On this day

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

1854 - The Russian army was defeated by the British and French at the Battle of Alma, considered to be the first battle of the Crimean War. The first six Victoria Crosses to be awarded to the British Army for acts of bravery during the fighting were won at this battle.

1860 - The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) visited the United States. It was the first tour of North America by an heir to the British throne

1906 - The Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania was launched at the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne. At the time, she was the largest and fastest ship in the world.

1909 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the South Africa Act 1909, creating the Union of South Africa from the British Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal Colony.

1917 - The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened, in Liverpool.

1967 – RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 is launched at John Brown & Company, Clydebank, Scotland. It is operated by the Cunard Line.

1977 – The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is admitted to the United Nations.

2000 – The British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked by unapprehended forces using a Russian-built RPG-22 anti-tank missile.

2011 – The United States ends its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

2010...I wanked
2011...I wanked

1745 – Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

1776 – Part of New York City is burned (Great Fire of New York) shortly after being occupied by British forces.

1860 – In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Palikao.

1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.

1942 – The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.

1961 – Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.

1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.

2003 – The Galileo mission is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.

(20-09-2012 22:56 )cwpussylover Wrote:  2010...I wanked
2011...I wanked

I don't want to get into a discussion about religion but let's just suppose for a moment that there really is a day of judgement and when CW's time is up (probably as a result of one of the few recorded cases of wanking yourself to death) he appears before St Peter who opens The Book of Life and reads about how CW has spent his life..... .....

1862 - President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emacipation Proclamation, declaring freedom of slaves in Confederate territories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation

1908 - Independence day in Bulgaria.

1955 - A new independent television channel, Independent Television Authority (ITA), begins broadcasting. The first broadcast is live coverage of the Guildhall ceremony and also sees the introduction of advertisements to television channels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...131477.stm

1960 - Independence day in Mali.

1975 - Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate president Gerald Ford, but failed as she did not understand the weapon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Jane_Moore

1998 - Serbian forces begin a new assault on rebel fighters in Kosovo, causing thousands of civilians to abandon their homes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates...527713.stm

1692 – The last people were hanged (Salem witch trials) for witchcraft in England's North American colonies.

1735 - Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister to occupy 10 Downing Street.

1761 – George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz are crowned King and Queen, respectively, of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1910 – The Duke of York's Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.

1914 – German submarine SM U-9 torpedoes and sinks the British cruisers, HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy on the Broad Fourteens off the Dutch coast with the loss of nearly 1400.

1980 – Iraq invades Iran.

1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time by the Huntington Library.

2011 – CERN scientists announce their discovery of neutrinos breaking the speed of light.

1338 – The Battle of Arnemuiden was the first naval battle of the Hundred Years' War and the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christofer had three cannon and one hand gun.

1641 – The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure worth over a billion US dollars, is lost at sea off Land's End.

1780 – American Revolution: British Major John André is arrested as a spy by American soldiers exposing Benedict Arnold's change of sides.

1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.

1889 – Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.

1909 – The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.

1941 – World War II: The first gas chamber experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.

1974 - The world's first Ceefax teletext service was begun by the BBC.

1999 – NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.

622 - Mohammed and his followers commenced the Hejra, or "flight," to Medina, where he founded Islam.

1776 - The oldest of the British classic horse races, the St Leger, was run for the first time at Doncaster Racecourse.

1852 – The first airship powered by (a steam) engine, created by Henri Giffard, travels 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation's first National Monument.

1948 – The Honda Motor Company is founded.

1957 – Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe, is opened in Barcelona.

1960 - USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.

1996 – Representatives of 71 nations sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.

1066 – The Battle of Stamford Bridge marks the end of the Viking invasions of England.

1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reaches what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.

1890 – The U.S. Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.

1906 – In the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Leonardo Torres Quevedo successfully demonstrates the invention of the Telekino in the port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore, in what is considered the birth of the remote control.

1944 - World War II: Surviving elements of the British 1st Airborne Division withdrew from Arnhem in the Netherlands, thus ending the Battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden.

1956 – TAT-1, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, is inaugurated.

1972 – In a referendum, the people of Norway reject membership of the European Community.

1983 – Maze Prison escape: 38 republican prisoners, armed with 6 handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the Maze prison. It is the largest prison escape since WWII and in British history.

1992 – NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $511 million probe to Mars, in the first U.S. mission to the planet in 17 years. Eleven months later, the probe would fail.

1996 – The last of the Magdalene Asylums closes in Ireland.

2002 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact in Siberia, Russia.

2008 – China launches the spacecraft Shenzhou 7.

46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the Battle of Pharsalus.

1212 – Golden Bull of Sicily is issued to confirm the hereditary royal title in Bohemia for the Přemyslid dynasty.

1580 - Francis Drake returned to Plymouth in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to circumnavigate the earth.

1687 - The city council of Amsterdam voted to support William of Orange's invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution.

1918 – World War I: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the bloodiest single battle in American history, begins.

1933 – As gangster Machine Gun Kelly surrenders to the FBI, he shouts out, "Don’t shoot, G-Men!", which becomes a nickname for FBI agents.

1955 - Frozen Birdseye fish fingers first went on sale in Britain.

1973 - Concorde made its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time cutting the previous record in half, and flying at an average speed of 954 mph.

1983 – Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a likely worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American first strike.

2008 – Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes first person to fly a jet engine-powered wing across the English Channel.