Status Updates From On This Day: The History of...

JUNE 13

1774 Rhode Island has become the first American colony to ban the importation of slaves, and to assure their freedom. The new act, passed today by the General Assembly in Newport, states, "No Negro nor mulatto slave shall be brought in to this colony, and in case any slave shall be brought in, he or she shall be ...rendered immediately free..."

JUNE 12

1667 Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to Louis XIV, successfully transfuses the blood of a sheep to a 15-year-old boy.

JUNE 11

Exit "The Duke"

1979 John Wayne, veteran Hollywood star, died earlier today. Born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, after a slow start he made his name as a genial tough guy and all-American hero in a series of westerns and war films, and became one of the best known and most successful actors in Hollywood. His first major screen appearance was as the Ringo Kid in director John Ford's ...

JUNE 10

1924 Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is assassinated by Mussolini's Fascists.

JUNE 8

1876 Death of George Sand, French novelist and sometime mistress of Chopin.

JUNE 7

Spain and Portugal divide up world
1494 The ongoing dispute between Spain and Portugal over territorial rights was finally resolved today as ambassadors from both countries signed a treaty at Tordesillas in northern Spain. The dispute goes back to last year when Pope Alexander VI set a line of demarcation running from pole to pole 100 leagues west of Cape Verde islands off the African coast, giving Spain ...

JUNE 6

1933 The first drive-in move opens at Camden, New Jersey.

JUNE 5

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes..

Stanley Kubrick, American film director, on this day, 1963.

JUNE 4

1831 Prince Leopold of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, becomes the first king of Belgium.

JUNE 3

1965 Joined to his Gemini 4 spacecraft by a Space Age "umbilical cord:, astronaut Edward H. White today became the first American to take a walk in space. The walk lasted 20 minutes, and is part of a programme investigating the effect of prolonged space flight on man.

JUNE 2

1862 Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi dies aged 74.

JUNE 1

How reconcile this world of fact with the bright world of my imagining? My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer daylight world was stumbling and groping in social blindness.
The deaf and blind author Helen Keller who died today, 1968.

MAY 31

Perhaps it is God's will to lead the people of South Africa through defeat and humiliation to a better future and a brighter day.
Jan Smuts, Boer general, at the Boer War peace conference, 1902.

MAY 30

1640 Death of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most influential figures in Baroque art in northern Europe.

MAY 29

The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights", with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety.

Victoria, Queen of England, in a letter, 1870.

MAY 28

1837 Death of Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist whose theories introduced the concept of the inferiority complex.

MAY 27

Virtuoso's final bow

1849 The illustrious Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini went to his Maker today — though opinion is divided on jusgh which maker that might be. Many are convinced e that the Devil himself played Paganini's violin for him. His skill was sheer wizard — he could give stunning performances on only one string — and his music and dark good looks mesmerized audiences, not least people's ...

MAY 26

1791 The French Assembly forces Louis XVI to hand over the crown and state assets.

MAY 25

Owens' record busting day

1935 Jesse Owens, a 21-year-old black student athlete from Alabama,, set five new world records and equalled a sixth this afternoon — a world record in itself for a single day's achievement. In fact, Owens did it all in a single hour. He equelled the 100 yard record, then set new records for the long jump, 220 yards and 220-yard hurdles, relentlessly breaking the 200 m records...

MAY 24

1814 Pope Pius VII, exiled by Napoleon Bonaparte, retuns to Rome.

MAY 23

Sun loses libel case to 6\-year-old

1991 A disabled English boy, six-year-old Jonathan Hunt, today won "substantial" libel damages from the Sun newspaper — which had dubbed him "the worst brat in Britain". He is the first British child to sue for libel. In an article in July 1989, the San said that Jonathan had set the furniture alight, cut his ear off, killed the cat in a washing machine, painted the dog...

MAY 22

1795 Scottish explorer Mungo Park sets forth on his first voyage to Africa.

MAY 21

1553 Lady Jane Grey, great-granddaughter of Henry VII, is forced to marry Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, who has ambitions for the throne of England.

MAY 20

1609 The sonnets of dramatist William Shakespeare are published.

MAY 19

MT ST HELENS EXPLODES

1980 At least 15 people were killed today when a long dormant volcano in the US exploded, About 400 people were evacuated earlier when Mt St Helens in south-western Washington State started smoking a few weeks ago, but geologists did not expect the sudden violence of today's eruption, which started fires, mudslides and floods in areas thought to be safe. About 120 square miles ...

MAY 18

1832 In Paris, French novelist George Sand publishes her first novel, Indiana, in which she makes a plea for women's right to independence.

MAY 17

Watergate secrets go public

1973 America watched in fascination as televised Senate hearings on the Watergate affair opened today. Senator Sam J. Irvin, Democrat of North Carolina, virtually accused the Watergate burglars of trying to steal America's "right to vote in a free election" when he opened public sessions of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. White House denials...

MAY 16

1968 Pete Townshend, guitarist with British pop group The Who, spends a night in jail in New York after kicking a policeman off stage.

MAY 15

1990 Lindi St clare, retired brothel keeper — previously known by her professional name of Miss Whiplash — today lost a 15-year legal battle against Britain's Inland Revenue, who had sued her for back taxes. She ha refused to pay, supposedly for the Inland Revenue's own protection, claiming it would mean the government department would be breaking the law by living off immoral earnings. Today the judge...

MAY 14

1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St Louis to find an overland route to the Pacific.