They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support. NIV


Psalm   18:18

0606: Death of Pope Sabinian

1072: Death of St. Pietro Damiani

1076: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates, anethemizes and deposes the Emperor Henry IV, and releases his subjects from their oaths of obedience.

1077: Deadline set by Tribur for Emperor Henry IV of Germany to submit to Rome

1276: Coronation of Pope Innocent V

1297: Death of St. Margaret of Cortona

1349: Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.

1452: Murder of William, the Earl of Douglas, by James II, King of Scots

1512: Death of Amerigo Vespucci

1595: Robert Southwell, English poet, hanged for becoming a Catholic priest

1613: Accession of Romanov dynasty to Russian throne

1630: Indians introduce pilgrims to popcorn, at Thanksgiving

1638: The call for a National Covenant of Scotland is published

1652: Earliest grant of tolerance to Jews in the New World in the Dutch West Indies

1784: A US merchant ship, the "Empress of China," left New York City for the Far East.

1819: Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

1821: Spain sells eastern Florida to the U.S. for $5 million.

1825: Russia and Britain establish the Alaska/Canada boundary.

1862: Jefferson Davis is inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the second time. Jefferson Davis'

1864: Nathan Bedford Forrest's brother, Jeffrey, is killed at Okolona, Miss.

1865: Federal troops capture Wilmington, N.C.

1865: Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.

1879: Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, New York.

1889: President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the Union.

1892: "Lady Windermere's Fan," by Oscar Wilde, was first performed, at London's St. James's Theater.

1900: Hawaii becomes a US Territory.

1902: A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.

1909: The Great White Fleet returns to Norfolk, Va., from an around-the-world show of naval power.

1911: Canadian Parliament votes to preserve the union with the British Empire.

1920: The American Relief Administration appeals to the public to pressure Congress to aid starving European cities.

1924: Columbia University declares radio education a success.

1924: Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

1926: Pope Pius rejects Mussolini's offer of aid to the Vatican.

1931: Maurice Chevalier recorded "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" for Victor Records in New York City.

1932: Adolf Hitler is the Nazi Party candidate for the presidential elections in Germany. The election of Hitler was the beginning of the Thousand-Year Reich.

1935: All plane flights over the White House are barred because they are disturbing President Roosevelt's sleep.

1949: Gorgeous George and Ernie Dusek ushered in a brand new era in professional wrestling on this night, with the debut of "flying leaps, sequins and schmaltz" according to the sports scribes covering the event.

1951: The Atomic Energy Commission discloses information about the first atom-powered airplane.

1952: The U.S. signs a military aid pact with Peru.

1958: U.S. is to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.

1962: A Soviet bid for new Geneva arms talks is turned down by the U.S.

1963: Moscow warns the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.

1965: Filming began for the Beatles' second movie, "HELP!", in the Bahamas.

1967: A report from Africa indicates that the world's first white gorilla has been found.

1972: President Nixon meets with Mao Tse-tung in Peking.

1973: The United States and Communist China agreed to establish liaison offices.

1980: In a stunning upset, the United States Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, New York, 4-to-3. (The U-S team went on to win the gold medal.)

1984: Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf following an Iranian offensive against Iraq.

1987: Pop artist Andy Warhol died at a New York City hospital at age 58.

1988: In Lebanon, the kidnappers of US Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins released a videotape in which Higgins asked the US to meet his abductors' demands.

1988: Bonnie Blair of the US won the women's 500-meter speed-skating event at the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Canada.

1989: Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who had sentenced author Salman Rushdie to death, said economic sanctions would not change his stance, and that publication of Rushdie's book, "The Satanic Verses," was a sign from God that Iran should not reach out to the West.

1990: Former President Reagan's videotaped testimony for the trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter was released in Washington; in his deposition, Reagan said he never had "any inkling" his aides were secretly arming the Nicaraguan Contras.

1991: President George Bush and America's Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the "shameful" U.S. ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the United States had rejected. 

1993: The UN Security Council unanimously approved creation of an international war crimes tribunal to punish those responsible for atrocities in former Yugoslavia.

1993: A jury was seated in Los Angeles in the federal trial of four police officers accused of violating Rodney King's civil rights.

1994: The Justice Department charged 31-year CIA veteran Aldrich Ames and his wife, Rosario, with selling US national security secrets to the Soviet Union. (Ames was later sentenced to life in prison; his wife received a five-year prison term.)

1995: France accused four American diplomats and a fifth U.S. citizen of spying, and asked them to leave the country.

1995: Security forces in Algiers crushed a prison uprising by Islamic extremists, resulting in 96 deaths by official count. 

1996: The space shuttle Columbia blasted into orbit on a mission to unreel a satellite on the end of a 12.8 mile cord. 

1996: President Clinton announced he would nominate Alan Greenspan to a third term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

1996: Russia and the head of the International Monetary Fund reached a deal for a loan of more than $10 billion dollars to back up free-market reforms. 

1997: Cutbacks began under new welfare law limiting childless adults, under age 50 and able to work, to three months of food stamps in any three-year period.

1997: Albert Shanker, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers who championed public school reforms, died in New York at age 68.

1998: Abraham A. Ribicoff, the former Connecticut governor and senator who served as President Kennedy's secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, died in Riverdale, New York, at age 87.

1998: The Czech Republic defeated Russia 1-to-0 to win men's hockey as the Nagano Winter Olympics came to a close.

1998: Monica Lewinsky's lawyer said there was no "quid pro quo" for the help presidential confidant Vernon Jordan gave the former White House intern to find a public relations job.

1999: Levi Strauss, falling victim to a fashion generation gap, announced it was closing 11 plants.

2000: John McCain won Republican primaries in Michigan and his home state of Arizona.