On This Day January 1

Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean is the most remote island in the world. It was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier on January 1, 1739 (see picture below). The nearest land is the uninhabited Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, over 1,600 km (994 mi) away to the south. The nearest inhabited lands are Tristan da Cunha, 2,260 km (1,404 mi) away and South Africa, 2,580 km (1,603 mi) away.

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On This Day December 31

Thomas Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31 1879, in Menlo Park. British chemist Joseph Swan had already invented the lamp but Edison wanted to produce a longer lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on the electric light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding a carbonized bamboo fiber that remained lit for over 1,000 hours in a vacuum.

"Edison Lightbulb Museum of Letters and Manuscripts" by Tieum512 

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On This Day December 30

When Frank Sinatra opened at New York's Paramount Theatre on December 30, 1942, he was dubbed "The Sultan of Swoon," as teen girls screamed and cried. Sinatra became the idol of "bobbysoxer" teenage fans everywhere, culminating in the "Columbus Day Riot" of 1944, when 35,000 teenage girls mobbed the New York Paramount to see him sing.

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On This Day December 29

Edmond Audran (1840-1901) was a church organist in the French city of Marseilles who also wrote comic operas. He penned a popular comic operetta about a country girl whose extraordinary good fortune could not be due to mere chance but must have been caused by some supernatural agent. Titled La Mascotte, it premiered on December 29, 1880. Translated into English as The Mascot, it introduced into the English language "mascot," a word for any animal, person, or object that brings good luck.

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On This Day December 28

In 1836 a fleet of eight ships under John Hindmarsh, first Governor of South Australia, camped at Holdfast Bay. South Australia was officially proclaimed as a new British colony on December 28, 1836, near The Old Gum Tree in what is now the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg North.

European settlers with Aborigines, 1850

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On This Day December 27

The Cave of Swallows in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico is the largest known cave shaft in the world. The floor of the cave is a 1092 feet (333-meter)) freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter (1,214 ft) drop from the highest side. The first documented exploration was on December 27, 1966 by T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sterns.

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On This Day December 26

The modern parachute was invented by French chemist and physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand. His intended use for the parachute was to help entrapped occupants of a burning building to escape unharmed. Lenormand used his 14-foot contraption with a rigid wooden frame to make the first recorded public parachute jump, when he leaped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, in France, on December 26, 1783.

Lenormand jumps from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, Wikipedia

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On This Day December 25

Clovis I, King of the Franks, was converted to Christianity, the first barbarian chief of any importance to convert to orthodox Christianity, rather the Arian religion. He was baptized into the Catholic faith on Christmas Day 496, along with his 3,000 strong army at Reims Cathedral. The Bishop Remigius of Rheims declared to him, "bow thy head, proud Frank: adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored."

Clovis roi des Francs by François-Louis Dejuinne (1786–1844) Wikipedia

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On This Day December 24

During World War I there was an unofficial Christmas truce between British and German troops demonstrating the power for good that is inherent in the season. The truce began on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, when the two sides shouted Christmas greetings to each other and as word spread men from both sides of the Western Front ventured into no man's land to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs.

Christmas Truce By A. C. Michael - The Guardian

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On This Day December 23

On December 23, 1888, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh's painting companion, threatened to leave him alone to spend a hard winter in Arles. In retaliation, the tortured Dutchman came at the French artist with an open razor. He was stopped by Gauguin, but instead cut off part of his own left earlobe. The incident led to Van Gogh's painting Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, which was sold privately in the late 1990s for an estimated US$80/$90 million.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

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On This Day December 22

Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was arrested with 33 others in April 1849 as a Social Revolutionary, after a police informer had slipped into his socialist discussion groups. Originally he was sentenced to be executed on December 22, 1849. At the stake in front of the squad he was told his sentence was a joke and he was to be sent to Siberia for four years instead.  Dostoyevsky was incarcerated at a penal settlement where they were packed in "like herrings in a barrel."

A sketch of the Petrashevsky Circle mock execution

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On This Day December 21

6 days after the Mayflower Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, they landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. The Pilgrims established there the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, after the Jamestown Colony. It's now thought that 12 per cent of all modern day Americans are descended from the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall 1882

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On This Day December 20

The poet William Wordsworth first encountered Dove Cottage on the edge of Grasmere when on a walking tour of the Lake District with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The house was available for rent, and he, his wife Mary and sister Dorothy took up residence on December 20, 1799 paying £5 a year to John Benson of Grasmere. The primitive Dove Cottage was Wordsworth's cramped home for nine years until 1808.

Dove Cottage. By Christine Hasman

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On This Day December 19

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published on December 19, 1843. Dickens wrote the book in six weeks in such a state of excitement that he could not sleep but walked the streets of London thinking about the story. All 6,000 copies of its first print run were sold in just five days and it was reprinted. However, the extravagance of A Christmas Carol's gilted pages and cloth cover meant despite its success, Dickens only made £130 from the book.

A Christmas Carol-Title page-First edition 1843.

