December 5th, 2008

Today in History

1484:
Pope Innocent VIII writes a Papal Bull that sets the inquisition into full swing and leads to the deaths hundreds of thousands of people accused of being witches

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

1831:
Former US President John Quincy Adams takes a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

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).

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