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

1955:
The trade unions American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations decide to merge and form the AFL-CIO.

1933:
Prohibition ends: Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 3/4th of states needed to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th Amendment which had outlawed alcohol in the United States).

1932:
German physicist Albert Einstein granted a visa

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