June 8 Some 35,000 members of the Machinists union begin what is to become a 43-day strike, the largest in airline history, against five carriers. The mechanics and other ground service workers wanted to share in the airlines’ substantial profits. – 1966. During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo
June 1 Approximately 12,500 longshoremen strike the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Calif. to Bellingham, Wash.. – 1916. A Warsaw Poland underground newspaper, the Liberty Brigade, makes public the news of the gassing of tens of thousands of Jews at Chelmno, a death camp in Poland. – 1942. A coal
May 25 With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: The peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Articles of Confederation. – 1787. Thousands of unemployed WWI veterans arrive in Washington,
May 18 In what may have been baseball’s first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refuse to play after team leader Ty Cobb is suspended: He went into the stands and beat a fan who had been heckling him. Cobb was reinstated and the Tigers went back to work after the
May 11 Nationwide railway strike begins in Pullman, Ill. and 260,000 railroad workers ultimately joined the strike to protest wage cuts by the Pullman Palace Car Co.. – 1894. A massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States
May 4 Haymarket massacre. A bomb is thrown when Chicago police start to break up a rally for strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. A riot erupts, and 11 police and strikers die, mostly from gunfire, and scores more are injured. – 1886. In Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen
April 27 After going three-quarters of the way around the globe, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is killed during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines. Magellan was hit by a poisoned arrow and left to die by his retreating comrades. – 1521. Afghanistan president Sardar Mohammed Daoud is
April 20 The Fidel Castro regime announces that all Cubans seeking to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel, west of Havana and launched the Mariel Boatlift. The first of 125,000 Cuban refugees from Mariel reached Florida the next day. – 1980. Ludlow
April 13 Disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days earlier for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon, but
April 6 The first slave revolt in the U.S. occurs at a slave market in New York City’s Wall Street area. Twenty-one blacks were executed for killing nine whites. The city responded by strengthening its slave codes. – 1712. The Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn
March 30 At the height of the Great Depression, 35,000 unemployed march in New York’s Union Square. Police beat many demonstrators and injure 100. – 1930. The federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act is enacted. – 1970. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest and injured outside a
March 23 The initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll correct,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the every-day speech of Americans. – 1839. At 7:20 in the morning, an explosion
March 16 The United States Military Academy, the first military school in the United States, is founded by Congress for the purpose of educating and training young men in the theory and practice of military science. The site at West Point, N.Y., the U.S. Military Academy, often is simply known
March 9 U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan and drop 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in
February 23 During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with
February 16 Diamond Mine disaster in Braidwood, Ill.. The coal mine was on a marsh-like tract of land with no natural drainage. Snow melted and forced a collapse on the east side of the mine and killed 74. – 1883. In Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed
February 9 Because no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to elect John Quincy Adams, who won fewer votes than Andrew Jackson in the popular election, as president of the United States. Adams was the son of
February 2 Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa.. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of Winter weather; no shadow means
You’re an old-timer in Aurora if you: Knew the site of Tivoli Restaurant. Attempted to score a 300 at the Hi-Way Lanes. Ordered a hot dog with all the fixin’s at Elmer’s Dog House. Remembered that K.D. Waldo Middle School was the original East Aurora High School. Bought a dining
January 19 Some 3,000 members of the Filipino Federation of Labor strike the plantations of Oahu, Hawaii. Their ranks swell to 8,300 when they are joined by members of the Japanese Federation of Labor. – 1920. Following the death of Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi becomes head
