Your Daily Reference

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On This Day:
Friday November 10, 2006

This is the 314th day of the year, with 51 days remaining in 2006.

Fact of the Day: phonetic alphabet

This is the standard list of words used to identify letters of the alphabet unambiguously in police and maritime communications, air traffic control, and military contexts. It is also called the NATO alphabet, named after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which standardized it. A - Alpha, B - Bravo, C - Charlie, D - Delta, E - Echo, F - Foxtrot, G - Golf, H - Hotel, I - India, J - Juliet, K - Kilo, L - Lima, M - Mike, N - November, O - Oscar, P - Papa, Q - Quebec, R - Romeo, S - Sierra, T - Tango, U - Uniform, V - Victor, W - Whisky, X - X-ray, Y - Yankee, Z - Zulu.

Holidays

• Feast day of St. Leo the Great, St. Justus of Canterbury, St. Aedh MacBrice, St. Theoctista, and St. Andrew Avellino.
• Switzerland: Rebenlichter.

Events

• 1493 - Christopher Columbus discovered Antigua during his second expedition.
• 1775 - The Continental Marines were organized by the Continental Congress.
• 1801 - Tennessee became the first U.S. state to outlaw dueling.
• 1871 - American journalist Henry Morton Stanley met David Livingstone at Ujiji in Africa, and is reported to have said "Dr Livingstone, I presume."
• 1885 - Paul Daimler, son of German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, became the first motorcyclist when he rode his father's new invention for six miles.
• 1928 - Emperor Hirohito took the throne of Japan as the 124th Japanese monarch.
• 1951 - Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, New Jersey, called his counterpart in Alameda, California. The 10-digit North American Numbering Plan for area codes was introduced.
• 1954 - The Iwo Jima Memorial was dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
• 1969 - "Sesame Street" debuted on PBS television.
• 1970 - The Great Wall of China, created in the third century BC, was opened to visitors.
• 1975 - The freighter Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew of 29 vanished during a storm in Lake Superior.
• 1978 - The Badlands National Monument was established as a national park and preserve.
• 1983 - Microsoft released Windows, an extension of MS-DOS with a graphical user interface.
• 1989 - Bulldozers began demolishing the 28-year-old Berlin Wall.
• 1995 - Nigeria's military regime hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa, the author and playwright, and eight other activists in the city of Port Harcourt.
• 2001 - The World Trade Organization (WTO) approved China's membership.

Births

• 1484 - Martin Luther, German religious leader, founder of Protestantism.
• 1730 - Oliver Goldsmith, Irish-born British playwright.
• 1925 - Richard Burton, Welsh actor.
• 1925 - Richard Burton (Jenkins), British stage and movie actor.

Deaths

• 1982 - Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet Union political leader and Communist Party official.
• 2001 - Ken Kesey, American author ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,") member of the Merry Pranksters, and prominent figure of the hippie movement of the 1960s.