150 Fun Facts About On This Day in History

Which mission first landed humans on the Moon while Michael Collins stayed in orbit?

Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969; alone in orbit, Collins lost radio contact with Earth every time he passed behind the Moon.

Which test pilot first broke the sound barrier in level flight, flying the Bell X-1?

Chuck Yeager did it on October 14, 1947, with two ribs cracked in a riding fall; a colleague sawed off a broom handle so he could seal the hatch.

Which senator joined Cassius in leading the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar on the Ides of March?

Brutus had fought against Caesar in the civil war and been pardoned by him; the Latin 'Et tu, Brute?' was popularised by Shakespeare and appears in no ancient account.

Which Washington state volcano, until then the state's fifth-highest peak, erupted catastrophically on May 18, 1980?

Mount St. Helens lost about 1,300 feet of its summit when its north face collapsed in the largest landslide in recorded history.

Which president called December 7, 1941 'a date which will live in infamy'?

Franklin Roosevelt said it to Congress the day after the attack; the House voted 388 to 1 for war, with Jeannette Rankin the lone vote against.

Which liner picked up the Titanic's survivors from their lifeboats?

The Carpathia steamed 58 nautical miles through the night after the distress call, then spent about four and a half hours from 4 a.m. taking over 700 survivors aboard.

In which city did Martin Luther King Jr. deliver 'I Have a Dream'?

Washington, D.C.: at the March on Washington, King left his prepared text after gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out, 'Tell them about the dream, Martin!'

Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 prison years on which island?

Robben Island: Mandela spent 13 years breaking rock in its limestone quarry, and the glare and lime dust left him with lasting eye damage.

Which president demanded 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' in a speech in West Berlin?

Ronald Reagan said it at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987, after State Department and National Security Council aides had objected to the line.

What date was D-Day, when Allied troops landed in Normandy in World War II?

The landings on June 6, 1944, opened Operation Overlord and began the liberation of German-occupied France.

World War II officially began with Germany's invasion of which country on September 1, 1939?

Poland: the invasion is widely taken as the war's start, and the night before, SS men posing as Poles staged a fake attack on a German radio station as a pretext.

Which camp's liberation is marked each January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day?

Auschwitz: when Soviet troops arrived, they found about 7,000 prisoners left behind; the SS had already forced most of the rest on death marches.

Which bomber, named after its pilot's mother, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?

Enola Gay: Colonel Paul Tibbets had his mother's name, Enola Gay Tibbets, painted on the B-29 just before the mission.

Black Tuesday's stock market crash helped tip America into which decade-long slump?

The Great Depression followed; on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, some 16 million shares changed hands and stock tickers ran hours behind.

On what date did the Continental Congress adopt the Declaration of Independence?

July 4, 1776: Congress adopted the Declaration's final text that day in the Pennsylvania State House, later Independence Hall; most delegates signed the engrossed copy on August 2.

Which president bought the Louisiana Territory from France?

Thomas Jefferson went ahead although the Constitution gave him no clear power to buy land; the $15 million deal nearly doubled the country's size.

Abraham Lincoln was shot at which theater?

Ford's Theatre: John Wilkes Booth, an actor who often performed there, slipped into Lincoln's box during the comedy Our American Cousin.

Which hijacked 9/11 flight crashed in a Pennsylvania field after its passengers fought back?

United 93 came down near Shanksville after the passenger revolt; the 9/11 Commission concluded its likely target was the Capitol or the White House.

Japan's formal surrender ending World War II was signed aboard which battleship in Tokyo Bay?

USS Missouri: the ceremony displayed the flag Commodore Perry had flown in 1853 when his warships forced Japan to open to trade.

Which British prime minister broadcast news of Germany's surrender to the nation on V-E Day?

Winston Churchill announced it on May 8, 1945, yet in an election held less than two months later, Labour's landslide swept him from office.

Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in which cathedral?

Notre-Dame Cathedral: Pope Pius VII was there to consecrate him, but Napoleon took the crown and placed it on his own head.

Which currency was electronic-only for three years before its cash arrived?

The euro launched on January 1, 1999, as an 'invisible' currency; its notes and coins came in 2002 in the biggest cash changeover in history.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a trigger for World War I, occurred in what city?

Sarajevo: Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in the Bosnian capital on June 28, 1914.

Bastille Day, France's national day, commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison on which date?

