2021
Attack on a military police outpost near a gold mine in Inata, northern Burkina Faso, kills at least 53, prompting three days of national mourning.
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2018
The discovery of an Earth-like planet 3.2 times bigger than our world was announced.
Called Barnard’s Star b, it is the second closest exoplanet from us, at six light years away. It’s not the most inviting planet as it’s a somewhat dark and frozen place.
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2018
A 19-mile crater was found under the Greenland Glacier.
Research found a meteorite hit it at 12 miles per second (19.2 km/s) about 12,000 years ago.
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2016
Disney’s Moana premiered in Los Angeles, California, US.
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2016
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Kaikōura, New Zealand.
There were two fatalities, with 57 injured. The earthquake was the second largest on record in New Zealand.
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2006
The James Bond movie “Casino Royale,” with Daniel Craig as Bond, premiered in London.
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1996
The musical “Chicago” opened at Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City.
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1968
Dr. Fritz Derom performed a successful single-lung transplantation on patient Aloïs Vereecken at the University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium.
This was the first successful lung transplant to take place in Europe.
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1960
Ruby Bridges became the first African American girl to take classes at an all-white school in Louisiana.
Ruby’s parents wished her to attend a better school so that she could gain a level of education they were never able to have. For the entirety of her first year at the William Frantz Elementary School, Ruby was escorted into school by federal marshals. Only one teacher was willing to teach Ruby, and no other students were willing to share a classroom with her.
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1922
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) began its radio service in the United Kingdom.
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1889
Nellie Bly, a pioneering female journalist, embarked on a trip to travel around the world in less than 80 days.
Bly successfully completed the trip in just 72 days.
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1851
Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick” was published by Harper & Brothers in New York.
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1732
Louis Timothee became America’s first paid librarian.
Benjamin Franklin appointed Louis Timothee as the first salaried librarian in the American colonies at the Library Company of Philadelphia on this day. Timothee worked every Wednesday and Thursday and was paid a total of three pounds sterling every trimester.
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1680
German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovered the Great Comet of 1680, the first comet sighted using a telescope.
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