LOTR...
Boromir reaches Rivendell
1935
Italy invades Ethiopia
1945
United Nations formed
1980
Polish government legalizes Solidarity union
2005
Hurricane Wilma hits South Florida
51
Domitian, 11th Roman emperor (81-96) born
439
Carthage, the leading Roman city in North Africa, falls to Genseric and the Vandals.
996
Death of Hugh Capet, King of France
1147
Capture of Lisbon from the Moors by Alfonso I, King of Portugal
1273
Coronation of Rudolph I as King of Germany
1375
Death of Valdemar III, King of Denmark
1531
Bavaria, despite being a Catholic region, joins the League of Schmalkalden, a Protestant group which opposes Charles V.
1537
Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, died. ( 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward the Sixth)
1632
Pioneering Dutch microscope maker Anton Van Leeuwenhoek. born
1648
The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe.
1725
Alessandro Scarlatti died.
1788
Journalist Sarah Josepha Hale, author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" born
1818
Felix Mendelssohn played his first public concert in Berlin. Mendelssohn was nine years old.
1830
Attorney Belva Lockwood, the first woman candidate for U.S. president, nominated by the National Equal Rights Party. born
1836
Match patented by A. Phillips.
1851
Two of Uranus' moons discovered (Ariel and Umbriel) by William Lassell.
1855
James Schoolcraft Sherman, 27th US vice president. born
1861
The first telegram was transmitted across the United States from California Chief Justice Stephen Field to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C.
1893
Film producer-director, Merian Cooper ("King Kong") born
1901
Anna Edson Taylor, a 43-year-old widow, became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch.
1904
US dramatist and writer of lebrettos, Moss Hart. born
1923
Poet, Denise Levertov. born
1926
Y(elberton) A(braham) Tittle, football player. born
1929
Black Thursday (more than 13 million shares traded on New York Stock Exchange). The first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.
1929
Modern composer, George Crumb. born
1929
Modern composer, Luciano Berio. born
1931
Al (Alphonse) Capone, prohibition era Chicago gangster, sent to prison for tax evasion.
1931
The George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, opened to traffic.
1936
Rock musician Bill Wyman born
1936
Actor-producer David Nelson born
1939
Actor, F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus"). born
1939
Benny Goodman records "Let's Dance"
1939
Nylon stockings go on sale for 1st time (Wilmington Delaware)
1940
The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
1945
Following Soviet ratification, U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes announced the United Nations charter was in effect.
1947
Actor, Kevin Kline. born
1948
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume born
1952
Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict.
1962
Actor B.D. Wong is 35. born
1962
The US blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis officially began under a proclamation signed by President Kennedy.
1973
Yom Kippur War ends, Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 from Damascus
1976
Fire in a social club (Bronx, New York - 25 killed).
1979
Rock musician Ben Gillies (Silverchair) born
1980
The merchant freighter SS "Poet" departed Philadelphia bound for Port Said, Egypt, with a crew of 34 and a cargo of grain; it was never heard from again..
1980
Singer Monica. born
1987
Thirty years after it was expelled for refusing to answer allegations of corruption, the Teamsters union was welcomed back into the AFL-CIO by a vote of the labor federation's executive council in Miami Beach, Florida.
1988
The crew of the USS "Vincennes" received an emotional homecoming in San Diego, nearly four months after the cruiser downed an Iranian jetliner in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
1989
Rev Jim Bakker is sentenced to 50 years for fraud.
1989
Zsa Zsa Gabor was sentenced to 72 hours in jail, 120 hours of community service and nearly $13,000 in fines and court costs for slapping a traffic officer.
1990
The Senate failed to override President Bush's veto of a major civil rights bill by a vote of 66-34, one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed.
1990
Rep. Donald Lukens, R-Ohio, resigned over new sex charges.
1991
Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek" creator, died.
1992
The Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-US team to win the World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves, 4-to-3, in game six.
1993
Two George Washington University researchers who had cloned non-viable human embryos told a news conference that science was still far from duplicating human beings -- but they urged ethicists to prepare for the future.
1994
The Clinton administration announced that the US budget deficit had fallen to $203 billion in the just-completed fiscal year.