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On This Day December 18

In 1892 the St Petersburg Opera commissioned Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to compose the music to accompany an adaption of their ballet adaption of the 1816 German story, E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The Nutcracker ballet was premièred at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on December 18, 1892. Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute "Nutcracker Suite" that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was.

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On This Day December 17

From May 1944 to March 1945, Ernest Hemingway was in London and Europe as a war correspondent. On December 17, 1944, a feverish and ill Hemingway had himself driven to Luxembourg to cover what would later be called The Battle of the Bulge. As soon as he arrived, however, he was handed to the doctors, who hospitalized him with pneumonia; by the time he recovered a week later, most of the fighting in this battle was over.

Hemingway with Col. Charles 'Buck' Lanham in Germany, 1944

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On This Day December 16

About fifty members of the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded a British vessel in Boston on December 16, 1773. They then emptied 342 tea chests into the harbor as a protest against the Tea Act. Word about their protest against the English tax soon spread and it proved to be a key event in the U.S. War of Independence.

1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"

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On This Day December 15

The Gone With The Wind movie premiered at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta to cheering crowds on December 15, 1939. There was a parade before the movie premiere. There were also three days of parties in which the stars of the movie wore costumes and many stores in the city were re-decorated to look like they would have been in the Civil War.

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On This Day December 14

George Washington died from acute laryngitis between 10 and 11 p.m. on December 14, 1799 with his wife Martha seated at the foot of his bed. His last words were "It is well. I die hard, but am not afraid to go." The news of Washington's death placed the entire country in mourning. Even Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ordered ten days of mourning in France.

Washington on his Deathbed. Junius Brutus Stearns 1799

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On This Day December 13

After deciding to follow his religious vocation, Argentine chemist Jorge Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus in Cordoba in March 1958 as a novice. He was ordained to the priesthood on December 13, 1969.  43 years later, Bergoglio was elected Pope. He chose to be called Pope Francis in order to pay tribute to St. Francis of Assisi.

Pope Francis

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On This Day December 12

On December 12, 1896, radio innovators Guglielmo Marconi and William Preece arranged a demonstration of radio controlled apparatus at Toynbee Hall, a center of social reform in East London. Marconi advertised the event and invited the newspaper press. During the event, the pair amazed the assembled audience by making a bell ring by pushing a button in a box that was not connected by any wires.

British Post Office engineers inspect Marconi's radio equipment on May 13, 1897 Wikipedia

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On This Day December 11

Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor became George VI, King of the United Kingdom, on December 11, 1936 when his elder brother, Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson. George VI was crowned on May 12, 1937. The coronation took place on the date originally set for his brother, Edward VIII, to be crowned, before he abdicated.

George VI of the United Kingdom

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On This Day December 10

Desiring to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson against widespread opposition, Edward VIII abdicated the United kingdom throne on December 10, 1936, the only British monarch to have voluntarily done so since the Anglo-Saxon period. After his abdication, Edward was given the title Duke of Windsor. He married Simpson in a private ceremony near Tours, France on June 3, 1937.

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On This Day December 9

The NLS, a computer collaboration system that was the first to employ the practical use of hypertext, the computer mouse, and other modern computing concepts, was publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco on December 9, 1968. Engineer and inventor Douglas Engelbart's 90-minute 'Mother of All Demos' essentially demonstrated almost all the fundamental elements of modern personal computing.

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On This Day December 8

The United States entered World War II on December 8, 1941 a day after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The US Senate voted for war against Japan by 82 to 0, and the House of Representatives approved the resolution by a vote of 388 to 1. The sole dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a devout pacifist who had also cast a dissenting vote against the US. entrance into World War I.

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On This Day December 7

The outlaw Jesse James first became famous on December 7, 1869, when he and his brother Frank robbed the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. The robbery netted little money, but the daring escape he and his brother made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward, put his name in the newspapers for the first time.

Jesse James portrait

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On This Day December 6

The first recorded successful operation to remove an appendix was on December 6, 1735, at St. George’s Hospital in London, when French surgeon Claudius Amyand took out a perforated appendix from an 11-year-old boy, Hanvil Andersen. The organ had apparently been perforated by a pin he had swallowed. The patient made a recovery and was discharged a month later.

Location of the appendix in the digestion system

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On This Day December 5

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in his home on December 5, 1791 (aged 35) at 1:00 am, while he was working on his final composition, the Requiem (unfinished when he passed away). His last words were "You spoke of a refreshment, Emile: Take my last notes, and let me hear once more my solace and delight". The actual cause of Mozart's death is uncertain.  Dozens of theories have been proposed, which include trichinosis, mercury poisoning, and rheumatic fever.

Posthumous painting by Barbara Krafft in 1819

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On This Day December 4

A month after the Mary Celeste left the New York City harbor bound for Genoa with a cargo, it was found by the Canadian brig Dei Gratia on December 4, 1872 drifting in the Atlantic. The ship was in good condition but abandoned and the mystery has never been solved. Mutiny, piracy and insurance fraud have all been suggested as explanations of the mystery.

