April 14 U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is shot at a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army, to effectively end the American Civil War. – 1865. In what came to be known as Black Sunday,
April 7 Rwandan armed forces kill 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a successful effort to discourage international intervention in the genocide that had begun only hours earlier. In approximately three months, the Hutu extremists who controlled Rwanda brutally murdered an estimated 500,000 to one million innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate
Seats remain for the Little White School Museum’s first historic Spring bus tour of Oswego. Sunday, April 10, for two “Industrial History bus tours of Oswego. Pre-registration, $5 per person for participants age 16 and older, is required by visiting the Oswegoland Park District’s web site at www.oswegolandparkdistrict.org or calling
March 31 President Martin Van Buren issues a broadly-applicable executive order granting the 10-hour day to all government employees engaged in manual labor. – 1840. The Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, and attended by Pierre Tirard, French prime
March 24 Groundbreaking on the first section of the New York City subway system, from City Hall to the Bronx: According to The New York Times, the following was a worker’s review of the digging style of the well-dressed Subway Commissioners: “I wouldn’t give th’ Commish’ners foive cents a day
March 17 In New York City, the first parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army. – 1762. The leadership of the American Federation of Labor selects the carpenters union to lead the eight-hour
March 10 The first discernible speech is transmitted over a telephone system when inventor Alexander Graham Bell summons his assistant in another room by saying, “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.” Bell had received a comprehensive telephone patent just three days earlier. – 1876. A devastating mine disaster kills
The Little White School Museum, 72 Polk Street, Oswego, is celebrating Black History Month and Women’s History Month with special programs and a special exhibit through March. At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, March 6, the museum will celebrate both Black History Month and Women’s History Month when Marlene Rivero presents “Elizabeth
March 3 Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months. Under Sullivan’s tutelage, including her pioneering “touch teaching” techniques, the previously uncontrollable Keller flourished, and eventually was graduated from college to become an international lecturer
February 24 The U.S. House of Representatives votes 11 articles of impeachment against president Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson’s removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote made president Johnson the first president to be impeached in
February 17 Approximately 900 persons drown when a passenger ferry, the Neptune, overturns near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The ferry was dangerously overloaded, and carried no lifeboats or emergency gear. – 1993. February 18 A man ignites a gasoline-filled container inside a subway train in Daegu, South Korea. The blaze engulfes the
Carter G. Woodson, an American historian, author, journalist, and founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History couldn’t have known how significantly opinions about Black History Month would change when he came up with the concept of Negro History Week nearly a century ago in
Following one’s family roots gives a sense of belonging and history. In today’s modern world, there are more resources than ever to learn about one’s ancestry. Yes, DNA tests are wonderful advances in science to trace family lineage, but a DNA test won’t show a great-great grandfather’s photo or provide
February 10 After three hours, world chess champion Gary Kasparov loses the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue, an IBM computer capable of evaluating 200 million moves per second. Man was ultimately victorious over machine, however, when Kasparov defeated Deep Blue in the match with three wins
February 3 U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Wages and Hours, later Fair Labor Standards Act, which bans child labor and establishes the 40-hour work-week. – 1941. Rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in
January 27 Mine explosion in Mount Pleasant, Pa. leaves more than 100 dead. – 1891. The 8th U.S. Air Force bombers, dispatched from England, fly the first American bombing raid against Germany and make its target the Wilhelmshaven port. – 1943. Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line to
January 20 During the First Opium War, China cedes the island of Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention, an agreement seeking an end to the first Anglo-Chinese conflict. – 1841. U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to four terms
A fire broke out January 10, 1934 which destroyed the Woolworth Store in Aurora, 19-21 South Broadway.
My maternal cousin, Tom O’Brien, is a master historian and genealogist who literally has traveled the world in search of facts and photographs, particularly of the Litterst family. He and his wife have travelled extensively. Tom and his French wife, Marguerite, raised two sons and live in the Portland, Oregon
January 13 Pope Honorius II grants a papal sanction to the military order known as the Knights Templar, declaring it to be an army of God. – 1128. January 14 The theologian, musician, philosopher, and Nobel Prize-winning physician Albert Schweitzer is born on this day in 1875 in Upper-Alsace, Germany,