1994
Actor Raul Julia died in Manhasset, New York, at age 54.
1995
President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin met in New York, trying to stabilize relations shaken by disputes over human rights, trade and Taiwan.
1995
The Cleveland Indians got their first victory in the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves 7-6 in game three.
1996
Rioting erupted in St. Petersburg, Florida, after a white police officer fatally shot a black man during a traffic stop.
1996
The New York Yankees took the lead in the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves 1-to-0 in game five.
1997
Setting the stage for an upcoming summit, President Clinton rejected calls for a confrontational approach to China, arguing that isolating the Chinese would be "potentially dangerous."
1997
In Arlington, Virginia, former NBC sportscaster Marv Albert was spared a jail sentence after a grudging courtroom apology to the woman he'd bitten during a sexual romp.
1998
Officials from the United States, China and North and South Korea seeking a permanent peace for the divided Korean peninsula announced in Geneva they had removed the last obstacles to full-blown talks.
1999
An Israeli court sentenced American teen-ager Samuel Sheinbein to 24 years in prison for killing an acquaintance in Maryland in 1997.
1999
Senator John Chafee, R-Rhode Island, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital at age 77.
1999
The New York Yankees took game two of the World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves, 7-2. .
2005
Grand Jury investigation of Plame leak nears end
2005
Australian Government to introduce IR reforms next week
2005
22.2% of secondary school students in Ireland drop out before the Leaving Cert
2005
Airliner crashes in Nigeria
2006
New Zealand Labour party drops in latest poll
2006
Interview with Stephanie Beaumier, City Council candidate for Wards 1 & 5 in Brampton, Canada
2006
Floyd Landis adopts "the Wikipedia defense" as appeal strategy
2006
PM reshuffles Cabinet, Pranab Mukherjee is new Indian Foreign minister
2006
London Zoological Society reports on health of planet Earth
2006
New version of Firefox browser released
2007
Taipei Computer Association - a key player at IT industry and exhibition in Taiwan
2007
Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation
2007
Injured Buffalo, New York police officer returns home
2007
New Zealand repeals sedition law
2007
Danish Prime Minister calls an election for 2007
2007
American television personality James Lipton was a pimp
2007
Calls made for prosecution in light of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 report
2007
SDSU vs. BYU football game postponed due to wildfires
2007
Evidence of 'shattered moon' found inside rings of Saturn
2007
7.1 earthquake strikes Indonesia
2007
China launches space probe to the moon
2007
Turkey launches airstrikes against Kurdish rebels
2007
Bush says missile shield "urgently" needed to counter Iranian threat
2007
1,000,000 flee homes in California due to wildfires; over 500,000 ordered to evacuate
2007
UEFA Champions League 2007–08: Werder Bremen vs. Lazio
2008
Global stock markets plunge
2008
Polish exercise book advertisement copies Wikipedia content, violates copyright
2008
McCain volunteer fakes mutilation by Obama supporter
2009
Canadian news doesn't interest Prime Minister, prefers to watch American
2010
Richard becomes a hurricane, threatens Belize
2010
Tropical storm Richard nears hurricane strength, soaks Honduras
2010
Cyclone Giri makes landfall in Myanmar, kills one
2010
Students evacuated after police find suspected drug lab at Georgetown University
2010
US swimmer dies in open-water race
2011
Earthquake hits Turkey, hundreds reported dead
2011
Moto GP rider Marco Simoncelli dies in Malaysia Grand Prix
2012
Former U.S. presidential candidate and Senator George McGovern dies aged 90
In the early days of Unix, a date-tagged list of historical events was used by system administrators to add some interest to the system's Message of the Day. Whenever users logged in they would be presented with the latest system notices, perhaps some mildly amusing quotes and one or two lines of historical events, based on the current date.
Today in History (UNIX calendar) uses some of the entries from the original library but is updated with current events as well. Instead of plain text, each entry is now formatted in HTML and each day may include one or more icons of historical figures or celebrities.
Other things unique to the UNIX calendar are references to dates found in fictional literature such as Lord of the Rings, perhaps undue emphasis on people and events that were part of popular culture in the 70's and technical minutiae about computers and operating systems that might not be found in other places.
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