Category: This day in History

On August 7, 1998, hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the US embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks, linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to American attention and resulted in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list. The bombings took place on the eighth anniversary of what? Discuss

Titov was a Soviet cosmonaut and the second man to orbit the Earth, preceded just months earlier by Yuri Gagarin, with whom he had trained. At 25 years old, Titov was selected to fly the Vostok 2 mission and spent 25 hours in space, completing 17 Earth orbits. The mission brought him several impressive designations: youngest person to fly in space, first person to experience space sickness, and first person to sleep in space. Though he overslept, what strange occurrence initially kept him up? Discuss

The Greenwich Foot Tunnel is a pedestrian tunnel beneath the River Thames in East London, linking Greenwich with the Isle of Dogs. Opened in 1902, the tunnel replaced an occasionally unreliable ferry service and was intended to allow workers living on the south side of the Thames to reach their workplaces in the London docks and shipyards. The tunnel is made of cast-iron rings lined with concrete and covered with some 200,000 white tiles. It is 1,215 ft (370 m) long and how deep underground? Discuss

The Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 limited the number of defensive antiballistic missile systems allowed to the US and USSR. Effective ABM systems had been sought since the Cold War, when the nuclear arms race raised the specter of complete destruction by unstoppable ballistic missiles. In the West, the treaty was seen as a deterrent to nuclear war, since neither side would be able to fully protect against nuclear attack. Why then did the US withdraw from the treaty in 2002? Discuss

The Potsdam Conference was an Allied conference held in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam after Germany’s surrender in World War II. Representing the US, USSR, and UK, respectively, Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill met there to discuss European peace settlements and reparations, the administration of Germany, the demarcation of Poland, the occupation of Austria, the USSR’s role in eastern Europe, and the war against Japan. Who replaced Churchill during the conference? Discuss

MTV is an American cable television network that was originally created to broadcast videos of pop and rock musicians. It quickly gained a wide following, and soon virtually all major pop and rock performers were making videos to be aired on MTV. In the 1990s, MTV diversified its programming, airing game shows, cartoons, sitcoms, documentaries, and reality shows. The network has had a profound impact on both the music industry and popular culture. What was the first music video aired on MTV? Discuss

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the Spanish Empire used a system of convoys, called treasure fleets, to transport a wide variety of items to Spain from its territories in the New World. Seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, all 11 of the ships in the 1715 treasure fleet sank during a hurricane near present-day Florida, resulting in the deaths of thousands of sailors. The disaster also resulted in the loss of what precious items, some of which still occasionally wash ashore? Discuss

In the midst of WWI, German saboteurs demolished a US munitions stockpile in the Black Tom section of Jersey City, New Jersey. The series of massive explosions killed a few, injured hundreds, damaged all sorts of structures, including the Statue of Liberty, and was heard hundreds of miles away. Sued by the US government in 1922 but vindicated in 1930 by an international claims commission, the German government was ultimately ordered to pay $50 million in damages. When was the final payment made? Discuss

NASA is an agency of the US government charged with aeronautics research and the nation’s civilian space program. During its history, it has been responsible for manned trips to the Moon, orbiting observatories, and unmanned programs that explored other planets and interplanetary space. Today, its goals include improving human understanding of the universe and establishing a permanent human presence in space. NASA was created by an act of Congress passed largely in response to what 1957 event? Discuss

Summer Jam at Watkins Glen was a 1973 rock festival that drew more attendees than any pop music festival before it. An estimated 600,000 fans flocked to the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway outside of Watkins Glen, New York, to see performances by The Allman Brothers Band, The Band, and the Grateful Dead. In fact, so many concertgoers arrived early that the bands performed an impromptu concert during their sound checks the day before the festival. Who was the only person to die at the festival? Discuss