This Day In History

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1788 – Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia (More info) 1961 – President John F. Kennedy appoints Janet Travell as his personal physician, making her the first woman in history to hold the post (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates US transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco (More info) 1924 – The French Alps hosts the first Winter Olympics games (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1848 – James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento, triggering the California Gold Rush (More info) 1908 – In England, Robert Baden-Powell organizes the first Boy Scout troop (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the first female doctor in the United States (More info) 1957 – Machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs, better known as Frisbees (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1823 – ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas,’ more commonly known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,’ is published anonymously (More info) 1888 – Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cuts off the lower part of his left ear with a razor (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1807 – At the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress passes the Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries (More info) 1941 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, DC for a series of meetings with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a unified Anglo-American war strate

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1620 – William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts (More info) 1898 – Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans (More info) 1860 – South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1776 – Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in the Pennsylvania Journal titled ‘The American Crisis’ (More info) 1777 – George Washington’s Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1892 – The parents of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home (More info) 1944 – A tip from a Dutch informer leads Nazis to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others (More info)

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain (More info) 1900 – The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company is founded (More info) 1949 – The National Basketball Association is formed (More info) 1972 – The United States Senate ratifies the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (More info) 1981 – US air

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1789 – The storming and destruction of Bastille marks the beginning of the French Revolution (More info) 1798 – The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States, making it a federal crime to write, publish or utter false or malicious statements about the US government (More info)