On this day in the year 1775 of the common era (CE) in Kalisk Poland, nine elderly women are sentenced to death and burnt at the stake for practicing witchcraft resulting in bad harvests; one hundred and seventy-three years later, the trial of the “New York Eleven,” a small group of communist party members and leaders, begins in New York, New York. All members of the group were convicted and sentenced to prison for plotting to overthrow the United States government, though they did not plan any concrete steps to do so. The United States Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 1951 in what was seen as landmark case in the curtailment of free speech.
On this day in the year 1893 CE, queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii is deposed by an American coup; the kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic. Six years later the United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific; eighteen years after that the United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for twenty-five million dollars.
In 1928 CE the first fully automatic photographic film-developing machine is patented.
In 1929 CE Popeye makes his first appearance in the comic strip Thimble Theatre; twenty-five years later, Jacques Cousteau's first network telecast airs on Omnibus, produced by CBS. Twenty-two years after that, Blondie releases the debut single X Offender, written by Debbie Harry and Gary Valentine; one year later the Sex pistols announce that they have broken up.
In 1994 CE, Patrick Ewing becomes first New York player to reach the 15,000-point mark in his NBA career; he scores a game-high 34 points in the Knickerbockers' 106-94 win over the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves.
