February 8, 2025
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Today In History

Today In History

1931 Empire State Building Dedicated

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On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York. The idea for the Empire […]
Today In History

1926 Ford Factory Workers Get 40-Hour Week

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On this day in 1926, Ford Motor Company became one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers in its automotive factories. The policy would be extended to Ford’s office workers the following August. Henry Ford‘s Detroit-based automobile company had broken ground in its labour policies before. In early […]
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1886 International Workers (Labour) Day

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International Workers’ Day is a celebration of labour and the working classes that is promoted by international labour movement and that occurs on May 1 every year. That day, May 1, is also the traditional European Spring holiday of May Day. Therefore, May 1 is a national public holiday in more than 80 countries, but […]
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1977: Red Army Faction Trial Ends

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In Stuttgart, West Ger-many, the lengthy trial of the leaders of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, ended with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe be-ing found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder. Each defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, Germa-ny’s […]
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1945: Benito Mussolini Executed

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On this day in 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during […]
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1916: Ferruccio Lamborghini Born

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On April 28, 1916, Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of the company that bears his name and was known for stylish, high-performance cars, was born in Italy. After World War II, Lamborghini founded a business making tractors from reconfigured surplus military machines, near Bologna, Italy. He later expanded into other ventures, including manufacturing air-conditioning and
Today In History

1933: Rolls-Royce Co-Founder Dies

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Frederick Henry Royce, who with Charles Stewart Rolls founded the luxury Britåish automaker Rolls- Royce, died on this day in 1933 at the age of 70 in England. Royce was born on March 27, 1863, near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. He grew up in a family of modest means and worked a variety of jobs, eventually […]
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1915: Germans Introduce Poison Gas

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On April 22, 1915, German forces shocked Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line. Toxic smoke has been used occasionally in warfare […]
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1946: Arthur Chevrolet Commits Suicide

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On this day in 1946, Arthur Chevrolet, an auto racer and the brother of Chevrolet auto namesake Louis Chevrolet, committed suicide in Slidell, Louisiana. Louis Chevrolet was born in Switzerland in 1878, while Arthur’s birth year has been listed as 1884 and 1886. By the early 1900s, Louis and Arthur, along with their younger brother […]
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1943: Hallucinogenic Effects of LSD Discovered

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In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumed LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds. After taking the drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamide, Dr. Hoffman was disturbed by unusual […]
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1917: Lenin Returns to Russia from Exile

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On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returned to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1870, Lenin was drawn to the revolutionary cause after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander II. […]
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1990: Soviets Admit to Katyn Massacre

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The Soviet government officially accepted blame for the Katyn Massacre of World War II, when nearly 5,000 Polish military officers were murdered and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest. The admission was part of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s promise to be more forthcoming and candid concerning Soviet history. In 1939, Poland had been […]
Today In History

1861: Fort Sumter Surrenders

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After a 33-hour bombardment by Confederate cannons, Union forces surrendered Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor. The first engagement of the war ended in Rebel victory. The surrender concluded a standoff that began with South Carolina’s secession from the Union on December 20, 1860. When President Abraham Lincoln sent word to Charleston in early […]