Timepoints

January

1 - 1863 President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation becomes law.

1863 Born: Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games

2001 Died: John Steadman, Baltimore sports reporter

10 - 1776 Thomas Paine publishes his book "Common Sense"

2008 Died: Sir Edmund Hillary, explorer, who in 1953 was one of the first 2 people to
climb to top of Mt. Everest

15 - 1929 Born: Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader

1967 In the first Super Bowl football game, the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City
Chiefs 35-10.

19 - 1807 Born: Robert E. Lee, confederate general in U.S. Civil War

1809 Born: Edgar A. Poe, poet and suspense writer

22 - 1901 Died: Britain's Queen Victoria

1973 Died: former President Lyndon Johnson

1973 Supreme Court's historic Roe v. Wade decision

1973 George Foreman defeats Joe Frazier for Heavyweight Boxing Championship.

30 - 1882 Born: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. President

1933 Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.

1948 Died: Mohandes "Mahatma" Gandhi

1965 Thousands of people line the streets of London for Winston Churchill's funeral
procession -- he died six days earlier on January 24.

February

6 - 1895 Born: Babe Ruth, great baseball player

1911 Born: Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. President

1952 Died: Britain's King George VI

10 - 2006 Opening Ceremony, Olympic Winter Games, Torino, Italy

2007 Johns Hopkins University women's basketball coach Nancy Funk records the 500th

victory of her coaching career, as the Lady Blue Jays beat Ursinus College.

12 - 1809 Born: Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President

1809 Born: Charles Darwin

22 - 1732 Born: George Washington, Revolutionary War General and first U.S. President

1932 Born: Senator Ted Kennedy

1980 In what many sports fans consider the greatest ice hockey game ever played,
the USA upset the USSR 4-3 at the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games.

March

5 - 1770 Five American colonists shot dead by British troops -- "The Boston Massacre"

1946 Winston Churchill delivers his "Iron Curtain" speech.

1953 Died: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

6 - 1836 In Texas, nearly 200 men fighting for Texas's independence are killed by
Mexican soldiers at the Alamo.

1981 CBS-TV news anchorman Walter Cronkite's last broadcast

8 - 1971 In a heavyweight world title boxing match, Joe Frazier beat Muhammad Ali at
Madison Square Garden, New York.

1999 Died: Joe DiMaggio, baseball great

17 - 1905 Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt are married.

       2003     President George W. Bush goes on national TV and gives Iraqi dictator Saddam
                   Hussein an ultimatum - He must leave Iraq within 48 hours or face a U.S. and
                   coalition invasion.

19 - 1936 Born: actress Ursula Andress
In 1962 she co-starred with Sean Connery in the first James Bond film "Dr. No"

2003 U.S. and coalition forces invade Iraq.

25 - 1634 English settlers arrive in Maryland.

1947 Born: singer Elton John

30 - 1853 Born: artist Vincent Van Gogh

1981 Assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan wounds four people,
including Reagan.

April

6 - 1199 Died: English King Richard I "Lionheart"

1896 The first modern Olympic Games began in Athens.

14 - 1865 President Abraham Lincoln shot by actor John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater
in Washington D.C. Lincoln died the next morning, on the 15th.

1912 The ocean liner "Titanic" strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The ship
sinks in the early hours of the 15th. Over 1,500 people die; about 700 survived.

17 - 1790 Died: Benjamin Franklin, inventor and statesman

1972 Women allowed to run in Boston Marathon.

19 - 1775 The American Revolution begins, as colonists clash with British troops at
Lexington and Concord.

       1976     This was the hottest day in the history of the Boston Marathon. The 12 noon
                   temperature in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where the race began, was 100°!
                   Very unusual for the Boston area in April.

1995 The Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, killing close to 200
people.

21 - 1926 Born: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II

1975 Bill Rodgers wins his first Boston Marathon in 2 hrs. 9 min. 55 sec.

23 - 1616     Incredibly, on the very same day, two great writers die -- William Shakespeare
                   and Cervantes. Also, on that same day in 1616, future soldier-statesman
                   Oliver Cromwell entered college, at Cambridge University in England.

28 - 1789 The most famous mutiny in Royal Navy history - The Mutiny on the Bounty

1937 Born: Saddam Hussein, Iraqi dictator

May

5 - 1818 Born: Karl Marx, Socialist

1821 Died: Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France

6 - 1937 The airship "Hindenburg" blew up as it was about to land in Lakehurst, N. J.,
killing many people.

1954 Oxford University medical student Roger Bannister became the first person to
run one mile in under 4 minutes. He was timed in 3:59.4 that day.

1984 Baltimore Orioles' Cal Ripken hit for the cycle that day -- a baseball rarity. He
hit a single, double, triple and home run in the same game.

8 - 1884 Born: Harry Truman, 33rd U.S. President

1945 V-E Day celebrated; the war in Europe was over. However, the war against
Japan lasted until August.

1984 The Soviet Union announced that it would Boycott the Summer Olympics in
Los Angeles later that year.

28 - 1888     Born: Jim Thorpe, great all-around athlete. At the Stockholm Olympic Games in
                   1912, he won gold medals in the track and field decathlon and pentathlon events.
                   He later played professional baseball and football.

       2007     Johns Hopkins University's men's lacrosse team wins the N.C.A.A. Division I
                   National Championship, beating Duke 12-11 in the title game at M&T Bank Stadium
                   in Baltimore.

29 - 1917 Born: John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President

2006 In Iraq, a roadside bomb explosion severely injured CBS-TV news reporter
Kimberly Dozier. Two men working with her were killed.

30 - 1935 Babe Ruth played his last baseball game.

1975 Died: Steve Prefontaine, U.S. distance runner, 1972 Olympian

2005 Johns Hopkins University's men's lacrosse team wins NCAA Division I Cham-
pionship, beating Duke 9-8 in title game.

June

4 - 1989 Approximately 2,000 Chinese students, demonstrating for more democratic
freedoms, were killed by soldiers in Beijing.

1989 Several hundred people were killed in the Soviet Union as trains collided.

1989 Died: Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini

1989 In Baltimore, actor Joel Grey performed in the musical "Cabaret" for the last
time.

7 - 1940 Born: singer Tom Jones

2008 Died: Jim McKay, sports broadcasting legend

9 - 1870 Died: Charles Dickens, writer

       2006     The World Cup of Soccer Tournament begins in Germany. The competition will
                   take one month; games will be held in various cities in Germany, with the
                   championship game in Berlin on July 9.

13 - 1897 Born: Paavo Nurmi, 9-time Olympic champion in distance running

2008 Died: Tim Russert, TV newsman

18 - 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon defeated by British and Prussian troops led by
the Duke of Wellington.

1942 Born: Paul McCartney, singer-songwriter

30 - 1985 Born: Michael Phelps, Olympic champion swimmer

2002 Brazil beats Germany 2-0 to win the World Cup soccer title

July

1 - 1863 First day of U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg -- It would conclude on July 3
with a Union victory.

1916 The first day of World War I's greatest battle "The Somme" which, by
November of that year, would record over 1,000,000 casualties

1961 Born: Diana, Princess of Wales

1961 Born: Carl Lewis, 9-time Olympic gold medalist in track & field

4 - 1776 In Philadelphia, colonial representatives sign U.S. Declaration of Independence.

1826 Incredibly, 50 years to the day of the great event of 1776, both John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents, die on July 4!

1831 Died: James Monroe, 5th U.S. President

1954 West Germany defeats Hungary 3-2, to win the World Cup soccer title.

2008 Died: Jessie Helms, former U.S. Senator

5 - 1924 Opening ceremonies, Paris Olympics

       1979     Thousands of people gather on the Isle of Man for the annual Tynwald
                   Celebration. This year was very special, as it was the 1,000th anniversary of
                   the founding of The Tynwald -- the island's parliament was founded in 979!
                   To mark this special occasion, invited guests included Queen Elizabeth II and
                   U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neil. This was one of
                   many interesting events I saw in person on my 15 week trip to Britain and
                   Ireland in 1979.

6 - 1535 Died: Sir Thomas More, executed by order of King Henry VIII

1933 Babe Ruth hits a home run, in the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

1946 Born: George W. Bush, 43rd U.S. President

2005 The city of London is awarded the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

       2008     In one of the greatest tennis matches ever, the Gentleman's Final at Wimbledon
                   had Rafael Nadal beating 5-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer in a classic
                   5-set marathon match, lasting 4 hours and 48 minutes.

7 - 1924     Britain's Harold Abrahams wins the 100 meter run at the Paris Olympics.
                   (The story of Abrahams and Eric Liddell, another British athlete, was
                   portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film, "Chariots of Fire.")

1966 England beat West Germany 4-2, to win the World Cup of Soccer title.

2005 Terrorist bombings in London kill 56 people.

21 - 1861 In the U.S. Civil War, the first battle of Bull Run is fought.

1948 Born: singer Cat Stevens

22 - 1890 Born: Rose Kennedy, matriarch of the famous "political family" from Massachusetts

1949 Born: Lasse Viren, great Olympic track and field champion from Finland

29 - 1938 Born: Peter Jennings, television news reporter

1948 Opening ceremony, London Olympic Games

1981 The Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana took place at
St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

August

5 - 1962 Died: actress Marilyn Monroe

1984 In the Los Angeles Olympic Games, Joan Benoit, USA, wins the first-ever
Women's Olympic Marathon.

7 - 2005 Died: Peter Jennings, TV news reporter

2007 San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds hit home run #756 of his career, passing
Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball.

