This day in history – November 3

• 644 Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is killed by a Persian slave in Medina.

• 1493 Christopher Columbus discovers island of Dominica.

• 1752 Composer George Frideric Handel undergoes (failed) eye operation.

• 1783 John Austin, a footpad turned murderer, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.

• 1793 French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined.

• 1868 First black US Congressman elected (John W Menard, Louisiana).

• 1900 First US automobile show opens at Madison Square Garden, New York City.

• 1906 International Radiotelegraph Conference in Berlin selects “SOS” (· · · – – – · · ·) distress signal as the worldwide standard for help.

• 1911 Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T. (*NOTE: Chevrolet will be leaving SA at the end of the year.)

• 1927 Tropical storm flooding kills 84 in Winooski River Valley, Vermont.

• 1931 First commercially produced synthetic rubber manufactured.

• 1954 Nobel for physics awarded to Max Born & Walter Bothe.

• 1955 First virus crystallized (announced).

• 1955 Alabama woman bruised by a meteor.

• 1956 “The Wizard of Oz” first televised (CBS-TV).

• 1960 Ivory Coast adopts constitution.

• 1978 First broadcast of “Different Strokes” on NBC TV.

• 1979 Five people mortally wounded by klansmen during anti-Ku Klux Klan demonstration in North Carolina, USA.

• 1986 John Lennon “Menlove Avenue” album released posthumously

• 1989 100s of Bulgarian demonstrate in Sofia for democratic rights

• 1992 Carol Moseley Brown elected first African American woman in US Senate.

• 1992 “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton cover) single released by Whitney Houston (Billboard Song of the Year 1993).

• 1994 Susan Smith who claimed her two children were carjacked arrested for murder.

• 1994 Total solar eclipse in South America (4m23s).

• 1997 California law ends affirmative action.

• 2013 Eight people are killed and 10 are injured after a turboprop plane crashes in northern Bolivia.

• 2013 6 people are killed after an overcrowded ferry sinks in Pattaya, Thailand.

• 2014 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for global action on climate change after warning from scientists.

• 2014 New York’s 104-storey One World Trade Center officially opens 13 years after the September 11 attacks.

• 2015 Game Maker Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty) buys King.com (Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion.

Source: www.onthisday.com