Waterloo

In 1812 the declaration of war against Great Britain was signed by Pres James Madison, beginning the War of 1812 – also known by opponents as “Mr. Madison’s War”. In 1815 Napoleon’s loss to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo ended the Napoleonic Wars. In 1873 Susan B Anthony was fined $100 for trying to vote in the 1872 Presidential election, but that did not in any way end the push for women’s suffrage. In 1979 the US and the USSR signed the SALT II treaty, furthering the efforts to control nuclear proliferation. In 1948 Columbia Records demonstrated the first LP (long-playing) record at a public event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NY City. And in 1983 Sally Ride became the first female US astronaut to go into space.

This date marked the birth of English mountaineer George Mallory (1886) who died in an attempt to summit Mt Everest, baseball great Lou Brock (1939), Beatle Paul McCartney (1942), and Canadian figure skater Kurt Browning (1968).

This date saw the loss of Russian novelist and socialist thinker Maxim Gorky (1936) and Russian Marshall and hero of WWII George Zhukov (1974),

Today is Autistic Pride Day – internationally—and Waterloo Day in the UK.