July 14 also marks the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, a festival celebrating the unity of the French people one year after the storming.

Which ship was Christopher Columbus's flagship on his first voyage to the Americas?

The Santa María ran aground on Christmas Eve 1492, and Columbus used her timbers to build a fort, La Navidad, for the men he left behind.

Which beekeeper made the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay?

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top on May 29, 1953, and the news broke on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

Which Gdańsk shipyard electrician led the Solidarity trade union?

Lech Wałęsa was interned under martial law in 1981, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and was elected president in 1990.

Which British prime minister publicly apologised for the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Derry?

David Cameron told Parliament in 2010 the killings were 'unjustified and unjustifiable' after a 12-year inquiry found the victims posed no threat.

Google's name is a play on which large number?

Googol: a 1 followed by 100 zeros; a colleague checking domain names reportedly typed 'google.com' by mistake, and Larry Page liked the name.

Which federal agency did the first Earth Day help bring about?

The EPA was authorized that December; Senator Gaylord Nelson had created Earth Day, drawing some 20 million Americans, to force the environment onto the agenda.

Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, is observed annually on which date?

November 11: the armistice was signed in Foch's railway carriage at Compiègne and took effect at 11:00 on November 11, 1918, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Six countries founded the common market in 1957 by signing a treaty in which city?

Rome: West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed on the Capitoline Hill, and their community later grew into the EU.

Which volcano buried Pompeii and Herculaneum?

Vesuvius: the famous August 24 date comes from copies of Pliny the Younger's letters, and scholars still debate whether the eruption came in autumn.

Which British commander defeated Napoleon at Waterloo?

The Duke of Wellington held on until Blücher's Prussians arrived, then called Waterloo 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.'

What broke off at launch and fatally damaged Space Shuttle Columbia's wing?

Foam: a chunk from the external tank struck the left wing's leading edge 82 seconds after launch, letting superheated air inside on re-entry.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in which city?

Athens: the Games' biggest hero was Spyridon Louis, a local water carrier who won the first Olympic marathon.

The Golden Gate Bridge is painted in which officially named color?

International Orange began as the steel's primer; the Navy wanted black and yellow stripes, but architect Irving Morrow kept the orange because it shows in fog.

Which planet was discovered by Urbain Le Verrier and Johann Galle on September 23, 1846?

Neptune was discovered through mathematical prediction by Le Verrier and subsequently observed by Galle, based on irregularities in Uranus's orbit.

Which Chicago gangster built a bootlegging empire during Prohibition?

Al Capone was finally convicted in 1931 not for bootlegging or murder but for income tax evasion.

Which power declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, beginning World War I?

Austria-Hungary declared war exactly a month after the heir to its throne was shot; days later, its ally Germany declared war on Russia.

Which chancellor presided over German reunification, celebrated each October 3?

Helmut Kohl seized the chance after the Berlin Wall fell and won unity within a year, earning the title 'Kanzler der Einheit', the Unification Chancellor.

Which future congressman had his skull fractured on Selma's Bloody Sunday?

John Lewis was beaten by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965; 55 years later, his casket was carried across the same bridge.

Which president's re-election bid was sunk partly by the 444-day Iran hostage crisis?

Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election, and Iran released the 52 hostages minutes after his successor was sworn in.

The Philippines celebrates Independence Day on June 12, marking freedom from which colonial ruler?

Spain: Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed independence on June 12, 1898, but that December Spain sold the islands to the United States for $20 million.

Which assistant did Alexander Graham Bell summon in the first telephone call?

Thomas Watson heard Bell call 'Mr. Watson, come here' on March 10, 1876, just three days after Bell's telephone patent was granted.

Disneyland opened in 1955 in which California city?

Anaheim: counterfeit tickets swelled the crowd, fresh asphalt melted under women's heels, and staff called opening day 'Black Sunday.'

Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from atop which Beijing landmark?

Tiananmen: a giant portrait of Mao still hangs on the gate, though on March 9, 1953, it was swapped for one of Stalin to mark the Soviet leader's death.

On which date is International Women's Day observed each year?

March 8: the date stems from the women's strike in Petrograd on March 8, 1917 (February 23 in the old Russian calendar) that helped spark the February Revolution; the UN began marking it in 1975.

Three days after Hiroshima, which Japanese city was hit by the second atomic bomb?

Nagasaki was the backup target: clouds and smoke over Kokura, the primary target, forced the B-29 Bockscar to divert.

