Mass suicide at Jonestown

On November 18, 1421, a massive storm batters North Sea coast, sending surge waters inland, breaching dikes and inundating villages in what is now the Netherlands. Over the next day, up to 10,000 people died in the resulting floods. The lowlands of the Netherlands near the North Sea were densely populated at the time, despite […]

At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies. The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and […]

On November 18, 1940, Adolf Hitler meets with Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano over Mussolini’s disastrous invasion of Greece. According to Ciano’s diaries, their meeting had “a heavy atmosphere.” Mussolini had surprised everyone with a move against Greece; his ally, Hitler, was caught off guard, especially since the Duce had led Hitler to believe he […]

After nearly a year of hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal, the joint Congressional investigating committee issues its final report. It concluded that the scandal, involving a complicated plan whereby some of the funds from secret weapons sales to Iran were used to finance the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was one in […]

Tony Silva, a world-renowned expert and outspoken protector of exotic birds, is sentenced to seven years in prison without parole for leading an illegal parrot smuggling operation. Silva was only one of many to be arrested during “Operation Renegade,” a three-year international probe into bird smuggling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of […]