On This Day...

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08.10.2017, 09:54

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Great Chicago Fire begins ...

On this day in 1871, flames spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day
blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings, leaves 100,000 homeless and
causes an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; $3 billion in 2007 dollars) in damages.

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Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories
hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of
the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins.

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Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire.
The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871.

06.10.2017, 15:21

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First U.S. train robbery ...

On this day in 1866, the Reno gang carries out the first robbery of a moving train in the U.S., making
off with over $10,000 from an Ohio & Mississippi train in Jackson County, Indiana. Prior to this
innovation in crime, holdups had taken place only on trains sitting at stations or freight yards.

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This new method of sticking up moving trains in remote locations low on law enforcement soon
became popular in the American West, where the recently constructed transcontinental and regional
railroads made attractive targets.

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Some gangs, like Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, found robbing trains so easy and lucrative that,
for a time, they made it their criminal specialty. Railroad owners eventually got wise and fought
back, protecting their trains’ valuables with large safes, armed guards and even specially fortified
boxcars. Consequently, by the late 1800s, robbing trains had turned into an increasingly tough and dangerous job.

04.10.2017, 15:00

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Oct 04. 1957. Sputnik launched ...

The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.
The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow
time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic.

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Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators.
Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping
Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated,
as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere.

03.10.2017, 16:35

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East and West Germany reunite after 45 years ...

Less than one year after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany come together
on what is known as “Unity Day.” Since 1945, when Soviet forces occupied eastern Germany, and
the United States and other Allied forces occupied the western half of the nation at the close of World War II,
divided Germany had come to serve as one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War.

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With the gradual waning of Soviet power in the late 1980s, the Communist Party in East Germany began
to lose its grip on power. Tens of thousands of East Germans began to flee the nation, and by late 1989
the Berlin Wall started to come down.

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Two months following reunification, all-German elections took place and Helmut Kohl became the first
chancellor of the reunified Germany. Although this action came more than a year before the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, for many observers the reunification of Germany effectively marked the end of the Cold War.

19.09.2017, 18:27

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1790 - Alexander Radishchev, Russian author and social critic, was arrested and exiled to Siberia under Catherine the Great for the publication in 1790 of his 'Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow', often referred to as a Russian 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', in which he raised the issues in government and governance, social structure and personal freedom and liberty. The book was immediately banned and Radishchev sentenced, first to death, then to banishment in eastern Siberia. It was not freely published in Russia until 1905.

29.07.2017, 08:49

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NASA created ...

On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s
activities in space. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical,
that have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe.

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It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything
from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications.

28.07.2017, 16:33

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Britain is introduced to the potato ...

On This Day 28 July 1586 - Sir Thomas Harriot stepped off the boat in Plymouth.
He had just returned from Sir Walter Raleigh’s English colony on Roanoke Island
in modern-day North Carolina, where he had made detailed studies of the wildlife – and potatoes.

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In the months that followed, Harriot recorded his adventures in A Briefe and True Report
of the New Found Land of Virginia. In it, he described a curious tuber:

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“Openavk are kind of roots of round forme, some of the bignes of walnuts, some far
greater, which are found in moist & marish grounds growing many together one by
another in ropes, or as thogh they were a string. Being boiled or sodden they are very good meate.”

27.07.2017, 16:55

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Happy Birthday Hamburger ...

Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch, a small lunch wagon in New Haven, Connecticut, is said to have sold the
first hamburger and steak sandwich in the U.S. of July 27. 1900.

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New York magazine states that "The dish actually had no name until some rowdy sailors from Hamburg
named the meat on a bun after themselves years later", noting also that this claim is subject to dispute.
A customer ordered a quick hot meal and Louis was out of steaks. Taking ground beef trimmings,
Louis made a patty and grilled it, putting it between two slices of toast.

26.07.2017, 16:56

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The Surrey Iron Railway ...

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The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.

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It was a toll railway on which carriers used horse traction. The chief goods transported were coal, building materials, lime, manure, corn and seeds.

24.07.2017, 16:33

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Machu Picchu discovered ...

On July 24, 1911, American archeologist Hiram Bingham gets his first look at Machu Picchu, an ancient
Inca settlement in Peru that is now one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

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Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a summer
retreat for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century.
For hundreds of years afterwards, its existence was a secret known only to the peasants living in the region.
That all changed in the summer of 1911, when Bingham arrived with a small team of explorers to search for the famous “lost” cities of the Incas.

20.07.2017, 16:39

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Armstrong walks on moon ...

On this day stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

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At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to
more than a billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

19.07.2017, 16:58

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Rosetta Stone found ...

On this day in 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers
a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of
Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different
scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic.

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The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the
king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that
the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics,
a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.

17.07.2017, 16:56

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Disneyland opens ...

Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955.

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The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California,
and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 14 million visitors a year,
who spend close to $3 billion.

15.07.2017, 20:33

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The first steamer of Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans ...

Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans (30 September 1751 – 18 July 1832) is claimed to be the first inventor of the steamboat.
Pyroscaphe was an early experimental steamship built by Marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans in 1783.

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The first demonstration took place on 15 July 1783 on the river Saône in France. After the first demonstration, it was said that
the hull had opened up and the boiler was letting out steam, faults common in early steamboats. In this case, it seems to have
been easily repaired as the boat was said to have made several trips up and down the river. A month later, on 19 August,
the boat carried several passengers who signed a witness protocol for a successful journey.

The Pyroscaphe was propelled by a double-acting steam machine and sidewheels, and was therefore a paddle steamer.

13.07.2017, 17:07

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The First Cat Show ...

A British man, Mr. Harrison Weir, got the idea for the first cat show.
He was a Fellow of the Horticultural Society, and artist, and a cat lover.
He developed a schedule, classes, and prizes for the show.
He also created the "Points of Excellence" -- a guideline for how the cats would be judged.

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The Crystal Palace, in south-east London, was chosen for the site of the first show.
(Dog shows had already been held there). A man named Mr. F. Wilson was appointed
manager of the show for setting up the Crystal Palace. The judges were Mr. Weir,
his brother John Weir, and the Reverend J. Macdona.

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The show was held on July 13, 1871. Nearly 160 cats were shown. The cats were mostly short-haired,
and were divided into different color groups. Pedigrees were not around at this time. It wasn't until 1887
that the National Cat Club formed in Britain and began tracking the parentage of cats.
The prize cats did not have their photos taken, but were drawn by an artist to record them.

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The show attracted a great deal of interest. Cat shows soon became fashionable in Britian,
particularly because they were patronized by Queen Victoria, who owned a pair of Blue Persians.
In the 1870s, larger and larger cat shows were held in Britain. In 1895 the first official cat show was held in Madison Square Garden, New York.