Boston Tea Party protesters disguised themselves as members of which nation?

Mohawk: disguised Sons of Liberty boarded three ships and dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.

Which aviator piloted the first powered, controlled airplane flight in 1903?

Orville Wright flew for 12 seconds on December 17, 1903; Wilbur had won a coin toss for the first try three days earlier but stalled.

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957 from a site in which present-day country?

Kazakhstan: Sputnik 1 lifted off from the Tyuratam range in the Kazakh SSR, the site that became the Baikonur Cosmodrome; Russia signed a lease for it with independent Kazakhstan in 1994.

Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth on April 12, 1961 aboard which spacecraft?

Vostok 1: Gagarin's single orbit aboard Vostok 1 lasted 108 minutes from launch to landing, and he ejected at about 7 km to parachute down separately from the capsule.

Which city, home to Chernobyl's workers, was evacuated the day after the reactor exploded?

Pripyat: tens of thousands of residents were bused out on April 27, 1986, and were resettled elsewhere instead of ever coming home.

Which part, stiffened by freezing weather, failed and destroyed Space Shuttle Challenger?

O-rings: at a televised hearing, physicist Richard Feynman dropped a squeezed piece of O-ring rubber into ice water to show how it lost its springiness.

The Great Fire of London began on September 2, 1666 in a bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane: the fire began in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane early on September 2, 1666, and burned four days, destroying some 13,200 houses and St Paul's Cathedral.

Which king sealed Magna Carta under pressure from rebel barons?

King John: within months Pope Innocent III annulled the charter, and England slid into civil war, the First Barons' War.

Charles Lindbergh ended his solo Atlantic flight on May 21, 1927 at which airfield?

Le Bourget: Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget airfield outside Paris at 10:22 pm on May 21, 1927, after about 33.5 hours in the air.

The Hindenburg airship burned on May 6, 1937 while trying to land in which U.S. state?

New Jersey: the Hindenburg caught fire while docking at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937; 36 people died in the disaster.

Which British liner's sinking by a German U-boat in 1915 helped turn Americans against Germany?

Lusitania sank in about 18 minutes, and nearly 1,200 people died, including 128 Americans.

On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart vanished while flying from Lae toward which Pacific destination?

Howland Island: Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were bound for tiny Howland Island, roughly midway between Australia and Hawaii, where the Coast Guard cutter Itasca waited to guide them in by radio.

The volcano Krakatoa, which erupted catastrophically in 1883, lies in which country?

Indonesia: Krakatoa sits in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, and some scientists link the blood-red sky in Munch's The Scream to the fiery sunsets it caused.

Which fault slipped to cause the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

The San Andreas Fault ruptured along about 296 miles, and much of San Francisco's destruction came from the fires that followed.

On December 6, 1917, a munitions ship explosion devastated which Canadian city?

Halifax: the French munitions ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in Halifax Harbour and exploded, killing nearly 2,000 people and flattening the Richmond district.

Mahatma Gandhi was shot in New Delhi while walking to what?

A prayer meeting: Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist who opposed Gandhi's approach to Muslims and Pakistan, fired three shots at close range.

Which state's ratification on August 18, 1920 completed the 19th Amendment on women's suffrage?

Tennessee: on August 18, 1920, 24-year-old legislator Harry Burn switched to 'aye' after a note from his mother, and Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify, the three-fourths needed.

Critics mocked the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia as which official's 'folly'?

William Seward agreed to pay $7.2 million, about two cents an acre; skeptics also called the territory 'Seward's Icebox.'

Which newspaper publisher's fundraising drive completed the funding for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal?

Joseph Pulitzer promised to print every donor's name in his New York World, and more than 120,000 people gave, most in small sums.

The Eiffel Tower was built for a World's Fair marking which event's centenary?

French Revolution: the tower was meant to come down after 20 years, but it was spared because it proved valuable as a radio antenna.

The transcontinental railroad’s golden spike ceremony took place on May 10, 1869 in which territory?

Utah: at Promontory Summit, Leland Stanford is said to have swung at the last spike and missed, yet the telegraph still flashed 'done' across the country.

The first nuclear detonation, on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico, had what codename?

Trinity: Oppenheimer later wrote that he wasn't sure why he chose the name, though John Donne's poetry was on his mind; the same implosion design was used over Japan about three weeks later.

