On this day

1120 - Henry I's only legitimate son, William, was drowned when the ship carrying him from Normandy to England sank off Barfleur.

1703 – The Great Storm of 1703, the greatest windstorm ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain, reaches its peak intensity which it maintains through November 27. Winds gust up to 120 mph, and 9,000 people die.

1783 - The British evacuated New York City, their last military position of the Revolutionary War. George Washington entered the city in triumph. The British had captured the city in 1776 and held it for seven years.

1884 - Evaporated milk was patented by John Mayenberg of St. Louis.

1952 - The play, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, opened in London, at the Ambassador's Theatre where it remained for 21 years. By Saturday 12th April 1958 it had become the longest running production of any kind in the history of British Theatre.

1963 - Assassinated President John F. Kennedy was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

1984 - Band Aid rock stars gathered at Sarm Studios in London to record 'Do They Know It's Christmas', to aid famine relief in Ethiopia.

1476 – Vlad III (Dracula), defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Bathory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.

1703 - In Britain, the day of 'The Great Storm', in which 8,000 people died. Henry Winstanley, the engineer who built the first Eddystone lighthouse, was among those who died when it was destroyed in the storm.

1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.

1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

1864 - Oxford professor Charles Dodgson presented a little girl called Alice Liddell with a story she had inspired him to write. It was called Alice in Wonderland and was written under the pen name of Lewis Carroll.

1922 - Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon, Carter's sponsor, became the first men to see inside the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun near Luxor since it was sealed 3,000 years previously. Having escaped detection by tomb robbers, it was complete with gold statues and a gold throne inlaid with gems.

1965 - France successfully launched the Diamant-A rocket into space, becoming the world's third space power after the Soviet Union and the United States.

1976 - Catholicism ceased to be the state religion of Italy.

1992 - Queen Elizabeth II announced she would start paying taxes on her personal income and take her children off the national payroll.

1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.

2003 – Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.

1095 - Pope Urban II called for the first crusade (at the Council of Clermont) to free the Holy land from Islamic occupation.

1582 - William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.

1914 - Miss Mary Allen and Miss E F Harburn became the first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain when they reported for duty at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1934 – Bank robber Baby Face Nelson dies in a shoot-out with the FBI.

1944 - Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of explosives stored in a cavern beneath Staffordshire detonated, killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was heard over 100 miles away in London, and recorded as an earthquake in Geneva.

1971 – The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.

1976 - The four millionth 'Mini' car left the production line.

1987 - A young man in Somerset tried seven times to kill himself following a row with his girlfriend. He threw himself in front of four cars, and jumped under the wheels of a lorry. He tried to strangle himself and jumped from a window. The real victims were a driver of one car who suffered a heart attack, a policeman who injured his back trying to restrain the man, and a doctor who was kicked in the face when the struggling man reached hospital.

2005 – The first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.

1520 – After navigating through the South American strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

1660 - The Royal Society, an organization dedicated to promoting excellence in science, was founded.

1868 - Mt. Etna in Sicily violently erupted.

1905 - Sinn Fein (Gaelic for we ourselves), a political party dedicated to independence for all of Ireland, was founded in Dublin by Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith.

1948 - Edwin Land's first Polaroid cameras went on sale.

1963 - Cape Canaveral, Florida, was renamed Cape Kennedy.

1964 - Mariner 4 was launched, the first successful mission to Mars, taking photographs and instrument readings.

1994 - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin, by a fellow inmate.

800 – Charlemagne arrives at Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III.

1907 - British nurse Florence Nightingale, aged 87, was presented with the Order of Merit by Edward VII for her work tending the wounded during the Crimean War.

1922 – Howard Carter opens the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun to the public.

1929 - Commander Richard E. Byrd reported successfully flying over the South Pole. He had made headlines in 1926 by flying over the North Pole.

1961 - NASA launched a chimpanzee named Enos into orbit around the Earth in Mercury-Atlas 5.

1962 - Britain and France announced a joint agreement to design and build Concorde, the world's first supersonic airliner.

1965 - Housewife Mary Whitehouse began her Clean Up TV Campaign by setting up the National Viewers and Listeners' Association to tackle 'bad taste and irresponsibility'. Booooooo!

