On November 16th in world history: 534 A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus was published. 1491 An auto de fé, held in the Brasero de la Dehesa outside Ávila, concluded the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects. 1532 Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish explorer and conquistador, sprung a trap on the Incan emperor, Atahualpa. With fewer than 200 men against several thousand, Pizarro lured Atahualpa to a feast in the emperors honor and then opened fire on the unarmed Incans. Pizarros men massacred the Incans and captured Atahualpa, forcing him to convert to Christianity before eventually killing him. 1805 During the Napoleonic Wars Battle of Schöngrabern, Russian forces under Pyotr Bagration delayed the pursuit by French troops under Murat. 1840 New Zealand officially became a separate colony of Britain, severing its link to New South Wales. 1849 A Russian court sentenced Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to a radical intellectual group. His execution was stayed at the last minute and commuted to hard labor. In 1866, he published Crime and Punishment, one of his most popular works. In 1867, he married a stenographer, and the couple fled to Europe to escape his creditors. His novel The Possessed (1872) was successful, and the couple returned to St. Petersburg. He published The Brothers Karamazov in 1880 to immediate success, but he died a year later. 1852 The English astronomer John Russell Hind discovered the asteroid 22 Kalliope. 1857 After the second relief of Lucknow in British India, twenty-four Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most in a single day. 1885 Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and “Father of Manitoba”, Louis Riel was executed for treason. 1907 Cunard Line’s RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City. 1914 Eddie Chapman, British World War II spy and double agent, aka Agent Zigzag, was born (d. 1997) 1914 A small group of German intellectuals led by the physician Georg Nicolai launched Bund Neues Vaterland, the New Fatherland League. 1938 LSD was first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel. 1940 T he Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg. 1940 The Nazis closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world. 1941 Joseph Goebbels published in the German magazine Das Reich that The Jews wanted the war, and now they have it—referring to the Nazi propaganda scheme to shift the blame for the world war onto European Jewry, thereby giving the Nazis a rationalization for the so-called Final Solution. 1943 American bombers struck a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway. 1944 Dueren, Germany was destroyed by Allied bombers. 1945 UNESCO was founded. 1953 Twenty Italian sailors died following a collision between two boats in the English Channel. The Italian steamer Vittoria Claudia, on her way from the Bulgarian port of Burgas in the Black Sea to Hamburg in West Germany, went down off the Kent coast after being hit by French motor vessel Perou. The accident happened just before 0400 about two-and-a-half miles (4km) from Dungeness. The Italian crew had no time to send out an SOS call. The alarm was raised by the Perou which got in touch with the French coastguard, from where a message was sent to the English side of the Channel. 1965 The Soviet Union launched the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. 1979 The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, named Sir Anthony Blunt, a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen as the fourth man in the Cambridge spy ring. The announcement - given in a written answer in the Commons - ended a 15-year cover-up. Mrs. Thatcher revealed he had confessed to the authorities in 1964 but under a secret deal was granted immunity from prosecution. Minutes after the Prime Ministers statement Buckingham Palace said he was being stripped of his knighthood. The news came after renewed speculation about Professor Blunts role in the defection in 1951 of spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, prompted by the release of the book The Climate of Treason. 1979 The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) was opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest. 1988 The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declared that Estonia was “sovereign” but stopped short of declaring independence. 1988 Pakistan citizens voted in their first open election in more than a decade, choosing as prime minister the populist candidate Benazir Bhutto, daughter of former Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She was the first woman leader of a Muslim country in modern history. 1989 A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops killed six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University. 1989 UNESCO adopted the Seville Statement on Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General Conference. 1997 After nearly 18 years of incarceration, China released Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, for medical reasons. [Sources include History]
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:49:32 +0000
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