Tag: History

October 31 The priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation. In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic...

October 24 A 63-year-old schoolteacher, Annie Edson Taylor, becomes the first known person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. – 1901. The first U.S. federal minimum wage, 25¢ an hour, takes effect, thanks to enactment of the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA). The law required...

October 17 Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000 to signal the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s. – 1931. Olympic Gold Medal winner Tommie Smith and Bronze Medal winner John Carlos are forced...

September 26 For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates is shown on television. The presidential hopefuls, John F. Kennedy, a Democratic Party senator of Massachusetts, and Richard M. Nixon, the vice president of the United States, meet in a Chicago studio to discuss...

September 12 Six months after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev succeeds him with his election as first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev, in 1961, authorized construction of the Berlin Wall in East Germany. – 1960. Hurricane Gilbert slams into Jamaica. Approximately...

September 5 Between 20,000 to 30,000 marchers participate in New York’s first Labor Day parade with the demand for an eight-hour work day. – 1882. In the early morning hours of September 5, six members of the Arab terrorist group known as Black September, dressed in the Olympic sweat suits...

August 29 Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. – 1533. At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in...

August 8 President Harry S Truman signs the United Nations Charter and the United States becomes the first nation to complete the ratification process and join the new international organization. – 1945. August 9 A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally...