May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you securely on high!


Psalm 20:1

0439: Death of St. Mesrop

0607: Election of Pope Boniface III

1377: Wycliffe called to trial before the Bishop of London

1408: In England, the Northumberland Rebellion ended when Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, was defeated by Henry IV at the Battle of Bramham Moor.

1479: Antonello da Messina, Italian painter, dies

1583: Joseph Sanalbo, a convert to Judaism, burned at the stake in Rome

1594: Coronation of Sigsimund III, King of Poland, as King of Sweden

1600: Burning of Giordano Bruno, philosopher.

1602: Death of Duke of Mercoeur

1611: Arrest of Fr. Louis Gaufridi for witchcraft

1800: Napoleon Bonaparte proclaims himself First Consul of the newly established French dictatorship.

1803: Congress voted to accept Ohio's borders and constitution. (However, Congress did not get around to formally ratifying Ohio statehood until -- believe it or not -- 1953.)

1807: Former Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. (He was subsequently tried for treason and acquitted.)

1846: The Texas state government was formally installed in Austin.

1856: The tintype camera was patented by Professor Hamilton L. Smith of Gambier, Ohio.

1859: Dan Sickles was acquitted of murdering his wife's lover on grounds of temporary insanity. His case was the first time this defense was used successfully in the United States.

1861: Russian Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom.

1864: The Knights of Pythias was founded in Washington, D.C. A dozen members formed what became Lodge No. 1.

1878: Thomas Edison patented the first gramophone. He secured patent No. 200,521.

1881: Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1902: Smallpox vaccination becomes obligatory in France.

1903: The Austria-Hungary government decrees a mandatory two year military service.

1909: Theodore Roosevelt calls for a world conference on conservation.

1913: The first "prize" was placed in a Cracker Jack box.

1917: American troops are recalled from the Mexican border.

1918: A decree was issued by the Soviet Central Executive Committee abolishing all private ownership of land, water and natural resources in Russia.

1921: The U.S. Red Cross reports that approximately 20,000 children die yearly in auto accidents.

1922: Ed Wynn became the first big-name vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent. Previously, top talent had not considered radio a respectable medium.

1923: Jean Sibelius's Sixth Symphony premiered. This symphony doesn't have the cold grandeur of other Sibelius works. But what it does have, in the first movement, is a fascinating by-play between the key of C Major and the Dorian mode, which is equivalent to a white key scale on D.

1925: President Coolidge proposes the phasing out of inheritance tax.

1926: Dr. Lane of Princeton estimates the earth’s age at one billion years.

1934: George Gershwin once had his own radio show. It premiered on this date sponsored by Feen-a-mint, a laxative.

1942: President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans.

1942: During World War Two, about 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the Australian city of Darwin.

1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the U.S. military the power to relocate and intern "any and all persons." The order was used to detain some 110,000 Japanese-Americans, most of them U.S.-born citizens.

1942: The New York Yankees announced that they would admit 5,000 uniformed servicemen free to each of their home ball games during the coming season.

1945: 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima in the Western Pacific where they encountered ferocious resistance from Japanese forces. The Americans took control after a month-long battle.

1949: The first Bollingen Prize for poetry was awarded to Ezra Pound for his collection, The Pisan Cantos. This award was controversial because Pound had been charged with treason after making pro-Fascist broadcasts in Italy.

1953: The State of Georgia approved the nation's first literature censorship board. Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation.

1959: An agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence.

1963: The Soviet Union informed President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of an estimated 17-thousand Soviet troops in Cuba.

1965: Fourteen Vietnam War protesters are arrested for blocking U.N. doors in New York.

1966: Robert F. Kennedy suggests the U.S. offer the Vietcong a role in governing South Vietnam.

1968: The teachers in state of Florida went on strike in the first statewide teacher's strike in the United States.

1976: Iceland broke off diplomatic relations with Britain after the two countries failed to agree over fishing rights in disputed waters. The dispute became known as the "Cod War."

1976: Britain slashes welfare spending.

1977: President Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose").

1981: George Harrison was ordered to pay ABKCO Music $587,000 for "subconscious plagiarism" between his song "My Sweet Lord" and the Chiffons early 1960's hit, "He's So Fine."

1981: The U.S. State Department calls El Salvador a "textbook case" of a Communist plot.

1981: George Harrison was ordered to pay ABKCO Music the sum of $587,000 for "subconscious plagiarism" between his song, "My Sweet Lord" and the Chiffons early 1960s hit, "He's So Fine".

1982: Receivers were appointed in Northern Ireland to manage the affairs of the De Lorean car company.

1983: 13 people were found shot to death at a gambling club in Seattle's Chinatown district in what became known as the "Wah Mee Massacre." (Two Chinese immigrants were later convicted of the killings.)

1984: The XIV Winter Olympic Games ended at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union led all countries with 25 medals, the United States captured nine medals to tie for fifth place.

1985: About 150 people were killed when a Spanish jetliner crashed into a mountain while approaching the airport at Bilbao, Spain.

1985: Cherry Coke was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company.

1985: Mickey Mouse was welcomed to China as part of the 30th anniversary of Disneyland.

1985: William Schroeder became the first artificial heart patient to leave the confines of the hospital (where the historic operation was performed). He spent 15 minutes outside Humana Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

1986: The Senate endorsed the United Nations convention against genocide, 37 years after President Truman first sought approval of the accord.

1986: The Senate also passed a resolution declaring the Philippine presidential election had been marked by "widespread fraud."

1986: Former U.S. Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi died at age 81.

1987: Taking Democratic leaders and some of his closest aides by surprise, New York Governor Mario Cuomo announced during a radio call-in program that he would not run for president in 1988.

1987: A controversial, anti-smoking ad aired for the first time on television. It featured actor Yul Brynner in a public service announcement that was recorded shortly before he died of lung cancer.

1988: A group calling itself the "Organization of the Oppressed on Earth" claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in Lebanon of US Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins. (Higgins was later slain by his captors.)

1989: Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini rejected the apology of "Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie, exhorting Muslims to "send him to hell" for committing-blasphemy.

1990: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, snubbed by Philippine President Corazon Aquino, met in Manila with Defense Minister Fidel Ramos to discuss the future of U.S. military bases in the country.

1991: President Bush told reporters a Soviet proposal to end the Persian Gulf War fell "well short of what would be required."

1991: Russian federation President Boris Yeltsin delivered an unprecedented public appeal for Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to resign.

1992: Former Irish Republican Army fighter Joseph Doherty was deported from the United States to a jail in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following a 10-year battle for political asylum.

1993: President Clinton's economic plan won praise from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The president, visiting Hyde Park, New York, suggested the US might have to consider a national sales tax "not too long in the future," then said he'd meant in ten years or so.

1994: With Bosnian Serbs facing a NATO deadline to withdraw heavy weapons encircling Sarajevo or face air strikes, President Clinton delivered an address from the Oval Office reaffirming the ultimatum.

1994: American speedskater Bonnie Blair won the fourth Olympic gold medal of her career as she won the 500-meter race in Lillehammer, Norway.

1995: A day after being named the new chairwoman of the NAACP, Myrlie Evers-Williams outlined her plans for revitalizing the civil rights organization, saying she intended to take the group back to its grass roots.

1996: Republican presidential hopefuls argued taxes, trade and negative ads in a final burst of contentious campaigning on the eve of New Hampshire's leadoff primary, with Bob Dole the principal target.

1996: Baseball showman Charlie O. Finley died in Chicago at age 77.

1997: Deng Xiaoping, the last of China's major Communist revolutionaries, died.

1997: Detroit's daily newspapers accepted a back-to-work offer from employees who'd been on strike for 19 months, but the strikers charged the conditions for return amounted to a lockout

1998: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan set out for Iraq on a last-chance peace mission, saying he was "reasonably optimistic" about ending the standoff over weapons inspections without the use of force.

1998: At the Nagano Olympics, Austrian Hermann Maier won the men's giant slalom while Hilde Gerg of Germany won the women's slalom.

1998: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright again drew a sceptical response from America's heartland to the tough U.S. policy on Iraq. Her reception in a lecture hall in Nashville, Tennassee, was polite, in contrast to the raucous session of heckling in Columbus, Ohio, but the student questioners displayed similar mistrust of the policy.

1998: Northern California got walloped again with high winds and drenching rain as yet another El Nino-driven storm pounded in from the Pacific. Police in Petaluma, 30 miles north of San Francisco, ordered mandatory evacuation of about 60 homes threatened by flooding, while a flash flood watch was issued for the entire San Francisco Bay area.

1999: President Clinton posthumously pardoned Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point, whose military career was tarnished by a racially motivated discharge.

2000: George W. Bush defeated John McCain in the South Carolina Republican primary.