Vast Variety

Sunday, December 6th:

1240: Mongols invade Rus’

1790: US Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia

1865: 13th Amendment ratified, banning of slavery

1941: The UK declares war on Finland

2008: Riots break out in Greece after the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos

-The rest of the week after the break-

Monday, December 7th:

43 BC: Roman Constitutionalist and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero assassinated

1787: Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the US Constitution

1917: US declares war on Austria-Hungary – World War I

1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Empire of Japan, bringing the US officially into World War II

1975: Indonesia invades East Timor

Tuesday, December 8th:

1660: Margaret Hughes becomes the first woman to appear on an English public stage, playing the role of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello.

1941: Official US declaration of war against Japan

1980: John Lennon shot and killed by Mark David Chapman in NYC

1993: NAFTA signed into law by President Clinton

Wednesday, December 9th:

1793: NYC’s first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, established

1835: The Republic of Texas captures San Antonio

1872: P.B.S. Pinchback becomes first serving African-American governor of a US state, Louisiana. He serves for 35 days.

1905: France passes the law separating church and state.

1953: Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.

1958: The John Birch Society is founded

Thursday, December 10th:

1898: Treaty of Paris signed ending the Spanish-American war.

1901: First Nobel Prizes awarded

1927: Grand Ole Opry premieres on radio

1941: Battle of the Philippines begins with the landing of Japanese forces under General Masaharu Homma

1993: That last shift leaves the Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland marking the end of the County Durham coalfield which had been in operation since the 12th century.

Friday, December 11th:

359: Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the city of Constantinople, takes office.

1282: Llywelyn the Last, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cilmeri, south Wales.

1917: Lithuania declares its independence from Russia

1936: Edward VIII abdicates the English throne, this is known as the Abdication Crisis

1941: Germany and Italy declare war on the US

1971: The Libertarian Party founded

1972: Apollo 17 lands on the Moon

2008: Bernard Madoff arrested

2008: Three inches of snow fall in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Saturday, December 12th:

1098: Crusaders (First Crusade) breach the walls of Ma’arrat al-Numan and massacre 20,000 of it’s inhabitants

1917: Boys Town founded in Nebraska

2000: Bush v Gore decision released by the US Supreme Court

• January 4, 2010 -- This Week in History – January 3rd to January 9th (0)