On This Day:
Wednesday November 27, 2013 This is the 331st day of the year, with 34 days remaining in 2013. Fact of the Day: Leaning Tower of Pisa The Leaning Tower of Pisa, an eight-story, 185-foot bell tower in Pisa, Italy, was begun in 1173 and completed in 1350. From the beginning, the tower leaned because of the way the foundation settled. Throughout the building of the tower, architects and engineers tried to straighten it out and compensate for the lean. Before the tower had a major renovation between 1990 and 2001, its lean had reached about 15 feet from the perpendicular, having continued to increase by about one-twentieth of an inch per year. In 1990 the tower was closed and the bells silenced as engineers undertook a major straightening project. Earth was siphoned from underneath the foundations, decreasing the lean by 17 inches to 13.5 feet; engineers predicted it would take 300 years for the structure to return to its 1990 position.
Holidays Feast day of St. James Intercisus, St. Cungar of Somerset, Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, St. Maximus of Riez, St. Fergus of Strathern, St. Virgil of Salzburg, and St. Secundinus or Sechnall.
Events 43 B.C.E. - Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed the triumvirate of Rome.
511 - Clovis, king of the Franks, died and his kingdom was divided between his four sons.
1095 - Pope Urban II called for the first crusade to free the Holy land from Islamic occupation.
1582 - William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.
1779 - The College of Philadelphia, considered a Royalist institution, was converted into the University of the State of Pennsylvania, thus creating both America's first state school and first official university. In 1791, the school became a privately endowed institution and took the name of the University of Pennsylvania.
1826 - Jebediah Smith and his expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the U.S.
1901 - The Army War College was established in Washington, D.C.
1910 - New York City's Pennsylvania Station opened.
1940 - In Romania, the pro-fascist Iron Guard murdered 64 people, including former prime minister Jorga.
1978 - San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist, were shot to death inside City Hall by former supervisor Dan White.
1990 - The Conservative Party chose John Major to succeed former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as party leader.
1991 - Both houses of the U.S. Congress approved legislation authorizing $70 billion in borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) because of the savings and loan failures.
1997 - Inter-Agency Somalia Flood Response Team estimated that flooding in Somalia had left 230,000 people homeless.
2002 - United Nations investigators began a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq.
Births 1701 - Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer and thermometer inventor.
1843 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American businessman.
1853 - Bat Masterson, American Wild West gambler, saloonkeeper, lawman, and editor.
1909 - James Agee, American Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
1912 - David Merrick, American Broadway producer.
1917 - Buffalo Bob (Smith), American TV host.
1940 - Bruce Lee (Liu Yuen Kam), Chinese-born American actor, martial arts expert.
1942 - Jimi Hendrix, American guitarist and singer.
1957 - Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of President John F.Kennedy.
Deaths 1953 - Eugene O'Neill, American dramatist and 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient.
1988 - John Carradine, American actor.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment