Happy 2020!

Hello, everyone. I have enjoyed doing this blog for you over the years, but my life has changed, and I no longer have the time. I will leave the blog up with all the posts so you can continue to enjoy them.

Today in HisStory – December 31

80,000 Vandals, Alans, and Suebians crossed the Rhine at Mainz beginning an invasion of Gallia. (406 AD)

Willem van Orange, leader of the Dutch Protestant revolt against Spain, demanded freedom of conscience/religion. (1564)

British East India Company was chartered. (1600)

A window tax was imposed in England. Many shopkeepers bricked up their windows to avoid the tax. (1695)

Frisia/Groningen adopted the Gregorian calendar. The next day was 1/12/1701. (1700)

Peter Bohler was born. He was the Moravian missionary credited for religious conversion of John Wesley. (1712)

English astronomer James Bradley announced the discovery of Earth’s nutation motion. (1744)

America’s first-known watch-night service was held at St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia. (1770)

American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Quebec ended with Americans defeated. (1775)

Bank of North America, first US bank, opened. (1781)

Import of African slaves was banned by all of the Northern US states. (1783)

French Republican Calendar ended. France returned to the Gregorian Calendar. (1805)

Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the new capital of Canada. (1857)

22,990mm of rain fell in Cherrapunji Assam in India in the entire year.  It is a world record. (1861)

US Civil War: At the Battle of Stone’s River, Tennessee, also know as the Battle of Murfreesboro, the Union Army defeated the Confederates. (1862)

US Civil War: US President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia into the Union as a US state. (1862)

Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of his incandescent lamp. (1879)

Ellis Island, New York City opened as a US immigration depot. (1890)

The first New Year’s Eve celebration was held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, in New York, New York for the first time. (1904)

For first time a ball dropped at Times Square to signal the New Year. (1907)

Marie Curie received her 2nd Nobel Prize. (1911)

Last San Francisco firehorses were retired. (1921)

WW2: Italian Fascist Mussolini ordered the suppression of opposition newspapers. (1924)

Charles Darrow patented Monopoly. (1935)

WW2: Hungary declared war on Germany. (1944)

Ratification of United Nations Charter was completed. (1945)

WW2: US President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of WW II. (1946)

First battery to convert radioactive energy to electricity was announced. (1951)

Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista told his Cabinet he was fleeing the country. (1958)

Beach Boys played their debut gig under that name. (1961)

US Navy Seals were established. (1961)

Ted Bundy escaped from jail in Colorado. (1977)

Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President. (1999)

The United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially handed over control of the Panama Canal, putting the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time. (1999)

Taipei 101 officially opened. It is the current tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 509 meters or 1,670 feet. (2004)

Today in HisStory – December 30

John Wycliffe, Bible scholar and translator, died. (1384)

Wearing masks at balls was forbidden in Boston. (1809)

Abraham Mills’ commission declared Abner Doubleday invented baseball. (1853)

A dinner party was held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon, ornithopod dinosaur, created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London. (1853)

US banks stopped payments in gold. (1861)

Author Rudyard Kipling was born. (1865)

Filipino nationalist José Rizal was executed by firing squad in Manila by the Spanish. (1896)

Electric arc lamp set fire to Iroquois theater in Chicago leaving 602 dead in one of the deadliest blazes in American history. (1903)

Abraham Mills’ commission declared Abner Doubleday invented baseball. (1907)

-37°F in Lewisburg, West Virginia set a state record. (1917)

-32°F in Mountain City, Tennessee set a state record. (1917)

Creation of the USSR was formally proclaimed in Moscow from the Bolshoi Theatre. (1922)

The Bolshevik government exiled Christian leaders Sergius Bulgakov and Nicholas Berdyaevis among one hundred and sixty prominent intellectuals. (1922)

Astronomer Edwin Hubble formally announced the existence of other galactic systems at meeting of the American Astronomical Society. (1924)

The silent film Ben Hur, based on Lew Wallace’s novel of the time of Christ, opened at the George M. Cohan Theater in New York City and received rave reviews. (1925)

International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, founded by evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, was incorporated in Los Angeles, California. (1927)

-50°F in Bloomfield, Vermont set a state record. (1933)

WW2: Corrie Ten Boom was released from a Nazi Concentration Camp because of a clerical error. She and her family had been sent there for hiding Jews. (1944)

-48°F in Mazama and Winthrop, Washington set a state record. (1968)

Vietnam War: US President Nixon halted bombing of North Vietnam and announced peace talks. (1972)

First picture of a comet from space was taken. (1973)

Vatican recognized Israel. (1993)

The lowest ever United Kingdom temperature of -27.2°C was recorded at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. (1995)

An Islamic militant shot and killed three U.S. Christian missionaries working at a Baptist-run hospital in Yemen. (2002)

Today in HisStory – December 29

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by four knights of English King Henry II. He was heard saying, “I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace.” (1170)

Sebastian Castellio died at Basle, Switzerland. He is remembered for his book Concerning Heretics which called for religious tolerance.  (1563)

French Revolution: The Assembly of Notables was convened. (1786)

War of 1812: The USS Constitution captured the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle. (1812)

War of 1812: British burned Buffalo, New York to the ground. (1813)

The Treaty of New Echota was signed. It ceded all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States. (1835)

Texas was admitted as 28th US state. (1845)

Gas lights were first installed at White House under US President Polk. (1848)

First American Young Men’s Christian Association, YMCA, chapter opened in Boston, Massachusetts. (1851)

Emma Snodgrass was arrested in Boston for wearing pants. (1852)

The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior, was launched. (1860)

Bowling ball was invented. (1862)

US Civil War: In the Battle of Chichasaw Bayou, Confederate Armies defeated General William T. Sherman. (1862)

First telegraph ticker was used by a brokerage house, Groesbeck & Co, New York. (1867)

Popular American hymnwriter Philip P. Bliss, song leader for DL Moody, died when the train in which he and his wife were riding plunged off a bridge into a ravine 60 feet below. (1876)

US 7th Cavalry massacred 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. (1890)

Thomas Edison patented radio signals. (1891)

Sidney Brooks became the first victim of the Boxer Rebellion. He was ssaulted near Tai’an, China. He was beaten and pricked with knives, led about with a rope through his nose, forced to stand in his underwear in freezing conditions, and finally beheaded after he managed to flee to a nearby ravine. (1899)

Thomas B. Welch. A fervent Methodist, died. A temperance man, he had promised a recovering alcoholic that he would find a way to make a non-alcoholic communion drink. He developed Welch’s grape juice. (1903)

Allen Yuan, Chinese preacher who was sentenced to life in prison for openly preaching the Gospel, was converted to Christianity. (1936)

WW2: Germany dropped its 1st incendiary bombs on London during the worst night of the Blitz. (1940)

Star Trek’s Trouble With Tribbles first aired. (1967)

Life magazine ceased publication. (1972)

Hong Kong began slaughtering all its chickens to prevent bird flu. (1997)

Today in HisStory – December 28

Westminster Abbey was dedicated. (1065)

Educator, Bible translator, and church reformer John Wycliffe suffered a paralyzing stroke while saying Mass. He died three days later. (1384)

Galileo observed the planet Neptune, but he didn’t know it was a planet. (1612)

Aaron, a Tamil catechist, became the first Indian pastor ordained by the Lutheran mission at Tranquebar, India. (1733)

French Revolution: American Patriot Thomas Paine was arrested in France for treason. (1793)

Krishna Pal, following his conversion from Hinduism to Christianity under the teaching of William Carey and his co-workers was baptised. He preached the gospel to fellow Indians. (1800)

American Colonization Society was organized. (1816)

Confederate General William Taliaferro was born in Gloucester County, Virginia. (1822)

John C. Calhoun became the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office. He resigned due to differences with President Andrew Jackson. (1832)

Spain recognized the independence of Mexico. (1836)

M Jolly-Bellin discovered dry-cleaning when he accidentally upset lamp containing turpentine and oil on his clothing saw the cleaning effect. (1849)

US Civil War: Harriet Tubman arrived in Auburn, New York on her last mission to free slaves. Known as Moses, she evaded capture for eight years on the Underground Railroad. (1860)

United States claimed Midway Island, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits. (1867)

William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio patented chewing gum. (1869)

The Knights of Labor, a labor union of tailors in Philadelphia, held the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. (1869)

World’s first commercial movie was screened in Paris. (1895)

Carry Nation attacked a saloon in Wichita, Kansas, shattering a large mirror behind the bar and throwing rocks at a titillating painting of Cleopatra bathing. (1900)