2001 - George Harrison, former member of the Beatles died, aged 58.

St Andrew's Day. He is the patron saint of Scotland, also of golfers and fishermen.

1803 – In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1872 - The first football match between England and Scotland took place in Glasgow. It ended in a 0-0 draw.

1914 - Charlie Chaplin made his film debut in Making a Living, a one-reel film.

1934 – The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman becomes the first to officially exceed 100mph.

1936 - London's famed Crystal Palace, built for the International Exhibition of 1851, was destroyed by fire.

1968 The Trade Descriptions Act came into force making it a crime for a trader to knowingly sell an item with a misleading label or description.

1979 - I was born on this day

1982 - A letter bomb exploded inside No. 10, Downing Street, injuring a member of staff. The package was sent by animal rights activists.

1987 - At Christie's auctioneers in London, a painting by Edgar Degas, 'The Laundry Maids', was sold for £7.48 million.

1998 – Exxon and Mobil sign a $73.7 billion USD agreement to merge, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest company.

1135 - England's King Henry I died. He had fallen ill seven days earlier after eating too many lampreys (jawless fish resembling eels). He was 66, and had ruled for 35 years.

1640 - Portugal regained its independence, driving out the Spaniards.

1887 - Beeton's Christmas Annual went on sale, with 'A Study in Scarlet' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which first introduced the detective, Sherlock Holmes.

1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.

1918 – Iceland becomes a sovereign state, yet remains a part of the Danish kingdom.

1922 - Skywriting was introduced when a pilot flew over New York City and spelled out - hello.

1953 - The first issue of Playboy magazine was published by Hugh Hefner, it featured Marilyn Monroe as the centerfold.

1955 – In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1959 - Twelve countries, including the United States, signed a treaty setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity.

1981 – The AIDS virus is officially recognized.

1990 - Britain was connected to the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age when the last wall of rock separating two halves of the Channel Tunnel was removed.

1999 - An international team of scientists announced it had virtually mapped a human chromosome.

1697 - The rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral, was opened. The previous cathedral had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

1804 – At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of France, the first French Emperor in a thousand years.

1929 - Britain's first 22 public telephone boxes came into service.

1942 – Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1971 – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm Al Quwain form the United Arab Emirates.

1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

1993 – Space Shuttle program: STS-61 – NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

1995 - 28 year old Nick Leeson was sentenced for financial dealings which contributed to the fall of Barings Bank, Britain's oldest merchant bank. He admitted to a judge in Singapore two charges of fraud connected with Baring's £860m ruin.

1836 - Three people were killed at Great Corby, near Carlisle in Cumbria, in the first fatal railway derailment.

1894 - Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, died, aged 45 on the island of Samoa.

1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.

1917 - The Quebec Bridge, the world's longest cantilever, was opened over the St. Lawrence River.

1926 - In an episode as puzzling and intriguing as any in her many novels, Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home and was discovered on the 14th December staying under an assumed name at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate. She said she had no recollection of how she came to be in Yorkshire.

1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, but plays a concert two days later.

1997 – In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign The Ottawa treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.

1999 - Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the Red Planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed.

1154 - The only Englishman to become a pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Adrian IV.

1586 - Queen Elizabeth I conferred the death sentence on Mary Queen of Scots after discovering a plot to assassinate her and bring about a Roman Catholic uprising.

1791 – The first edition of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.

1798 - British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announced the introduction of Income Tax to help finance the war against France.

1872 - U.S. brigantine Mary Celeste was found adrift and deserted with its cargo intact, in the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Portugal.

1948 - George Orwell completed the final draft of the book Nineteen Eighty Four which was published on 8th June 1949.

1952 - At least 4,000 people died in a week, from breathing difficulties, during a severe London smog.

1954 – The first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida, United States.

1996 - Mars Pathfinder lifted off from Cape Canaveral and embarked on a successful 310 million-mile trip to explore the Red Planet's surface.

1998 - The first international space station, named Unity, was launched.

2006 – An adult giant squid is caught on video for the first time by Tsunemi Kubodera near the Ogasawara Islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo.