This day in history – November 9

• 1282 Pope Martinus IV excommunicates king Pedro III of Aragon.

• 1494 Family de’ Medici become rulers of Florence.

• 1520 Height of the Stockholm Bloodbath – King Christian II of Denmark, Norway and Sweden executes Swedish nobles.

• 1541 Queen Catherine Howard (Henry VIII’s fifth wife) confined in Tower of London.

• 1580 Spanish troops land in Ireland.

• 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul.

• 1821 First USA pharmacy college holds first classes, Philadelphia.

• 1851 Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.

• 1872 The Great Boston Fire of 1872. Close to 1 000 buildings destroyed.

• 1888 Jack Ripper’s fifth and probably last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, found on her bed.

• 1904 1st airplane flight to last more than 5 minutes.

• 1907 The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday.

• 1922 Frederick Soddy wins the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (announced in 1922 due to a technicality).

• 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Munich; Nazis fail to overthrow government, 16 die, Hitler flees.

• 1925 Robert A. Millikan confirms the existence of cosmic rays from outer space in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences at Madison, Wisconsin.

• 1932 Hurricane storm wave sweeps over Santa Cruz del Sur Cuba kills 2 500.

• 1932 Riots between conservative and socialist supporters in Switzerland kill 12 and injure 60.

• 1936 American fashion designer Ruth Harkness captures a panda cub (Su Lin) in China – becomes first live panda cub to enter the US.

• 1939 “Ninotchka” with Greta Garbo premieres.

• 1939 Nobel for physics awarded to Ernest O Lawrence (cyclotron).

• 1944 Red Cross wins Nobel peace prize.

• 1955 UN disapproves of South Africa’s apartheid politics.

• 1963 450 die in a coal-dust explosion and 160 die in train crash in Japan.

• 1965 Hurricane hits north east US/Canada.

• 1966 John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at an avante-garde art exposition at Indica Gallery in London.

• 1969 “Bridge over Troubled Water” single recorded by Simon & Garfunkel.

• 1973 Fire at Taiyo Department Store in Kumamoto Japan kills 101 and injures 84.

• 1973 Ringo Starr releases “Ringo” album.

• 1976 UN General Assembly condemns apartheid in South Africa.

• 1980 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares holy war against Iran.

• 1983 Amsterdam brewer Freddie Heineken kidnapped.

• 1984 Wes Craven’s horror film “A Nightmare on Elm Street” premieres in the US.

• 1985 Gary Kasparov becomes the youngest ever world chess champion aged 22

• 1989 East Berlin opens its borders.

• 1998 Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.

• 2005 Suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing at least 60 people.

• 2012 25 people are killed and 62 injured after a train carrying liquid fuel bursts into flames in Burma.

• 2014 Celebrations held in Germany to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; white balloons marking a stretch of the wall symbolize its disappearance.

• 2015 “Reclining Nude” by Italian artist Modigliani fetches 2nd highest auction price at $170.4-million.

Source: www.onthisday.com