The most destructive earthquake in recorded European history struck Southern Italy. The earthquake and tsunami it caused killed an estimated 100,000 people. (1908)

All Kalmyk inhabitants of the Republic of Kalmukkie were deported by the Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia. Many died en route. (1943)

Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. (1945)

WW2: Jacob DeShazzar, one of America’s Doolittle Raiders, returned to Japan to evangelize the country he bombed during the war. (1948)

Korean War: Chinese troops crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea. (1950)

Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a book about Stalin’s prison camps in central Asia, was published. (1973)

Akron Ohio’s Chamber of Commerce terminated itself from Soap Box Derby. (1973)

US President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law. (1973)

First American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, was born in Norfolk, Virginia. (1981)

U.S. immigration judge ordered John Demjanjuk deported to Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II. (2005)

Vladimir Putin signed into law a ban on US adoption of Russian children. (2012)

Two-year-old child in Guinea dies of an unidentified haemorraghic fever. His mother, sister, and grandmother soon followed. This was the first sign of Ebola epidemic. (2013)

Today in HisStory – December 27

Spanish Crown issued the Laws of Burgos governing the conduct of settlers with regards to native Indians in the New World. (1512)

Thomas Cartwright died. He was a Puritan author, educator, controversialist, and preacher who had frequently attacked practices of the Church of England as unbiblical. (1603)

Flushing Remonstrance petition was signed in the Dutch colony of New Netherland protesting the ban on Quaker worship. (1657)

War of 1812: Carolina Schooner was destroyed. It was Commodore Daniel Patterson’s make-shift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions contributing to Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans. (1814)

First public railway using a steam locomotive was completed in England between Stockton and Darlington. (1825)

Ether was first used in childbirth in US. (1845)

Christian temperance leader Carry Nation raided and wrecked her first saloon in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. (1899)

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie premiered at the Duke of York Theater in London. (1904)

WW1: Great Poland Uprising against the Germans began. (1918)

Stalin’s faction won All-Union Congress in USSR. Trotsky was expelled. (1927)

Radio City Music Hall opened. (1932)

Between 20,000 and 40,000 died in a magnitude 8 quake in Erzincam, Turkey. (1939)

WW2: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered his secretary of war to seize properties belonging to the Montgomery Ward Company because the company refused to comply with a labor agreement. (1944)

The World Bank was created with the signing of an agreement by 28 nations. (1945)

Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown. (1979)

Terrorists killed 20 and wounded 110 when they attacked El Al at Rome and Vienna airports. US President Reagan blamed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. (1985)

Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reached Earth. It was the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on this planet. (2004)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber. (2007)

NASA unveiled plans to capture a 500 ton asteroid in 2025. (2012)

Today in HisStory – December 26

La Navidad, the first Spanish settlement in the New World, was founded by Columbus. (1492)

William Shakespeare’s play King Lear was performed at the court of England’s King James I. (1606)

Plymouth Colony was settled and construction was started by the Mayflower colonists. (1620)

The crimes of Elizabeth Báthory, the most prolific female serial killer who murdered hundreds of young girls, were uncovered. (1620)

American Revolutionary War: Tea ships were expelled from Philadelphia. (1773)

American Revolutionary War: General George Washington won the Battle of Trenton after a surprise attack on Hessians that were dazed from too many Christmas celebrations. (1776)

French Revolution: During the trial of French King Louis XVI, the court heard the king’s defense brought by Raymond Desèze. (1792)

George Washington was eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as “First in war, First in peace and First in hearts of his countrymen.” (1799)

A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia killed the Governor of Virginia, George William Smith, and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia, Abraham B. Venable. (1811)

Decembrist uprising in Russia against Tsar Nicholas I began. (1825)

WW1: US Government took over US railroads for duration of the war. (1917)

Judy Garland, age 2½ and billed as Baby Frances, made her show business debut. (1924)

Bolsheviks shot Isaac the Younger, a holy father of the Russian Orthodox Church. (1937)

WW2: Winston Churchill became the first British Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of the US Congress warning that Axis would “stop at nothing.” (1941)

WW2: Earl Claus von Stauffenberg took a bomb to Hitlers headquarter. It didn’t kill Hitler as he intended. (1943)

Mobster Bugsy Siegel opened The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. (1946)

Hungarian authorities arrested Cardinal Josef Mindszenty, an outspoken critic of communism. (1948)

