TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2018

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

1859 - The first flying trapeze act was performed by Jules Leotard at Cirque Napoleon in Paris, France. He was also the designer of the garment that is named after him.

1873 - Colonel Warburton’s exploration party is reduced to subsisting only on camel meat.

1894 - Australian inventor Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates that it is possible for man to fly.

1918 - Austria and Czechoslovakia were declared independent republics.

1921 - Representatives of nine nations gathered for the start of the Washington Conference for Limitation of Armaments.

1927 - Joseph Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party leading to Stalin coming to power.

1942 - During World War II, naval battle of Guadalcanal began between Japanese and American forces. The Americans won a major victory.

1943 - The last of the World War II Japanese bombings raids against Australia occurs.

1944 - During World War II, the German battleship Tirpitz was sunk off the coast of Norway.

1948 - The war crimes tribunal sentenced Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other World War II Japanese leaders to death.

1982 - Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee.

1990 - Japanese Emperor Akihito formally assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne.

1997 - The UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on Iraq for constraints placed on UN arms inspectors.

2001 - It was reported that the Northern Alliance had taken the Kabul, Afghanistan, from the ruling Taliban. The alliance at this point was reported to control most of the northern areas of Afghanistan.

2014 - NATO commander Gen Philip Breedlove reported that Russian military equipment and Russian combat troops had been seen entering Ukraine in columns over several days.