It was on this day in 1952 that a thick blanket of fog settled over London. Nothing unusual there, except that the weather patterns made it so the fog stayed in the city for the next four days. It combined with the coal dust and other pollution already in the air, resulting in as many as 12,000 people dying and another 100,000 becoming ill from the smog. Two years later the first “Clean Air Act” was passed by England in an effort to limit air pollution.
The earliest event that Wiki says occurred on this day is “63 BC – Cicero gave the fourth and final Catiline Orations” and the most recent is “2007 – Westroads Mall massacre: A gunman opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle at an Omaha, Nebraska mall, killing eight people before taking his own life.”
A few others things that also took place on this day are:
1933 – Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.
1955 – The AFL-CIO is formed when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge.
1968 – The album “Beggar’s Banquet” is released by the Rolling Stones.
2006 – New York City bans trans-fat in restaurants, the first city to do so.
Happy birthday to Frankie Muniz, Nick Stahl, Margaret Cho, Jack Russell, Brian Backer, JJ Cale, and Little Richard.
And Happy Birthday to Gep!