Important Events From This day in History – 14th December

Today in History

• 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

  Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

• 1961 Tanzania joins the United Nations

  Tanzania was created as a merger of Tanganyika and the Zanzibar Archipelago, both under British rule until independence.

• 1958 Soviets Reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility

  A Pole of Inaccessibility is a location on the planet that is extremely difficult to reach. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is the point in the Arctic Ocean farthest from land, while in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the point on Antarctica farthest from the Southern Ocean. In 1958, a Soviet team led by Yevgeny Tolstikov became the first in history to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, which is located 546 miles (878 kilometers) south of the geographic South Pole. Temperatures in this area average around -73 degrees Fahrenheit (–58 degrees C).

• 1939 USSR expelled from the League of Nations

  The Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for making aggressive demands of Finland.

• 1911 Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole

  Roald Amundsen and his Norwegian explorers reached the South Pole, becoming the first men in recorded history to set foot on the planet’s southern point.