June 13 Alexander the Great, the young Macedonian military genius who forged an empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to India, dies in Babylon, in present-day Iraq, at the age of 33. – 323 B.C.E.. The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona to establish the...
June 6 The Ashmolean, the world’s first university museum, opens in Oxford, England. -1683. A general strike by some 12,000 auto workers and others in Lansing, Mich. shuts down the city for a month in what was to become known as the city’s “Labor Holiday.” The strike was precipitated by...
May 30 At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, France, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. – 1431. Former U.S. president William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall. At the time, Taft was serving as...
From the vault – revised (various dates): When I was writing “Common Sense” essays for TONIT (pronounced “Toe=nit”) – that other newspaper in town – I wrote a series of satirical observations on the types of motorists we must endure in our daily lives. I wrote them under the umbrella...
May 23 An estimated 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, strike in the Philadelphia area. Among the issues: 60-hour work weeks, including night hours, for the children. – 1903. Famed fugitives, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, are killed in a police ambush near Sailes, La.. A contingent of...
There were smiles, cheers, and a few tears, when Aurora’s longest-serving teacher was feted. Mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin joined the students and staff members of Holy Angels School to bid farewell to Laura Waegner, 79, who has taught at the school for the past 54 years. Her first year...
May 16 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first awards (Oscars), at a dinner party for approximately 250 individuals held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Calif.. – 1929. Japanese mountaineer, Junko Tabei, becomes the first woman to reach the summit...
May 9 U.S. president Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first National Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers. – 1914. May 10 Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the Nation’s first transcontinental railway line...
May 2 General Motors Corporation (GM), which will become the world’s largest automotive firm, acquires Chevrolet Motor Company. – 1918. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. – 2011. May 3 Four...
April 25 The New York Times declares the struggle for an eight-hour work-day to be “un-American” and calls public demonstrations for the shorter hours “labor disturbances brought about by foreigners.” Other publications declare that an eight-hour work-day day would bring about “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery, and drunkenness.” – 1886....
April 18 Missouri is hit by a string of deadly tornadoes and 151 residents die, including 99 in the town of Marshfield. – 1880. At 5:13 a.m., an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale strikes San Francisco, Calif. and kills hundreds of residents when it topples...
April 11 Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. – 1814. Approximately 25,000 marchers in Watsonville, Calif. show support for United Farm Workers organizing campaign among...
Saturday, April 6, the Aurora and Fox Valley community are invited to Aurora Central Catholic High School, 1255 N. Edgelawn Dr. (corner Edgelawn & Indian Trail), Aurora, 8 a.m.-noon, for the “75th Kiwanis Pancake Day.” The Kiwanis Club of Aurora in its 108 th year presents this annual breakfast event...
Those attending can explore the history of Aurora and the Burlington Railroad with an Aurora Historical Society exhibit, “Celebrating 175 Years, 1849-2024,” through August 17 at the Pierce Art and History Center, 20 E. Downer Place in Aurora. The public is invited. Admission is free. Artifacts include photos, a handcar,...
April 4 Only 31 days after assuming office, William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at the White House. – 1841. Just after 6 p.m. April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room...
March 28 Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn.. Violence during the march persuades him to return the following week to Memphis, where he was assassinated. – 1968. At 4 a.m. the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry...
March 21 U.S. president Jimmy Carter informs a group of U.S. athletes that, in response to the December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the United States will boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It marked the only time that the United States boycotted the Olympic Games. – 1980. March 22...
March 14 The Federal Bureau of Investigation institutes the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in an effort to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives. The creation of the program arose out of a wire service news story in 1949 about the toughest guys the FBI wanted to capture. The story drew so...
It was a party with a purpose at Aurora City Hall today as the City celebrated Women’s History Month. Mayor Richard Irvin’s office was host to a gathering to honor women staff members. The event included colorful leis, free giveaways, and a chance for lucky raffle winners to spin the...
March 7 Twenty-nine-year-old Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his revolutionary new invention, the telephone. – 1876. More than 3,000 unemployed auto workers, led by the Communist Party of America, brave the cold in Dearborn, Mich. to demand jobs and relief from Henry Ford. The marchers got too close...
