Every day, I am listing a few important dates from world history with scant details–but a list of sources.
- 1888: The Great White Hurricane occurred in New York City. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8)
- 1926: Civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy was born. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8)
- 1942: General MacArthur leaves the Philippines under orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Source: This Day in History calendar, ISBN 978-1-7282-8404-0)
- 1959: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the first Broadway play written by an African-American woman, was performed at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York. (Source: Black History for Every Day of the Year by Yinka and Kemi Olusoga, ISBN 979-8-89303-093-8)
- 1967: The U.S. Department of the Interior published its first endangered species list. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8)
- 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen as the new leader of the Soviet Union. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8)
- 2011: A devastating earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a huge tsunami that killed over 20,000 people and caused the Fukushima nuclear incident. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8 and On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down Number 2 by James Fell, ISBN 978-1-989351-82-6)
- 2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. (Source: DK’s On This Day: A History of the World in 366 Days, ISBN 978-0-7440-2917-8)
An informative video from The History Guy about the 1888 blizzard–the Great White Hurricane–follows.
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