November 9 – Some important events on this day.
694 👉🏼 Spanish King Egica accuses Jews of aiding Muslims/sentenced to slavery
1313 👉🏼 Louis the Bavarian defeats his cousin Frederick I of Austria at the Battle of Gammelsdorf
1494 👉🏼 Piero the Unfortunate of the de’ Medici family, ruler of Florence, loses his power and flees the state
1799 👉🏼 Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul
1842 👉🏼 The first U.S. design patent for typefaces and borders was issued to George Bruce of New York City
1858 👉🏼 1st performance of NY Symphony Orchestra
1864 👉🏼 1st export of goods from Burrard Inlet, British Columbia to a foreign country
1888 👉🏼 Jack Ripper’s 5th and probably last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, found on her bed
1904 👉🏼 1st airplane flight to last more than 5 minutes
1907 👉🏼 The Cullinan Diamond, the largest ever discovered, is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday.
The largest ever diamond was discovered at a mine in Pretoria on January 26, 1905, by Frederick Wells, a surface manager at the Premier No. 2 mine in Cullinan, Transvaal Colony (now South Africa). Just over ten years before, the Excelsior Diamond had been discovered at the Jagersfontein Mine in South Africa; it was the largest, but the Cullinan was three times the size.
Cullinan was 10.1 centimetres long, 6.35 centimetres wide, 5.9 centimetres deep, and weighed 3,106 carats (621.2 grams). After its discovery, it went on display at the Standard Bank in Johannesburg before being sent to London.
To avoid attempted robberies, detectives were put on board a steamboat believed to be carrying the diamond to London, and was ceremoniously locked in the captain’s safe. This was a diversion; the diamond on board was a fake, and Cullinan was sent to England on regular standard post in a box.
The diamond, however, went unsold for two years. The Transvaal Colony ended up buying the diamond on behalf of King Edward VII, for a price of £150,000 (£15 million in 2016). It was then presented to the king, who chose the Asscher Brothers in Amsterdam to cut the diamond for him. Nine diamonds were cut; two are part of the Crown Jewels, and the remainder are owned privately by the UK sovereign.
1980 👉🏼 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares holy war against Iran
1984 👉🏼 Wes Craven’s horror film “A Nightmare on Elm Street” premieres in the US
1985 👉🏼 Garry Kasparov becomes the youngest ever world chess champion (22), with a 13-11 win over fellow Russian Anatoly Karpov
1989 👉🏼 East Germany opens the Berlin Wall
1994 👉🏼 Darmstadtium, Chemical element 110, discovered at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research near Darmstadt, Germany
1998 👉🏼 Brokerage houses are ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing – largest civil settlement in US history