Wikipedia staged a 24-hour blackout to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act
Over 160 million people encountered the blackout page instead of Wikipedia articles. The protest was incredibly effective—within days, dozens of congr...
Historical Events
2012
2003
The final signal was received from NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft, over 30 years after its launch
The probe was 7.6 billion miles from Earth when it sent its last, faint transmission. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the astero...
1997
Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female U.S. Secretary of State
Born in Czechoslovakia and arriving in the U.S. as a refugee at age 11, Albright became the highest-ranking woman in U.S. government history at the ti...
1986
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members, including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and James Brown
The inaugural class of 10 performers defined the foundation of rock music. Interestingly, the Hall of Fame didn't have an actual building at the time—...
1973
President Nixon announced that a peace accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War
MajorThe Paris Peace Accords were formally signed four days later, promising to end American involvement in Vietnam. Despite the agreement, fighting contin...
1968
North Korea captured the USS Pueblo, a U.S. Navy intelligence ship, in international waters
The spy ship and its 83 crew members were held captive for 11 months in what became a major Cold War incident. One crew member died during the capture...
1960
The bathyscaphe Trieste descended to the deepest point on Earth in the Mariana Trench
MajorJacques Piccard and Don Walsh reached Challenger Deep, 35,814 feet below sea level, in a journey that took nearly five hours down and three hours back...
1950
The Knesset proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
MajorDespite international objections and the UN's plan to internationalize the city, Israel's parliament declared Jerusalem its capital. The move came dur...
1943
British forces captured Tripoli from the Germans, marking a turning point in the North African campaign
MajorAfter a 1,400-mile advance from El Alamein, Montgomery's Eighth Army entered Tripoli, Libya's capital. This victory gave the Allies control of North A...
1937
A trial in Moscow saw 17 leading Soviet communists confess to conspiracy and treason in one of Stalin's show trials
This was the second of Stalin's major Moscow Trials during the Great Purge. The defendants, including prominent Bolsheviks, confessed to fantastical p...
1920
The Netherlands refused to surrender Kaiser Wilhelm II to the Allies for war crimes prosecution
After fleeing Germany following WWI, the former German Emperor found asylum in the Netherlands. Despite international pressure and the Treaty of Versa...
1849
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States
MajorAfter being rejected by 29 medical schools, Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical College in New York. The school had accepted her application as a...
1556
The deadliest earthquake in recorded history struck Shaanxi, China, killing an estimated 830,000 people
MajorThe catastrophic quake devastated a 520-mile area in central China. Most deaths resulted from the collapse of yaodongs, artificial caves carved into s...