Demos Shakarian, founder of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International, saw  a vision the night he planned to disband the fellowship and changed his mind. From that day, the fellowship grew into a huge international movement with over one thousand chapters world wide and resulted in the conversion of hundreds of thousands of people. (1952)

Porgy and Bess, an opera featuring an African-American cast, opened in Leningrad. (1955)

The first day of the first Kwanzaa was celebrated in Los Angeles. The seven-day holiday, which has strong African roots, was designed as a celebration of African American family, community, and culture. (1966)

TIME’s Man of the Year was a computer. (1982)

Nigerian Christians falsely accused of defecating on a Koran were dragged out of jail and beheaded by a mob. (1994)

Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. (1996)

A 9.3 magnitude earthquake created a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people, including some towns with large Christian populations. (2004)

Today in HisStory – December 25

Christ was born according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguous. (1 AD)

The first possible celebration of Christmas took place. (337 AD)

First definite date Christmas was celebrated on Dec 25th took place. (352 AD)

Clovis, the first French Christian king, and 4,000 of his troops became Christians and were baptized. (496 AD)

England adopted the Julian calendar. (597 AD)

Thousands of Anglo-Saxons were baptized by the missionary Augustine, an important date in the Christianization of Southern England. (597 AD)

Duke William of Normandy, also known as William the Conqueror, was crowned King of England. (1066)

Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony forbad game playing on Christmas. (1621)

Isaac Newton was born. (1642)

Christmas Island was founded and named by Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary. (1643)

John Evelyn defied the an English Parliament law banning Christmas and attended a Christmas sermon at Exeter Chapel in London. (1657)

Massachusetts General Court banned the observance of Christmas under penalty of stiff fines. The law stood for over twenty years. (1659)

The Dunkards, also known as German Baptists, held their first immersion service in America at Germantown, Pennsylvania. (1723)

Astronomer Anders Celsius introduced the Centigrade temperature scale. (1741)

American Revolutionary War: General George Washington crossed the Delaware with his troops, surprised, and defeated 1,400 Hessians. (1776)

Physician Ephraim McDowell performed the first abdominal surgery in the U.S, an ovariotomy to remove a 22 lb ovarian tumor. (1809)

First known Christmas carol Silent Night, Holy Night was sung in Austria. (1818)

Handel’s Messiah premiered in the US in Boston. (1818)

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, was born. (1821)

Louisiana and Arkansas were the first states to officially observe Christmas as a holiday. (1831)

US Civil War: Christmas for Union soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes was recorded in his famous diary that spanned four years of the war. (1862)

US Civil War: US President Andrew Johnson granted unconditional pardons to all persons involved in Southern rebellion. (1868)

Stars & Stripes Forever was written by John Philip Sousa (1896)

Japanese evangelist Toyohiko Kagawa crossed the Higurashi Bridge to serve in the slums of Shinkawa. (1909)

WW1: Legendary Christmas Truce ceased fighting among enemies. Instead of fighting, soldiers exchanged gifts and played football. (1914)

First electrically-lit Christmas tree appeared in the White House while Calvin Coolidge was US president. (1923)

Montgomery Ward introduced Rudolph the 9th reindeer. (1939)

Bing Crosby sang White Christmas in public for the first time. (1941)

Japanese scientist achieved -271.8°C, coldest temperature ever recorded. (1989)

Show trial of Romanian Commuinst dicator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena on charges of genocide and personal enrichment took place. The couple were found guilty and executed by firing squad the same day. (1989)

The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web took place. (1990)

Mikhail Gorbachev formally resigned as President of USSR in a televised speech. (1991)

Islamic terrorists bombed Nigerian churches in Madalla, Jos, Kano, Damaturu, and Gadaka, killing dozens of Christians during Christmas services. (2011)

Today in HisStory – December 24

Francis of Assisi arranged the first living manger depiction on Christmas Eve. (1223)

Patriot, physician, and social reformer Benjamin Rush was born. (1745)

Methodism was officially organized in the newly-independent United States of America. (1784)

Kit Carson, famous pioneer of the Old West, was born. (1809)

War of 1812: The Ghent Treaty of Peace and Amity ended the war. (1814)

Silent Night was sung for the very first time at St. Nicholas Church in Austria. (1818)

Fire devastated the US Library of Congress in Washington and destroyed 35,000 volumes, including most of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library sold to the institution in 1815. (1851)

US Civil War: A Union fleet under Admiral David Dixon Porter began a bombardment of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. The attack failed to destroy the fort. (1864)

US Civil War: Several Confederate veterans formed the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee. (1865)

The Northside Tabernacle in Chicago was dedicated by evangelist Dwight L. Moody. (1871)

Thomas Edison filed a patents for the phonograph. (1877)

Daniel Stover and William Hance patented a bicycle with a back pedal brake. (1889)

Henry Ford completed his first useful petroleum fueled engine. (1893)

Private companies were allowed to use the word postcard in the US. Previously they were labelled Private Mailing Cards and known as souvenir cards. (1901)

Irving Fisher patented an archiving system with index cards. (1912)

Lottie Moon, who had served as a Baptist missionary in China, died. Her appeals had led to the formation of the Women’s Missionary Union. (1912)

WW1: A German plane dropped bombs on Dover England. (1914)

US President Calvin Coolidge touched a button and lit up the first national Christmas tree to grace the White House grounds. (1923)

WW2: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed General Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied forces. (1943)

Astronauts James A. Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman read passages from Genesis to the world as Apollo VIII became the first manned vehicle to circle the moon. (1968)

Vietnam War: Comedian Bob Hope gave his last Christmas show to U.S. servicemen in Saigon. (1972)

District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government. (1973)

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. (1979)

Americans remembered Iran hostages by shining lights for 417 seconds. (1980)

Muslims from the organization Boko Haram murdered Pastor Bulus Marwa of the Victory Baptist Church in Alamuderi, Nigeria, along with other Christians on the site, and burned down the church. (2010)

Today in HisStory – December 23

In the Byzantine-Arab Wars, Byzantine troops stormed city of Aleppo and recovered the tattered tunic of John the Baptist. (962 AD)

Philip of Moscow, leader of the Russian Church, was martyred for speaking out against Ivan the Terrible’s mass executions. (1569)

Robert Barclay, Scottish Quaker theologian, was born. (1648)

John Cotton, minister in colonial Massachusetts and father of New England Congregationalism, died. (1652)

King James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, fled to France from William of Orange. (1688)

English astronomer John Flamsteed observed Uranus without realizing it’s undiscovered. (1690)

American Revolutionary War: Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” (1776)

American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold was court-martialed for improper conduct. (1779)

American Revolutionary War: General George Washington resigned his military commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Congress. (1783)

Maryland voted to cede a 10 sqaure mile area for District of Columbia. (1788)

Jean Francois Champollion was born. He was the founder of modern Egyptology and man who successfully decoded the hieroglyphics of the Rosetta Stone. (1790)

Emma By Jane Austen was published. (1815)

Visit from St Nicholas by Clement Moore was published. (1823)

US Civil War: Union General Ben “Beast” Butler was proclaimed a “felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind” by Jefferson Davis. (1862)

Women of Hillsboro, Ohio marched to the places that served liquor in town and by appeals and prayer shut most of them down. Within fifty days, saloons in two hundred and fifty Ohio cities were also shut down. (1873)

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear with a razor and sent it to a prostitute for safe keeping. (1888)

First all-steel passengar railroad coach was completed in Altoona, Pennsylvania. (1907)

First Keystone Kops film, Hoffmeyer’s Legacy, premiered. (1912)

Alice H Parker patented a gas heating furnace. (1919)

Government of Ireland Act, also known as the Home Rule Act, passed, partitioning Ireland. (1920)

BBC Radio began daily newscasts. (1922)

Edith Warner’s remains were laid to rest. She had been a missionary for thirty-three years in Niger and explored areas never before seen by a white person. (1925)

Bette Davis arrived in Hollywood under contract to Universal Studios. (1930)

WW2: The execution of Eddie Slovik was authorized by General Eisenhower. He was the first man executed for desertion since the Civil War. (1944)

WW2: In Japan, Hideki Tojo, former Japanese premier and chief of the Kwantung Army, and six others were executed for their war crimes. (1948)

The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, was released. (1951)

The first human kidney transplant was performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. (1954)

First US case of space motion sickness was reported. (1968)

Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders became the first men to orbit the Moon. (1968)

Four women were ordained priests in Jamaica for the first time in Anglican history. (1996)

Terry Nichols was found guilty of manslaughter in Oklahoma City bombing. (1997)

A MQ-1 Predator was shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25. It was the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat. (2002)