• 164 BC During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah.
• 1620 Pilgrim Fathers reach America: Province town Harbor, Massachusetts.
• 1791 Colonel Napoléon Bonaparte is promoted to General and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic.
• 1794 Honolulu Harbor discovered.
• 1847 Steamer “Phoenix” is lost on Lake Michigan, kills 200.
• 1871 The first human cannonball, Emilio Onra, is fired.
• 1877 Thomas Edison announces his “talking machine” invention (phonograph), the first machine to play and record sound.
• 1895 Start of Sherlock Holmes “Adventure of Bruce Partington Plans”.
• 1901 Richard Strauss’ opera “Feuersnot” premieres in Dresden
• 1906 China prohibits the opium trade.
• 1916 HMHS Britannic sinks in the Aegean Sea after a mine explodes, killing 30 people.
• 1921 The trial of the accused of the Bulhoek Massacre commences in South Africa.
• 1942 Tweety Bird, aka Tweety Pie, debuts in “Tale of Two Kitties”.
• 1953 Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce the “Piltdown Man” skull, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, is a hoax.
• 1959 Jack Benny (violin) & Richard Nixon (piano) play their famed duet.
• 1963 US President John F. Kennedy flies to Texas (assassinated the next day).
• 1968 Supremes & The Temptations release “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”.
• 1974 Birmingham pub bombings: 21 civilians killed when bombs explode at two pubs in Birmingham, England (deadliest attack in England during “the Troubles”).
• 1976 “Rocky” directed by John G. Avildsen and starring Sylvester Stallone premieres in New York (Best Picture 1977).
• 1980 Fire at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas kills 84.
• 1980 John Lennon and Yoko Ono pose nude for photographer Allan Tannenbaum.
• 1981 Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” single goes #1 and stays for 10 weeks.
• 1995 New double Beatle CD released with new song “Free as a Bird”.
• 2006 Daughtry release their debut album “Daughtry” (2007 Billboard Album of the Year, American Music Awards Favorite Pop-Rock Album 2007).
• 2006 “Kingdom Come” 9th studio album by Jay-Zis released.
• 2013 31 people are killed by a truck bomb in northeaster Iraq.
• 2013 The Alabama parole board grants posthumous pardons to three members of the Scottsboro boys.
• 2013 54 people are killed after the roof of a supermarket collapses in Riga, Latvia.
• 2013 “Happy” single is released by Pharrell Williams (Billboard Song of the Year 2014, Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance 2015).
Source: www.onthisday.com
