This Day in History
1978: Jonestown massacre
Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple religious community that he formed in the 1950s, and some 900 of his followers died this day in 1978 in Guyana in a massive act of murder-suicide known as the Jonestown massacre.
More events on this day
1941: John Christian Watson, the first Labour prime minister of Australia, died in Sydney.
1905: Prince Charles (Carl) of Denmark was elected king of Norway as Haakon VII.
1903: Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, representing Panama, met with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay to negotiate the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave the United States a strip 10 miles (16 km) wide across the Isthmus of Panama for construction of the Panama Canal.
1882: Famed operatic soprano Amelita Galli-Curci was born in Milan.
1814: Brazilian sculptor and architect Aleijadinho, known for his beautiful Rococo statues and his churches, died in Mariana.
1477: William Caxton, a pioneering English printer, published Dictes and Sayenges of the Phylosophers, the first dated book printed in England. |