16 - 1948 Died: baseball great Babe Ruth

1977 Died: singer Elvis Presley

18 - 1958 Born: actress Madeleine Stowe

       1979     At Wembley Stadium in London, there was an all-day rock concert called "The
                   Who and Their Friends." 3 lesser-known rock bands performed earlier, and
                   then at 8 pm, The Who gave a 2-hour concert, performing many of their hits,
                   including numbers from their rock opera "Tommy." This was one of many
                   interesting events I saw on my 15-week trip to Britain and Ireland in 1979.

22 - 1485 Died: King Richard III, killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field. This event marked
the end of the English Civil War known as "The War of the Roses."

1939 Born: Carl Yastrzemski, baseball great

       2007     In one of the most lopsided baseball games ever played, the Texas Rangers
                   annihilated the Baltimore Orioles by a score of 30-3. Not since 1897 was there a
                   major league game where a team scored at least 30 runs.

31 - 1955 Born: Edwin Moses, 2-time Olympic champion 400 meter hurdles (1976 and
1984)

1997 Died: Diana, Princess of Wales, in car accident

September

6 - 1995     Orioles' baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr., broke Lou Gehrig's record of
                   consecutive Major League baseball games played, 2,131 games as of that date.
                   Ripken went on to play a total of more than 2,600 consecutive games.

1996 Orioles' slugger Eddie Murray hits the 500th home run of his career.

11 - 1972 Closing ceremony, Munich Olympics

1973 In Chile, President Allende was killed in a coup led by General Pinochet, who
then led Chile for many years.

1985 Baseball great Pete Rose got base hit 4,192, passing legend Ty Cobb for most
hits in a Major League career.

       2001     Major terrorists attacks on the USA claim close to 3,000 lives. In New York
                   airplanes destroy the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. In northern
                   Virginia, an airplane crashes into the Pentagon. Another airplane crashed in
                   Pennsylvania.

2002 Died: NFL great quarterback Johnny Unitas

12 - 1880 Born: H.L. Mencken, critic and writer

1913 Born: Jesse Owens, track & field star of the 1936 Olympics

29 - 1956 Born: Sebastian Coe, 2-time Olympic champion, 1,500 meter run (1980, 1984)

       1979     At Phoenix Park, Dublin, a crowd estimated at 1,000,000, saw
                   Pope John Paul II celebrate mass. This was the largest crowd of people ever to
                   gather in Ireland. This was one of many interesting events I saw on my
                   15-week trip to Britain and Ireland in 1979.

October

4 - 1955 In game 7 of the '55 World Series, the Brooklyn Dodgers shut out the New York
Yankees 2-0, to win the series 4 games to 3.

1957 The Space Age begins, as the U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik.

7 - 1849 Died: Edgar A. Poe, poet and mystery writer.

1925 Died: baseball legend Christy Mathewson

9 - 1940 Born: singer-songwriter John Lennon

1966 The Baltimore Orioles win game 4 of the World Series, 1-0, completing a 4-game
sweep over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

14 - 1066 Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest of England

1890 Born: Dwight Eisenhower, World War II general and 34th U.S. President

1984 Detroit Tigers win the 1984 World Series.

17 - 1777 In the American Revolution, 5,000 British troops surrender to Americans at
Saratoga, N.Y.

1915 Born: writer Arthur Miller

1952 Born: Phil Easter, historian, a.k.a. "The Amazing Memory Man"

25 - 1415     Battle of Agincourt, in the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
                   An English army of about 7,000 defeated a French army of about 20,000. This
                   story of Agincourt is immortalized in Shakespeare's play "Henry V."

1854 In the Crimean War, the famous British cavalry unit was in action --
"The Charge of the Light Brigade."

December

2 - 1804 Napoleon crowned Emperor of France

1805 Napoleon victorious in the great Battle of Austerlitz

8 - 1941 The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt spoke to Congress, and war on Japan was declared.

1980 Died: singer-composer John Lennon

16 - 1770 Born: composer Ludwig Van Beethoven

1773 American colonists throw tea off British ships docked in Boston.
"The Boston Tea Party"

26 - 1972 Died: Harry Truman, 33rd U.S. President

2004 A major tsunami kills close to 200,000 people in Asia and Indonesia.

2006 Died: Gerald Ford, 38th U.S. President

27 - 1934     Born: Larisa Latynina, Russian Olympic gymnast. In her brilliant career, spanning
                   3 Olympic Games - 1956, 1960 and 1964 - she won a record 18 Olympic medals
                   (9 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze).

2007 Died: political leader Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in Pakistan