In 1991 The United States congress voted today, authorising the use of military action against Iraq. 250 members of the House of Representatives voted for military action (183 against) if Iraq fails to leave Kuwait by the 15th of January, as ordered by the United Nations.
In 1976 writer Agatha Christie dies at the age of 85, after selling an estimated 300 million copies of her 83 published books.
In 1943 Soviet forces penetrated a section of the German Siege of Leningrad. When the Germans were unable to take Leningrad, the second largest city in Russia, Hitler ordered his troops to lay siege to the city. With no supplies in or out of Leningrad, Hitler hoped to starve the people in the city. But the people of Leningrad had tremendous resolve and survived one and a half years before breaking the German line, allowing supplies into the old capital once more.
In 1895 the National Trust was founded in the United Kingdom
In 1879 the British under Lieutenant General Frederic Augustus invade Zululand initiating the start of the British-Zulu war.
In 1820 The Royal Astronomical Society was first conceived of on this day in 1820. Fourteen men were dining at the Freemason's Tavern, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, England, where they discussed the idea of a society that promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. The first members included Sir William Herschel (German born British musician and astronomer that discovered Uranus and two of its moons, Titanus and Oberon and two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Mimus) and Sir Joseph Banks.