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On This Day November 18

After Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler developed in 1885 a high-speed internal combustion engine, he fitted the engine to a bicycle to create the first internal combustion motorcycle. Daimler's 17-year-old son, Paul, was the first to ride the motorcycle taking it 5–12 kilometers (3.1–7.5 mi), from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim in Stuttgart, Germany on November 18, 1885. The seat caught fire during that journey, due to the engine's hot tube ignition being located directly underneath.

Replica of the Daimler-Maybach Reitwagen. Wikipedia Commons

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On This Day November 16

The Sound of Music musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959. Both of the major New York critics hated it, finding it way too saccharine, but producers already had $2 million in advance ticket sales, so their lack of enthusiasm didn't really matter. The play won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

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On This Day November 12

Jules Léotard (1838–1870) abandoned his law studies to become a trapeze artist. Léotard won almost immediate success during a performance in Cirque Napoleon in Paris on November 12, 1859 when for the first time he swung from one trapeze to the other. The acrobatic act was called “La Course aux Trapèze” and it lasted for 12 minutes.

Jules Léotard

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On This Day October 10

On October 10, 1789, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed an apparatus designed for carrying out executions by beheading be adopted as the official means of capital punishment. The device, a decapitation piece of equipment incorporating a vertically-descending blade was originally called a louisette. It was later named after Guillotin, however his family were unhappy at having their name attached to such a device.

Marie Antoinette's execution by guillotine on October 16, 1793

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Today Is November 1

Today is All Saints' Day,  a Christian solemnity celebrated in honor of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown.

Below is All Saints' Day at a cemetery in Gniezno, Poland, the picture shows flowers and candles placed to honor deceased relatives. 

By Diego Delso, Wikipedia

In 609 Pope Boniface IV converted the Roman Pantheon into a Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all martyrs. By the 7th century the commemoration of martyrs for the faith had become widespread and as time went on these celebrations came to include not only the martyrs but all saints. 

In 837 Pope Gregory IV established the first celebration of All Saints' Day on November 1st to honor the saints, choosing the first day of November to counter a Celtic festival of the dead, known as Samhain celebrated the night before. However the festival did not die out and in medieval Britain it became known as All Hallows (All Saints) Eve, and later its Scottish equivalent Halloween became more widely used.

On This Day September 15

On September 15, 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, the British sent into action eleven vehicles of an entirely new kind, the Mark I tank.  When the British army was developing the vehicles, known as 'landships', they didn't want to give the Germans any clue what they were up to – so the name 'tank,' which doesn't mean anything, was used to throw them off. It stuck.

British World War I Mark V* tank

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On This Day August 28

At the climax of a Washington interracial march, Dr Martin Luther King gave his famous "I had a dream" speech to 250,000 followers on August 28, 1963. The notes for King's "dream speech" did not contain the passage that started with "I have a dream." However, when the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was standing behind him cried out: "Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!," King put his notes aside, and started "preaching" improvisationally, punctuating his points with "I have a dream."

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On This Day August 27

The Beatles and Elvis only crossed paths once on August 27, 1965 at Presley 's home in Bel Air, California. The NME reported that Elvis, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison jammed together, but without The Beatles' drummer. "Too bad we left the drums in Memphis," Elvis told Ringo.

When the Beatles met Elvis they were amazed by the device he had that could change channels on the TV from across the room. The King owned an early version of the remote control.

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On This Day August 19

The first five-mile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was held on August 19, 1909. 12,000 spectators watched a car win with the average speed of 57.4 mph. The track, made of crushed rock held together by tar, broke apart killing two drivers and a spectator in the course of a race that lasted just two laps. The speedway was rebuilt that same year with 3.2 million paving bricks to create a safer environment, reopening in December 1909.  

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On This Day May 19

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest on May 19, 1536. Anne refused to be blindfolded and the executioner found her so disarming he persuaded someone to attract her attention so he could steal up silently behind her to carry out the death penalty. Meanwhile Henry was in Epping Forest taking part in a hunt waiting for a signal to proclaim the news that "it" had been done.

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On This Day February 29

Christopher Columbus found himself anchored off the coast of Jamaica with dwindling rations due to uncooperative locals who refused to trade. Consultation of his Zacuto almanac revealed an upcoming lunar eclipse on February 29, 1504. seizing this astronomical knowledge, Columbus gathered the Jamaican chiefs and asserted that, unless they provided him with sustenance, he possessed the ability to obscure the moon. 

Columbus predicts lunar eclipse to the natives

Initially met with laughter, the chiefs were soon alarmed as the eclipse unfolded. Fearing the celestial disturbance, the frightened natives pleaded with Columbus to restore the moon, promising to fulfill his demands in return.

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On This Day February 16

On February 16, 1937, the du Pont company patented their synthetic textile fiber calling it nylon. The letters "nyl" were arbitrary and the "on" was copied from the suffixes of other fibers such as cotton and rayon. One of the first products to be made with this new material was a new type of toothbrush- Dr. West's miracle toothbrush with nylon bristles. Other early uses were for fishing lines and surgical sutures.

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