Which Soviet leader agreed to withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuba in October 1962?

Nikita Khrushchev pulled them out after Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba and quietly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022 at which royal residence?

Balmoral Castle: the Queen died at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire aged 96 after a 70-year reign; a death in Scotland triggered the contingency plan known as Operation Unicorn.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat on December 1, 1955, sparking a 381-day boycott in which Alabama city?

Montgomery's bus boycott lasted 381 days and launched the public career of a young Martin Luther King Jr.

Which future Supreme Court justice argued against school segregation in Brown versus Board of Education?

Thurgood Marshall won the unanimous 1954 ruling for the NAACP, and in 1967 he became the first Black justice on the Supreme Court.

Martin Luther King Jr. was shot at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968 in which city?

Memphis: King had come to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers and was shot on the Lorraine Motel balcony; the motel later became the National Civil Rights Museum.

Which scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency?

Watergate: a secretly recorded 'smoking gun' tape showed Nixon plotting to block the FBI's investigation, and he became the only U.S. president to resign.

Concorde prototype 001 made its first flight on March 2, 1969 from which city?

Toulouse: prototype 001 took off from Toulouse-Blagnac with test pilot André Turcat at the controls; the British-built 002 followed from Filton on April 9, and 001 first went supersonic on October 1, 1969.

Mark Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook from a dorm at which university?

Harvard: TheFacebook was open at first only to Harvard students, and more than 1,000 of them signed up within about a day.

Which Russian leader stood on a tank to defy the 1991 Soviet coup?

Boris Yeltsin denounced the coup from atop a tank outside Russia's parliament; by December he and two other republic leaders had declared the Soviet Union dead.

Hong Kong's 1997 return to China came under which principle?

One country, two systems: the handover ended 156 years of British rule, and China promised Hong Kong's way of life would stay unchanged until 2047.

Which city was about 80 percent flooded when levees failed during Hurricane Katrina?

New Orleans: levees and floodwalls failed in more than 50 places, and investigators blamed flawed engineering by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Which nuclear plant suffered meltdowns after the 2011 tsunami off Japan's Tōhoku coast?

Fukushima: the tsunami knocked out backup generators, three reactor cores melted, and more than 100,000 people were evacuated.

The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 struck on the morning of which Christian feast?

All Saints' Day: the quake struck on the morning of November 1, 1755, All Saints' Day, when churches were full of lit candles; fires and a tsunami followed the shaking.

Which embroidered cloth tells the story of the Norman Conquest at Hastings?

The Bayeux Tapestry is nearly 70 meters long, and despite its name it isn't a tapestry at all: it's embroidery stitched onto linen.

After conquering Constantinople in 1453, which great church did the Ottomans turn into a mosque?

Hagia Sophia: Mehmed II made it a mosque, it became a museum under the secular Turkish republic in the 1930s, and it was reclassified as a mosque in 2020.

Which queen followed Louis XVI to the guillotine in October 1793?

Marie Antoinette was executed nine months after her husband; there's no evidence she ever said 'let them eat cake,' a line Rousseau had used earlier.

At Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, Nelson commanded the fleet from which flagship?

HMS Victory: Nelson led the weather column aboard the first-rate Victory, captained by Thomas Hardy, and was mortally wounded on her quarterdeck; the ship was placed in dry dock at Portsmouth in 1922 and preserved.

Which conspirator was caught guarding gunpowder beneath the House of Lords in 1605?

Guy Fawkes was found with 36 barrels of gunpowder, and Britons still burn his effigy on Bonfire Night every November 5.

Legend blamed the Great Chicago Fire on a cow belonging to which family?

O'Leary: reporter Michael Ahern later admitted he made up the cow story, and in 1997 the city officially cleared Catherine O'Leary.

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861 with the bombardment of which site near Charleston?

Fort Sumter: Confederate batteries shelled Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor for 34 hours from April 12, 1861, and Major Robert Anderson's Union garrison surrendered without a combat death on either side.

Lee's surrender to Grant in April 1865 took place in which Virginia town?

Appomattox: Lee signed in Wilmer McLean's parlor, and McLean had moved there after the First Battle of Bull Run was fought on his Manassas farm.

Gold seekers who poured into California after the find at Sutter's Mill were nicknamed what?

Forty-niners: most arrived in 1849, and John Sutter's workers left to hunt gold while squatters took over his land.

Who won the first Nobel Prize in Physics?

Wilhelm Röntgen won in 1901 for discovering X-rays, and he refused to patent them so that research and humanity could use them freely.

Nicholas II and his family were shot by Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918 in which city?

Yekaterinburg: the family was shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, a house demolished in 1977 and later replaced by the Church on the Blood.

Tutankhamun's tomb, found in 1922, lies in which Egyptian burial ground?

Valley of the Kings: the tomb turned up in what was meant to be the dig's last funded season, and it held more than 5,000 objects.

The Dunkirk evacuation of May–June 1940 ran under which codename?

Operation Dynamo: directed by Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay from tunnels beneath Dover Castle, it lifted more than 338,000 Allied soldiers off Dunkirk between May 26 and June 4, 1940.

Woodstock, held August 15–18, 1969, actually took place on a dairy farm in which New York town?

Bethel: after the town of Wallkill blocked the festival, the promoters moved it to Max Yasgur's dairy farm.

Which leader's name did Saigon take after its fall?

Ho Chi Minh, who had declared Vietnam's independence in 1945, was honored when Saigon was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976.

John Lennon was shot on December 8, 1980 in the archway of which Manhattan building?

The Dakota: Chapman shot Lennon at the entrance of the Dakota on West 72nd Street, where he had got Lennon's autograph hours earlier; Lennon died in hospital that night.

Australian soldiers armed with machine guns set out on November 2, 1932 to cull which birds?

Emus outran the army: a gun mounted on a truck never caught the birds, and the ride was so rough the gunner could not fire a shot. The operation is remembered as the Emu War.

A burst tank sent a 25-foot wave of which liquid through Boston's North End on January 15, 1919?

Molasses surged out at about 35 mph, killing 21 people and several horses. Temperatures had climbed above 40 degrees Fahrenheit that day after a spell of bitter cold.

Drivers in which country stopped at 4:50 a.m. on September 3, 1967 and moved over to the right?

Sweden called the switch Dagen H and banned non-essential traffic for five hours that night. The Dagen H logo appeared on commemorative items that included milk cartons and underwear.

Which painting did Louvre worker Vincenzo Peruggia steal on August 21, 1911 and keep for two years?

Mona Lisa owes part of its fame to the theft. Peruggia had helped build the picture's glass case, and police questioned Pablo Picasso before the real thief was caught.

On April 1, 1957, the BBC's Panorama showed a Swiss family supposedly harvesting which food from trees?

Spaghetti was still exotic in 1950s Britain, known mainly from tins, so plenty of viewers believed it. Hundreds phoned the BBC the next day, some asking how to grow their own.

Which singer visited the White House on December 21, 1970 to ask President Nixon for a narcotics badge?

Elvis Presley arranged the visit himself, saying he could reach hippies and help fight the drug culture. Nixon apparently found the encounter awkward.

The first mammal cloned from an adult cell, a sheep born on July 5, 1996, was named after which singer?

Dolly Parton got the nod because the donor cell came from a mammary gland, a joke by the scientists in Scotland. The lamb had three mothers: one gave the egg, one the DNA and one carried her.

Debris from which space station hit Western Australia on July 11, 1979, earning a littering fine?

Skylab's debris landed there because of a four-percent calculation error, and the Shire of Esperance light-heartedly fined NASA 400 Australian dollars. A radio host's listeners paid it in 2009.

The shooting of which animal on June 15, 1859 set off a military standoff over the San Juan Islands?

A pig caught rooting in an American settler's garden was the only casualty of the so-called Pig War. The shot came 13 years to the day after the treaty that left the border unclear.

The first YouTube video, uploaded on April 23, 2005, shows Jawed Karim at a zoo beside which animals?

Elephants at the San Diego Zoo are the stars of the 19-second clip, in which Karim remarks on their long trunks. A school friend held the camera.

John F. Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963 while his motorcade passed through which Texas city?

Dallas saw a second piece of history that afternoon: Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president aboard Air Force One at Love Field, about two hours after the shooting.

Which teenage diarist was arrested on August 4, 1944 after two years hiding in an Amsterdam annex?

Anne Frank and her family were seized when uniformed German police stormed the Secret Annex that morning. She died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in February or March 1945.

Astronomers meeting in Prague voted on August 24, 2006 to strip which world of its status as a planet?

