On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2015An explosion involving illegally stored mining detonators occurred in Petlawad, India, resulting in 104 deaths and injuries to more than 150 people.
2. 2003Typhoon Maemi made landfall near Busan, becoming the strongest recorded typhoon to strike South Korea.
3. 1995Hurricane Ismael formed off Mexico's southwest coast and subsequently killed over a hundred people in the country.
4. 1992American Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to travel to space while aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
5. 1983The clandestine Boricua Popular Army carried out a bank robbery in West Hartford, Connecticut, taking $7 million in what was then the largest cash theft in U.S. history.
6. 1977South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko passed away following a beating he received while in police custody in Port Elizabeth.
7. 1952While investigating a UFO, three boys in Flatwoods, West Virginia, U.S., reported encountering a ten-foot-tall (3 m) monster in the woods.
8. 1948The People's Liberation Army initiated the Liaoshen campaign, marking the first of three major military campaigns during the late stage of the Chinese Civil War.
9. 1942Off the coast of West Africa, a U-boat sank RMS Laconia and subsequently attempted to rescue its passengers in accordance with old prize rules.
10. 1942During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army initiated the Battle of Edson's Ridge to retake Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands from the Allies.
11. 1933Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived the concept of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in Bloomsbury, London.
12. 1928The Okeechobee hurricane initially struck the island of Guadeloupe before making its way to the United States, causing over 4,000 deaths in total.
13. 1910Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, a major choral work in the classical concert repertoire popularly called the "Symphony of a Thousand", premiered in Munich.
14. 1857The SS Central America sank roughly 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon.
15. 1846English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wed secretly to evade their disapproving families prior to relocating to Italy.
16. 379Yax Nuun Ahiin I ascended the throne to become the ruler (ajaw) of the Mayan city of Tikal.