December 5th, 2008

Today in History

1958:
Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by the Queen when she dials a call from Bristol to Edinburgh and speaks to the Lord Provost. http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19461959.htm#1958

1945:
Flight 19, a United States Navy training flight was lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

1941:
The nonfiction book Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is published (Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character Doc in Cannery Row).

1936:
The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution.

1492:
Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).