This Day in History – November 18, 2011

326 The old St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated. 1307 William Tell shoots an apple off his son’s head. 1493 Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico. 1626 St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated. 1686 Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France’s anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants. 1805 30 women meet at Mrs Silas Lee’s home in Wiscasset, Maine, organizes Female Charitable Society, the first woman’s club in America 1820 US Navy Captain Nathaniel B Palmer discovers Antarctica 1865 Mark Twain’s short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press. 1883 American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times. 1894 1st newspaper Sunday color comic section published (NY World) 1903 The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the United States exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone. 1909 Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya. 1913 Lincoln Deachey performs 1st airplane loop-the-loop (San Diego) 1926 George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize”. 1928 Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey’s birthday. 1936 Main span of Golden Gate Bridge joined 1940 World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini’s disastrous invasion of Greece. 1940 New York City’s “Mad Bomber” George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison. 1943 World War II Battle of Berlin: 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses nine aircraft and 53 air crew. 1960 Copyright office issues its 10 millionth registration 1961 US Ranger 2 launched to Moon; failed 1961 United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam. 1963 The first push-button telephone goes into service. 1964 J Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King as “most notorious liar” 1966 US RC bishops did away with rule against eating meat on Fridays 1970 Russia lands self propelled rover on the Moon 1970 U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for $155 million USD in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government. 1975 Calvin Murphy (Houston) ends NBA free throw streak 58 games 1978 In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple cult to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier. 1985 Enterprise (OV-101) flies from Kennedy Space Center to Dulles Airport Washington, DC, & turned over to the Smithsonian Institution 1988 War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for drug traffickers. 1990 Saddam offers to free an estimated 2,000 men held in Kuwait 1991 France deports Marlon’s daughter Cheyenne Brando to Tahiti 1991 Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon release Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland. 1993 In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is ratified by the House of Representatives. 1999 In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when the 59-foot-tall (18 m) Aggie Bonfire, under construction for the annual football game against the University of Texas, collapses at 2:42am. 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.]]]]> ]]>