Pluto became a dwarf planet under the new definition, which left eight planets. Many astronomers were unable or chose not to travel to Prague, and so cast no vote.

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line on April 15, 1947, starting at first base for which team?

Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers number, 42, was retired by every major league team in 1997, a first for an athlete in any sport. Every player wears it each April 15.

Which London church hosted Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on June 2, 1953, the first with television cameras inside?

Westminster Abbey closed for five months to prepare, and 27 million people in Britain watched live on the BBC. Cameras had been kept outside for her parents' coronation in 1937.

Which soft drink was first sold on May 8, 1886 at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta for five cents a glass?

Coca-Cola stayed at five cents until 1959, a price fixed for more than 70 years partly because of an advertising campaign.

Which waterway was blocked for six days from March 23, 2021 when the ship Ever Given ran aground?

The Suez Canal reopened after fourteen tugs from Egypt, the Netherlands and Italy pulled the container ship free. Ever Given had sailed through 22 times before.

An Army air field announced on July 8, 1947 that it had recovered a flying disc near which New Mexico town?

Roswell's story soon changed, when the Army said the wreckage was only a weather balloon. Interest faded until 1978, when a retired officer called that a cover story.

Three inmates left papier-mâché heads in their beds on June 11, 1962 and escaped which island prison?

Alcatraz was left behind on an improvised raft, with life vests made from more than fifty raincoats to a magazine design. What became of the three men has never been established.

Which stray dog from the streets of Moscow became the first animal to orbit Earth on November 3, 1957?

Laika was chosen because Soviet scientists assumed Moscow strays had already learned to endure extreme cold and hunger. She flew aboard Sputnik 2 and did not survive the flight.

Annie Edson Taylor marked her 63rd birthday, October 24, 1901, by riding a barrel over which waterfall?

Niagara Falls had been tested two days earlier by a cat sent over in the same barrel, which survived. Taylor, a schoolteacher, hoped the stunt would secure her later years financially.

The first man home in the Olympic marathon of August 30, 1904 was disqualified for travelling partly how?

By car is how Frederick Lorz returned to the stadium after cramps stopped him at nine miles, waving to spectators on the way. The real winner had been dosed with strychnine and brandy.

Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb on December 21, 1988 while flying over which Scottish town?

Lockerbie lost eleven residents to fire and falling debris, along with all 259 people aboard the Boeing 747, which carried the name Clipper Maid of the Seas.

Argentine forces landed on April 2, 1982 on which British-held territory, starting a ten-week war?

The Falklands landings were code-named Operation Rosario, and Argentina seized South Georgia the next day. The war ended with an Argentine surrender on June 14.

General Augusto Pinochet toppled President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973 in which country?

Chile's navy had taken the port of Valparaíso by six that morning, and Allende refused offers of safe passage out of the presidential palace, where he died that day.

Which Basque town, bombed on market day, April 26, 1937, became the subject of a Pablo Picasso painting?

Guernica was hit by the German Condor Legion and Italian aircraft with more than 10,000 people in town. Picasso reworked a commission he already had from the Spanish Republic into the painting.

Adolf Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 8–9, 1923 tried to seize power in which German city?

Munich was meant to be the base for a march on the national government. Hitler was instead found guilty of treason and dictated Mein Kampf in Landsberg Prison.

Which nightclub owner shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television on November 24, 1963 in a police basement?

Jack Ruby was arrested on the spot, two days after the assassination of President Kennedy. Born in Chicago, he ran nightclubs, strip clubs and dance halls in Texas.

Which Wall Street bank filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 with over $600 billion in assets?

Lehman Brothers went under after rescue talks failed, at the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis. The Dow Jones closed down just over 500 points that day.

Which swimsuit, unveiled on July 5, 1946, was named after the site of a nuclear test four days earlier?

Bikini Atoll lent its name to Louis Réard's design, which was so revealing that no fashion model would show it. He hired Micheline Bernardini, a dancer from the Casino de Paris.

Which Edvard Munch painting was stolen on February 12, 1994, the day Norway's Winter Olympics opened?

The Scream was taken from Oslo's National Gallery by two men who left a note mocking its poor security. The gallery's picture is one of several versions Munch made.

A Chillicothe firm first sold which kitchen convenience on July 7, 1928, made by Otto Rohwedder's machine?

Sliced bread took Rohwedder 16 years to deliver, because a prototype he built in 1912 was lost in a fire. Battle Creek, Michigan also claims the first sale, though no documents back it.

