GMT 12/6/2017 Hump Day

Today in History December 6

1492-- Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Santo Domingo in search of gold.

1776-- Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity, is founded at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

1812--The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggers into Vilna, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign.

1861--Union General George G. Meade leads a foraging expedition to Gunnell's farm near Dranesville, Virginia.

1862--President Abraham Lincoln orders the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They are to be hanged on December 26.

1863--The monitor Weehawken sinks in Charleston Harbor.

1865--The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.

1876--Jack McCall is convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.

1877--Thomas A. Edison makes the first sound recording when he recites "Mary had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph machine.

1906--Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge flies a powered, man-carrying kite that carries him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

1917--The Bolsheviks imprison Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.

1921--Ireland's 26 southern counties become independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.

1922--Benito Mussolini threatens Italian newspapers with censorship if they keep reporting "false" information.

1934-- American Ambassador Davis says Japan is a grave security threat in the Pacific.

1938--France and Germany sign a treaty of friendship.

1939--Britain agrees to send arms to Finland, which is fighting off a Soviet invasion.

1941--President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.

1945--The United States extends a $3 billion loan to Great Britain to help compensate for the termination of the Lend-Lease agreement.

1947--Florida's Everglades National Park is established.

1948--The "Pumpkin Spy Papers" are found on the Maryland farm of Whittaker Chambers. They become evidence that State Department employee Alger Hiss is spying for the Soviet Union.

1957-- Vanguard TV3 explodes on the launchpad, thwarting the first US attempt to launch a satellite into Earth's orbit.

1967--Adrian Kantrowitz performs first human heart transplant in the US.

1969--Hells Angels, hired to provide security at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, beat to death concert-goer Meredith Hunter.

1971--Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India after New Delhi recognizes the state of Bangladesh.

1973--US House of Representatives confirms Gerald Ford as Vice-President of the United States, 387–35.

1975--A Provisional IRA unit takes a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London, and a 6-day siege begins.

1976--Democrat Tip O'Neill is elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He will serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.

1992--The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is destroyed during a riot that started as a political protest.

2006--NASA reveals photographs from Mars Global Surveyor that suggest the presence of water on the red planet.

Born on December 6

1421-- Henry VI, the youngest king of England to accede to the throne (only 269 days old).

1952-- Charles Bronson (Michael Gordon Peterson), criminal often called "the most violent prisoner in Britain" by the British Press.



JOKE OF THE DAY
A work week is so rough that after Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says WTF.