On This Day

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[On This Day @_In_History]

June 28, 1838 The coronation of Queen Victoria (British Empire). The event itself was a series of bungles. The ring was jammed on the wrong finger and Victoria was called back after a bishop misread the Order of Service. She was 18 and would reign for 63 years.
#Queen #Victoria

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June 27, 1898 Joshua Slocum becomes the 1st person to sail solo around the world. His book: Sailing Alone Around the World tells of the 3 year journey in his 36 ft. sloop "Spray". He disappeared, without a trace, sailing alone in 1909. #solo #aroundtheworld #sailing

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June 26, 1974 The first #barcode is rung up on a pack of Wrigley's gum in Troy, Ohio. Norman Woodland struggled for years to find a system that worked. One day at the beach he hit upon the solution while drawing lines in the sand. That pack of gum is now in the #Smithsonian.

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June 11, 1770 Captain James Cook discovers the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. He ran aground and was stuck on it for the entire day. #Cook #GreatBarrierReef #Australia #Discovery

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October 7, 1950 Mother Teresa establishes the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. A member must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and free service to the poor. There are over 4000 members today.

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October 5, 1607 Pope Paul V sends assassins to kill Brother Paolo Sarpi in Venice for daring to suggest the clergy submit to the state. Stabbed 3 times with a stiletto he lived. His writings would go on to influence much of western civilization.

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October 4, 1883 Saw the first run of the ultra luxurious Orient Express most famously running between #Paris and #Constantinople (Istanbul). The train stopped for good in 2009 a victim of high speed trains and cheap flights.

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October 3, 2008 President George W. Bush signs the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in a desperate attempt to avoid a worldwide financial meltdown. #FinancialCrisis #Economics

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October 2, 1967 Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He would serve until 1991 and died in 1993. "You do what you think is right and let the law catch up"-T.M.

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October 1, 331 BC The Battle of Gaugamela. Alexander the Great defeats the Persian army near Gaugamela (Dohuk, Iraq). He was heavily outnumbered (47,000 vs 100,000+) but used superior tactics to overcome the odds. It spelled the end of the Achaemenid Empire. #Greece #war

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September 30, 1939 NBC televises the first American football game. It was a college game between the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets and the Fordham Rams. Fordham won the game 34-7. It reached an estimated audience of 1000 homes. #football

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September 29, 1717 Guatemala #earthquake strikes with a force of 7.4 on the Richter scale leveling the city of #Antigua (Capital of Latin America). It and subsequent earthquakes led to the movement of the town, in 1776, to a safer location where Guatemala City now stands.

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September 28, 1941 Ted Williams bats .406 for the season. He is the last baseball player to do so. #baseball #hof

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September 27, 1956 USAF pilot Captain Milburn Apt becomes the 1st person in history to fly beyond Mach 3 (2300 mph/3700 kph). Unfortunately, his plane, the Bell X-2 would never land. It crashed killing Cpt Apt. #USAF #aviation

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September 26, 1933 Machine Gun Kelly, notorious gangster surrenders to the FBI after kidnapping C.F. Urschel. He shouted, "Don't shoot, G-men!" which is where nickname for agents comes from. Kelly spent the next 21 years in jail most of them in Alcatraz. #G-men #FBI

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September 25, 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa reaches the Pacific Ocean. Bringing new knowledge to Europe. #oceans #Pacific

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September 23, 1846 Three astronomers (Le Verrier, Adams & Galle) work together on the discovery of the planet Neptune. #space #explore

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September 22, 1979 The Vela Incident. An unidentified double flash is detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite near the Prince Edward Islands near Antarctica. It is thought to have been a nuclear weapon test lead by Israel & South Africa. #Israel #SouthAfrica #nuclear

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September 21, 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor is approved by the US senate to sit on the Supreme Court. She would be the first female justice and would serve until her retirement in 2006. #US #Equality #SupremeCourt

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September 20, 1973 Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match. Speculation was that Riggs 'threw' the match but took a polygraph proved otherwise. King said, "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match." #tennis #equality