. Its original title contains 99 words.



1964 The Rolling Stones release their debut album

The album The Rolling Stones, released in the United States with the added title “England's Newest Hit Makers”, topped the UK charts for twelve weeks.



1917 Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia from exile

The communist revolutionary became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) later that year. From 1922, he was the first Premier of the Soviet Union.



1912 Harriet Quimby flies across the English Channel

The U.S. aviator was the first woman who achieved this feat. She died at the age of 37 when her plane crashed in Massachusetts.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TODAY IN HISTORY

  Pope John Paul II dies On April 2, 2005, John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be one of the biggest in history. John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, 35 miles southwest of Krakow, in 1920. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theater group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university, forcing Wojtyla to seek work in a quarry and, later, a chemical factory. By 1941, his mother, father, and only brother had all died, leaving him the sole surviving member of his family. Although Wojtyla had been involved in the church his whole life, it was not until 1942 that he began seminary training. When the war ended, he returned to school at Jagiel...
Post a Comment
Read more

TODAY IN HISTORY

  The first Earth Day Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems, is celebrated in the United States for the first time on April 22, 1970. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches and educational programs across the country.  Earth Day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, a staunch environmentalist who hoped to provide unity to the grassroots environmental movement and increase ecological awareness. “The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy,” Senator Nelson said, “and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.”  The 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring—about the effects of pesticides—is often cited as the beginning of the modern environmental movement in the U.S. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TODAY IN HISTORY

  Krakatoa explodes One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history occurs on Krakatoa (also called Krakatau), a small, uninhabited volcanic island east of Sumatra and west of Java, on August 27, 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people. Krakatoa exhibited its first stirrings in more than 200 years on May 20, 1883. A German warship passing by reported a seven-mile high cloud of ash and dust over Krakatoa. For the next two months, similar explosions would be witnessed by commercial liners and natives on nearby Java and Sumatra. With little to no idea of the impending catastrophe, the local inhabitants greeted the volcanic activity with festive excitement. On August 26 and August 27, excitement turned to horror as Krakatoa literally blew itself apart, setting off a chain of natural disasters that would be felt around the world for years to come. An enormous bl...
Post a Comment
Read more