On this day in 1926, Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis at Detroit’s Grace Hospital on Willis. Twelve days previous, Houdini had been chatting to a group of students backstage in Montreal, remarking on his awesome and useful abs. …

After 70 distinctly conscientious years on the throne of England, Queen Elizabeth II has left us at the age of 96. As must be said in comportment to the protocol she so dutifully obeyed all her life, The Queen is dead, long live The King. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor acceded…

On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing an end to the global conflagration of World War 2. By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion; with the Japanese navy and air force destroyed, a…

In less than five hours, the Soo Locks, perched at the top of Michigan’s icy Upper Peninsula, will shut down for Winter, marking the end of a safe and successful shipping season on the Great Lakes and Seaway. …

On March 20, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was formally commenced against Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist government. The initial invasion involved 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq after punishing and sustained aerial bombing.The…

On February 18, 1885, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain’s famous and infamous tale of the antebellum South, was first published. …

On January 31, 1865, the US House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution by a vote of 119–56, abolishing slavery in the United States, so to speak. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” …

On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, together with their pilot Roger Peterson, perished in a violent plane crash, a tragedy forever remembered as “The Day the Music Died.” …

On January 29,1936, the National Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first members in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. At their inductions, Cobb was the most productive hitter in history, Ruth both an ace pitcher and the greatest home-run hitter to…