On This Day...

1890. "Sitting Bull" killed by Indian police ...

One of the most famous Native Americans of the 19th century, Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) was a fierce enemy of
Anglo-Americans from a young age. However, Sitting Bull’s tactics were generally more defensive than aggressive,
especially as he grew older and became a Sioux leader.

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Fundamentally, Sitting Bull and those associated with his tribe wished only to be left alone to pursue their traditional ways,
but the Anglo settlers’ growing interest in the land and the resulting confinement of Indians to government-controlled
reservations inevitably led to conflicts. Sitting Bull’s refusal to follow an 1875 order to bring his people to the Sioux reservation
directly led to the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which the Sioux and Cheyenne wiped out five troops
of Custer’s 7th Cavalry ... [Versteckter Link - Registrierung notwendig]

Roald Amundsen reaches the south pole ...

On 14 December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team
became the first people to reach the South Pole. They beat Captain Robert
Falcon Scott's British expedition by over a month.

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By November 1912 Amudsen was in Britain to promote The South Pole, his
book about the expedition. The Guardian and The Observer acknowledged
the explorer's success, devoting a number of columns to his conquest including
praise from Sir Ernest Shackleton and a diary piece about him shaving off his beard.

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1901. Marconi sends first Atlantic wireless transmission ...

On this day Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio
transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the
earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less.

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The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from
Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.

John Lennon is assassinated in New York City ...

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed popular music in
the 1960s, is shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New York City.

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The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment building when Mark David Chapman
shot him four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely, was rushed
to the hospital but died en route. Chapman had received an autograph from Lennon earlier in the day
and voluntarily remained at the scene of the shooting until he was arrested by police.

1945. Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle ...

On this day at 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off
from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission.
Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back
over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.

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Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than
six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown.
The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to
find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages
from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently
calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

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By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas
and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew.
Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner
was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible
explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.

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The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas
searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean,
the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.



Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not
found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the “Lost Squadron”
helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships
and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from
the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

Napoleon crowned emperor ...

In Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold
the title of emperor in a thousand years. Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old
conqueror of Europe placed on his own head.

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The Corsican-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of
the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe,
and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse.

The first published issue of the magazine "Playboy"

Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner leaves behind a polarising personal legacy,
reflective of the divisiveness of the man and the myth which surrounded him.

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By publishing the first issue on December 1. 1953, with Hollywood’s most iconic and
intriguing star Marilyn Monroe at its heart, Hefner would change the way middle America thought about sex – and art.

1520. Magellan reaches the Pacific ...

After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now bear his name, Portuguese
navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific Ocean with three ships, becoming the first European
explorer to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic.

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On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The Strait of Magellan, as it became
known, is located near the tip of South America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland.
Only three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another deserted. It took 38 days to
navigate the treacherous strait, and when ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy.
His fleet accomplished the westward crossing of the ocean in 99 days, crossing waters so strangely calm
that the ocean was named “Pacific,” from the Latin word pacificus, meaning “tranquil.” By the end, the men
were out of food and chewed the leather parts of their gear to keep themselves alive. On March 6, 1521,
the expedition landed at the island of Guam.

Pope Urban II preaches first Crusade ...

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades
by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of “Deus vult!” or “God wills it!”

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By the end of the 11th century, the Holy Land—the area now commonly referred to as the Middle East—had become
a point of conflict for European Christians. Since the 6th century, Christians frequently made pilgrimages to the birthplace
of their religion, but when the Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem, Christians were barred from the Holy City.

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When the Turks then threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire and take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I
made a special appeal to Urban for help. This was not the first appeal of its kind, but it came at an important time for Urban.
Wanting to reinforce the power of the papacy, Urban seized the opportunity to unite Christian Europe under him as he fought
to take back the Holy Land from the Turks.

1922. English archaeologist Howard Carter opens Tutankhamun's virtually intact tomb in Egypt...

When Carter arrived in Egypt in 1891, he became convinced there was at least one undiscovered tomb–that of the little known Tutankhamen,
or King Tut, who lived around 1400 B.C. and died when he was still a teenager. Backed by a rich Brit, Lord Carnarvon, Carter searched for
five years without success. In early 1922, Lord Carnarvon wanted to call off the search, but Carter convinced him to hold on one more year.

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In November 1922, the wait paid off, when Carter’s team found steps hidden in the debris near the entrance of another tomb. The steps led to
an ancient sealed doorway bearing the name Tutankhamen. When Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb’s interior chambers on November 26,
they were thrilled to find it virtually intact, with its treasures untouched after more than 3,000 years.

Freddie Mercury died at aged 45 ...

Freddie Mercury or Farrokh Bulsara - Born of Parsi descent, Mercury was famously
flamboyant on stage and known for his vocal range.

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Mercury died of complications from Aids, at a time when much stigma was attached
to the disease and only confirmed he had contracted the disease a day before his death.

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We remember ...

Birthday of computer game «World of Warcraft»

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004
by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe.
World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events
at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment
announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001.

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The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

Blackbeard was killed ...

[Versteckter Link - Registrierung notwendig], also known as Blackbeard, is killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody
battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia. Teach became the most infamous pirate of his day,
winning the popular name of Blackbeard for his long, dark beard, which he was said to light on fire
during battles to intimidate his enemies. Blackbeard’s pirate forces terrorized the Caribbean and the
southern coast of North America and were notorious for their cruelty.

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Edward Teach likely began his pirating career in 1713, when he became a crewman aboard a Caribbean
sloop commanded by pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, after Hornigold accepted an offer of general
amnesty by the British crown and retired as a pirate, Teach took over a captured 26-gun French merchantman,
increased its armament to 40 guns, and renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

American "Essex" vessel sunk by huge whale ...

On this day - The American whaler Essex, which hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, is attacked
by an 80-ton sperm whale 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America.

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The 238-ton Essex was in pursuit of sperm whales, specifically the precious oil and bone that could be derived
from them, when an enraged bull whale rammed the ship twice and capsized the vessel. The 20 crew members
escaped in three open boats, but only five of the men survived the harrowing 83-day journey to the coastal waters
of South America, where they were picked up by other ships. Most of the crew resorted to cannibalism during the
long journey, and at one point men on one of the long boats drew straws to determine which of the men would be
shot in order to provide sustenance for the others. Three other men who had been left on a desolate Pacific island
were saved later.

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Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick (1851) was inspired in part by the story of the Essex.

The Teutonic Order was founded ...

[Versteckter Link - Registrierung notwendig] or Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, as a new institution was
confirmed by the German Crusader leader, Duke Frederick of Swabia, on November 19th, in the year 1190 and with
the capture of Acre, the founders of the hospital were given a permanent site in the city.

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The order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Its members
have commonly been known as the Teutonic Knights, having a small voluntary and mercenary military membership,
serving as a crusading military order for protection of Christians in the Holy Land and the Baltics during the Middle Ages.

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Some forty knights were received into the new Order at its foundation by the King of Jerusalem and Frederick of Swabia,
who selected their first Master in the name of the Pope and Emperor. The knights of the new confraternity had to be of
German birth (although this rule was occasionally relaxed), a unique requirement among the Crusader Orders founded
in the Holy Land. They were drawn predominately from the noble or knightly class, although this latter obligation was not
formally incorporated into the rule until much later. Their blue mantle, charged with a black cross, was worn over a white
tunic, a uniform recognized by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and confirmed by the Pope in 1211.