Tuesday, December 29, 2009

December 29th doesn't seem to be an overwhelmingly good day

On this day in 1890, in the final chapter of America's long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

On this day in 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket is brutally murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights of King Henry II of England, apparently on orders of the king.

On this day in 1778, British Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell and his force of between 2500 and 3600 troops, which included the 71st Highland regiment, New York Loyalists, and Hessian mercenaries, launch a surprise attack on American forces defending Savannah, Georgia.

On this day in 1862, Union General William T. Sherman is thwarted in his attempt to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, when he orders a frontal assault on entrenched Rebels.

On this day in 1876, a bridge collapses causing a train to fall into a gorge, killing 80 passengers.

On this day in 1936, actress Mary Tyler Moore was born in Brooklyn, NY.

On this day in 1916, James Joyce's book Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is published in New York. The book had been previously serialized in Ezra Pound's review The Egoist.

On this day in 1962, Saigon announces that 4,077 strategic hamlets have been completed out of a projected total of 11,182. The figures also stated that 39 percent of the South Vietnamese population was housed in the hamlets. U.S. officials considered these figures questionable.

On this day, German aircraft blanket incendiary bombs over London, setting both banks of the Thames ablaze and killing almost 3,600 British civilians.

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