November 17, 2024
Apr. 17- 1492: Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, promising him 10% of riches found on his upcoming westward voyage. (Cha-CHING!) 1790: Statesman, inventor, diplomat,
Apr. 10- 1815: The largest volcanic eruption ever recorded occurs as Mt. Tambora in present-day Indonesia explodes, expelling an estimated 36 cubic miles of ash and rock into the atmosphere,
Apr. 3- 1882: Infamous outlaw and bank robber Jesse James is shot and killed by a member of his gang at his home in St. Joseph, MO. 1948: President Harry
Mar. 27- 1912: First Lady Helen Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the US plant the first two cherry trees along the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. 1964:
Mar. 20– 1800: Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery to the Royal Society of London (and we assume they got a real “charge” out of his invention!).
Mar. 13– 1852: The cartoon version of “Uncle Sam” first appears in NY Lantern Weekly. 1887: Chester Greenwood of Maine receives a patent for earmuffs (just in time for the
Mar. 6- 1836: After 13 days of fierce fighting, the Siege of the Alamo ends with the deaths of the last Texas defenders. 1857: The US Supreme Court issues its
Feb. 28– 1854: Republican Party officially organized in Ripon, WI. 1953: Molecular biologists Francis Crick and James Watson discover DNA’s double-helix structure. 1983: The final episode of the television series
Feb. 21– 1848: “The Communist Manifesto,” authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is published in London. 1878: The first phone directory, containing fifty names and numbers, became available in
Feb. 14 (Valentine’s Day)– 1818: Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass is born into slavery in Cordova, MD. 1876: American inventor Alexander Graham Bell files for a patent for his “improvement in
