Today is the Feast day of Catherine Labouré. On this date in: 1095 – On the last day of the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II appoints Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse to lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land; 1520 – After navigating through a strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific; 1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence; 1814 – The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience(thus steakpunk); 1895 – The first American automobile race takes place over the 54 miles from Chicagos Jackson Park to Evanston, Illinois. Frank Duryea wins in approximately 10 hours; 1919 – Lady Astor is elected as a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. (Countess Markievicz, the first to be elected, refused to sit.); 1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people; 1972 – Last executions in Paris, of the Clairvaux Mutineers, Roger Bontems and Claude Buffet, guillotined at La Sante Prison. (Bontems had been found innocent of murder by the court, but as Buffets accomplice is condemned to death anyway.) The chief executioner is Andre Obrecht; 1979 – Air New Zealand Flight 901, a DC-10 operated sightseeing flight over Antarctica, crashes into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board; 1981 – Our Lady of Kibeho: Schoolchildren in Kibeho, Rwanda, experience the first of a series of Marian apparitions; and 1987 – South African Airways Flight 295 crashes into the Indian Ocean, killing all 159 people on board. Born on this date: 1820 – Friedrich Engels, German philosopher (d. 1895); 1853 – Helen Magill White, American first woman to earn a Ph.D. (d. 1944); 1866 – Henry Bacon, American architect, designed the Lincoln Memorial (d. 1924); 1923 – Gloria Grahame, American actress, Violet Bick in Its a Wonderful Life(d. 1981); 1943 – Randy Newman, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and composer; 1962 – Jon Stewart, American comedian, actor, and television host; and 1967 – Anna Nicole Smith, American model and actress (d. 2007). Died on this date: 741 – Pope Gregory III; 1785 – William Whipple, American politician, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1730); 1859 – Washington Irving, American author and historian (b. 1783); 1994 – Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (b. 1960); and 2010 – Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor (b. 1926).
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 16:57:46 +0000