John Fleming (born 1834)

In 1834, in the year that John Fleming was born, on July 15th, the Spanish Inquisition - which began in the 15th century - was abolished by the royal decree of Isabella II. The last known person to be hung by the Inquisition was Cayetano Ripoll - in 1826 - who was a school teacher. He was accused of teaching "deist principles" - which posits that God does not interfere directly with the world.

In 1842, Sir Richard Owen, an English paleontologist, created the name "Dinosauria", which meant "Terrible Reptile" or "Fearfully Great Reptile". It has since been Anglicized to "dinosaur".

In 1894, on April 21st, a coal miners' strike closed mines throughout the central United States. The Panic of 1893, and the resulting depression, hit coal miners hard and the miners only struck for 8 weeks - they couldn't afford to live without their wages any longer.

In 1934, on June 6th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was formed as a response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the continuing Great Depression. Previously, the states regulated the offering and sales of stocks - called "blue sky" laws. They were largely ineffective. Roosevelt created a group (one member was Joseph Kennedy, father of the future President Kennedy) who knew Wall Street well and they defined the mission and operating mode for the SEC. The new organization had broad and stringent rules and oversight and restored public confidence in the stock market in the United States.

In 1962, lasting from October 16th - 28th, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war. The Soviet Union had been installing a nuclear missile base in Cuba. The United States established a blockade to stop the base from being completed. Through secret negotiations, war was averted: the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba and the United States agreed to never invade Cuba and to dismantle weapons in Turkey and Italy.