TODAY IN CRIME: November 9

 

694 Believing all Jews were conspiring with Muslims to extinguish Christianity, Visigoth king Egica, ruler of Hispania and Septimania in southwestern Europe, ordered all Jews into slavery. The crown would confiscate their property and remove any children over the age of seven from their homes to be raised as Christians.

1456 Agents of László, son of Hungarian governor János Hunyadi, assassinated Ulrich II, Count of Celje. Because Ulrich was captain general and de facto regent of Hungary, governor of Slavonia, Croatia and Dalmatia, feudal lord of vast lands across central Europe, and claimant to the Bosnian throne, his death plunged Hungary into civil unrest.

1520 In an attempt to secure his control of the Swedish throne, Danish king Christian II ordered 82 nobles executed for heresy in the Stockholm Bloodbath, but the massacre only caused Sweden to secede from the Kolmar Union of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Hostility between Sweden and Denmark as they clashed for control of Scandinavia and northern Germany continued for almost 300 years.

1720 In Jerusalem, Arab creditors broke into the synagogue of Judah HeHasid and burned it down, leading to the expulsion of the Ashkenazim from Jerusalem.

1799 Napoleon Bonaparte lead the Coup de 18 Brumaire, ending the Directory government of the French Revolution and replacing it with the French Consulate.

1851 Marshals from Kentucky abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and took him back to Kentucky to stand trial for aiding a slave named Tamar escape to Indiana. Fairbank served 19 years in the Kentucky State Penitentiary for his work on the Underground Railroad.

1923 In Munich, German troops loyal to the democratic government crushed the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria. Sixteen Nazis and four Bavarian State Police officers died in a gunfight between the Nazis and the police. The evening before, Adolf Hitler had taken control of a beer hall full of Bavarian government leaders at gunpoint in an attempted coup against the Weimar Republic. The future chancellor went to prison for eight months for high treason.

1938 Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath died from gunshot wounds inflicted Nov. 7 by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager bent on avenging atrocities already committed against the Jewish people. The night of Nov. 9, the Nazis used the shooting as an excuse to instigate Kristallnacht: SA paramilitary forces and Nazi sympathizers burned and looted Jewish-owned stores and houses throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudenland.

1953 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 1922 ruling that major league baseball is outside the scope of federal antitrust laws. The 1922 Court that found that baseball, as an exhibition, is not subject to the Constitution’s Commerce Clause (Federal Baseball Club v. National League).

1965 Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in New York to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He died the next day.

1970 Citing lack of jurisdiction, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6–3 against hearing a case testing the legality of the Vietnam War. Massachusetts passed a state law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war, and the state attorney general asked the Supreme Court to consider the case.

1976 The United Nations General Assembly approved 10 resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa.

1998 In the largest civil settlement in American history, a federal judge in New York ordered 37 U.S. brokerage houses to pay $1.03 billion to investors who were overcharged for NASDAQ-listed stocks from 1989-1994. The federal government issued a consent decree in 1996 forcing permanent changes in NASDAQ's operation to prevent future price-rigging.

1998 The United Kingdom abolished capital punishment—already abolished for murder—for all remaining capital offences.

1998 Michael Jackson settled a lawsuit over stories and pictures in the London Daily Mirror that reported his face had been disfigured by cosmetic surgery.

2005 Suicide bombers attacked the U.S.-based Grand Hyatt, Days Inn, and Radisson SAS hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing at least 60 people and wounding hundreds. Two bombers strapped devices to their bodies and the third used a car bomb. The government of Jordan, unused to terror attacks in its country, instituted new anti-terror measures.

2007 The German Bundestag passed a controversial data retention bill that mandated storing citizens' telecommunications traffic data for six months without probable cause. In 2010 the German Constitutional Court ruled the bill violated Article 10 of the German Basic Law protecting the privacy of correspondence, posts, and telecommunications.

2011 Penn State University fired longtime head football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier over their handling of child sex abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was never charged with any wrongdoing and Spanier's conviction of child endangerment was overturned, but Sandusky was ultimately sentenced to 30-60 years in state prison after his conviction on 45 counts of abuse involving ten boys, including attacks that occurred on campus property.