Oregon highway engineers used half a ton of dynamite on November 12, 1970 to remove which beached animal?

A sperm whale 45 feet long had washed up at Florence, and officials hoped scavengers would eat the small pieces. The engineer in charge got the job because his supervisor had gone hunting.

Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen named which place after the feast day on which he sighted it, April 5, 1722?

Easter Island was Paasch-Eyland in the Dutch of Roggeveen's day. He came across it while searching for a place known as Davis Land.

Which sitting vice president fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel at dawn on July 11, 1804?

Aaron Burr shot Hamilton close to the spot where Hamilton's son Philip had been fatally wounded in a duel. Hamilton was taken back to New York City and died the next day.

Which astronomer did the Inquisition sentence on June 22, 1633 for holding that the Earth circles the Sun?

Galileo Galilei was found vehemently suspect of heresy and made to renounce his views. His prison sentence was commuted the next day to house arrest, which lasted the rest of his life.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821 as a British prisoner on which remote island?

Saint Helena lies deep in the South Atlantic, where Napoleon lived in Longwood House, a 40-room wooden bungalow. He spread reports of poor treatment in the hope of having the exile revoked.

Which explorer's party of five reached the South Pole first, on December 14, 1911, a month ahead of a rival?

Roald Amundsen told his own crew they were bound for Antarctica only when the ship reached Madeira, then cabled the news to his rival. His team arrived with 16 dogs, a month before Scott's group.

Which nation hosted and won the first FIFA World Cup, beating Argentina in the final on July 30, 1930?

Uruguay built the Estadio Centenario for the tournament and to mark the centenary of its first constitution. FIFA picked the country partly because its team were the reigning Olympic champions.

Which exiled Russian revolutionary was attacked with an ice axe in Mexico City on August 20, 1940?

Leon Trotsky fought back, then stopped his bodyguards from killing the attacker so that the man could be questioned. The assassin, Ramón Mercader, was an agent of the Soviet secret police.

Irish rebels who rose on April 24, 1916 made their headquarters in which Dublin building?

The General Post Office on O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare, was occupied as the rebellion began, and two republican flags were hoisted over it. The Rising lasted six days.

Cinco de Mayo marks a Mexican defeat of French troops on May 5, 1862 outside which city?

Puebla's battle is often mistaken for Mexican independence, which is marked on September 16. President Benito Juárez decreed the yearly commemoration.

Which 21-year-old Ottoman sultan captured Constantinople on May 29, 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire?

Mehmed II earned the name Mehmed the Conqueror. Greeks came to regard Tuesday, the weekday on which the capital fell, as unlucky.

Which 19-year-old Bosnian Serb student shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in an open car on June 28, 1914?

Gavrilo Princip was 27 days too young to be executed under Habsburg law. The archduke's driver had turned into the side street where he happened to be standing outside a delicatessen.

Which African country's army routed Italian invaders at Adwa on March 1, 1896, preserving its independence?

Ethiopia's Emperor Menelik II raised an army put at 73,000 to over 100,000 men, most carrying modern rifles. The outcome made the country a beacon of independence across Africa.

Troops fired on a festival crowd in the Jallianwala Bagh on April 13, 1919 in which Punjabi city?

Amritsar was full of visitors for the Baisakhi fair when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer blocked the exit and ordered his men to shoot. They kept firing as people tried to flee.

The massacre of Huguenots that began in Paris on August 24, 1572 is named after which saint's feast day?

St. Bartholomew's eve found many leading Huguenots in the capital for a royal wedding held six days earlier. The killing began two days after an attempt on the life of their leader, Admiral Coligny.

Which Abbasid capital surrendered to Hulegu Khan's Mongol army on February 10, 1258 and was then looted?

Baghdad at its height has been called the intellectual capital of the planet, home to the House of Wisdom and to observatories. The caliph gave himself up with his family and 3,000 dignitaries.

Martin Luther reputedly nailed his Ninety-five Theses to a church door on October 31, 1517 in which town?

Wittenberg may never have heard the hammer: what is certain is that Luther sent the theses in a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz that day. By 1527 he was toasting the anniversary with beer.

British and German soldiers are said to have played which sport during the truce of December 25, 1914?

Football features in many accounts of the truce, alongside swaps of food, tobacco and buttons. German soldiers even asked the British for news of the leagues back home.