January 25 Sojourner Truth addresses first Black Women’s Rights convention. – 1851. At the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered. It is the largest diamond ever found, to weigh in at 1.33 pounds and the estimated price in today’s market would be approximately $400 million.
January 18 For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. – 1985. January 19 Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri,
The City of Aurora will come together on Monday to celebrate the 95th birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The City’s 39th Annual Aurora MLK Ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, January 15, at Calvary Church, 9S200 Route 59. With the theme ‘What Happens to
Yorkville resident Barbara Johnson, left, and sister Connie Kross, Sandwich, Sunday pose with a display chronicling suburban Norwegian-American women.
January 11 U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt declares the massive Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona a national monument. – 1908. The IWW-organized “Bread & Roses” textile strike of 32,000 women and children begins in Lawrence, Mass.. It lasts 10 weeks and ends in victory. – 1912. January 12 There were unseasonably-warm-weather
January 4 Six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon Church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah, the territory is admitted into the Union as the 45th state. – 1896. For the first time since Charlemagne’s reign in the 9th Century, Europe is united
December 28 The world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers who developed a camera-projector called the Cinematographe. The Lumiere brothers unveiled their invention to the public in March 1895 with a brief
December 21 Powered by children seven years-old to 12 years-old who worked dawn to dusk, Samuel Slater’s thread-spinning factory goes into production in Pawtucket, R.I., which launches the Industrial Revolution in the United States. By 1830, 55% of the mill workers in the State were youngsters, many working for less
“Angels, contented with their fame in Heaven seek not the praise of men.” —Paradise Lost, John Milton Winged spirits converged around the long wooden table contemplating all that still needed to be done before Christmas Day. Angels were everywhere. And they were busy. All of the sweet treats needed to
December 14 Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole ahead of his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott. – 1911. Some 33,000 striking members of the Machinists end a 69-day walkout at Boeing after winning pay and benefit increases and protections against subcontracting some of their
“Never, never, never give up.” Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier and prime minister of the United Kingdom who was born November 30,1874 to Lord Randolph and Lady Randolph Churchill of wealthy British aristocratic lineage. He was not a handsome man, with a bulldog
December 7 At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings, appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes follow and descends on the U.S. naval base at Pearl
As we look at what is happening to the Republican Party, it may seem difficult to believe that it was originally formed as a reform party. In the 1850s political landscape, the major parties – the Whigs and the Democrats – struggled for dominance, and neither party was above anti-democratic
November 30 The first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being occurs at Sylacauga, Ala., when a meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and strikes Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges who was sleeping on a couch at the time of impact. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured, but
The Aurora Public Library District (APLD) is pleased to present an exhibit of historical movie projectors entitled Echoes of the Silver Screen: Pioneers’ Projectors, on display at the Santori Library now through the end of November. The exhibit features a variety of projectors from the early days of cinema, including
November 23 History’s first-recorded strike by Egyptians working on public works projects for King Ramses III in the Valley of the Kings. They were protesting having gone 20 days without pay, portions of grain, and put their tools down. Exact date estimated, described as within “the sixth month of the
Marie Antoinette was born November 2, 1755 as an Archduchess of Austria and became dauphine of France at age 14 upon her marriage. And on May 16, 1770 she was joined in marriage with the heir to the French throne, the future King Louis XVI in the Royal Chapel at
Anti-Semitism? Bah! Humbug! Do you know, dear reader, that there are two kinds of Jews? They are the Sephardim, the western European Jews, and the Ashkenazim, the eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews. None of them, however, is ethnically Semitic; none of them sprang from the seed of Father Abraham, their belief
November 16 Joseph Goebbels publishes in the German magazine Das Reich that “The Jews wanted the war, and now they have it”—referring to the Nazi propaganda scheme to shift the blame for the world war on to European Jewry, thereby giving the Nazis a rationalization for the so-called Final Solution.
November 9 German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and later, was dubbed Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews
