TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2018

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

1282 - Llywelyn (Llewelyn ap Gruffydd) was killed in Cilmeri, central Wales.

1769 - Edward Beran of London patented venetian blinds.

1792 - Captain Arthur Phillip, first Governor of the New South Wales colony, returns to England.

1792 - France’s King Louis XVI went before the Convention, which had replaced the National Assembly, to face charges of treason. He was convicted and condemned and was sent to the guillotine the following January.

1848 - Edmund Kennedy is killed by Aborigines just short of his destination of Cape York. [

1894 - The world’s first motor show opened in Paris with nine exhibitors.

1931 - The Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to countries of the British Commonwealth.

1936 - Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson. He became the Duke of Windsor.

1937 - The Fascist Council in Rome, withdrew Italy from the League of Nations.

1941 - Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The US in turn declared war on the two countries.

1946 - The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established by the UN General Assembly. The fund provides relief to children in countries devastated by war.

1967 - The prototype of the Concorde was shown for the first time in Toulouse, France.

1973 - West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and Czech Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal formally nullified the 1938 Munich pact when they signed a treaty sanctioning Hitler’s seizure of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

1981 - Muhammad Ali fought his last fight. He lost his 61st fight to Trevor Berbick.

1987 - Charlie Chaplin’s trademark cane and bowler hat were sold at Christie’s for £82,500.

2015 - Australian naturalist and controversial conservationist Harry Butler dies.