TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2017

On this day in history:

1512 - Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public.

1755 - At least 60,000 people were killed in Lisbon, Portugal by an earthquake, its aftershocks and the ensuing tsunami.

1791 - A party of convicts escapes from Parramatta, intending to walk to China. 1865 - The first European explorer to see Ayers Rock, William Christie Gosse, is appointed Government Surveyor in the South Australian colony.

1894 - Russian Emperor Alexander III died.

1911 - Italy used planes to drop bombs on the Tanguira oasis in Libya. It was the first aerial bombing.

1914 - Australia’s active involvement in the First World War begins as the first convoy of Australian and New Zealand troops departs from Albany, Western Australia.

1936 - Benito Mussolini made a speech in Milan, Italy, in which he described the alliance between Italy and Nazi Germany as an “axis” running between Berlin and Rome. 1952 - The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

1954 - Algeria began to rebel against French rule.

1979 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged all Iranians to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand their attacks against the US and Israel. On November 4, Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage.

1985 - In the village of Ignacio Aldama, 22 members of a Mexican anti-narcotics squad were killed by alleged drug traffickers.

1987 - Deng Xiaoping retired from China’s Communist Party’s Central Committee. 1989 - Tens of thousands of refugees to fled to the West when East Germany reopened its border with Czechoslovakia. 1989 - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced the end of a cease-fire with the Contra rebels.

1993 - The European Community’s treaty on European unity took effect. 1994 - The Amazon.com domain name was registered.