This Day in History

Brazil’s last emperor deposed

On November 15, 1889, Pedro II, the second and last emperor of Brazil, is deposed in a military coup, ending a 49-year reign
The Brazilian monarchy was established in 1822, when Portugal’s crown prince, Dom Pedro, defied his Parliament and proclaimed an independent Brazil under his rule. The Brazilian empire got off to a rough start, however, and in 1831 Emperor Pedro I abdicated in favor of his five-year-old son and returned to Portugal.
Pedro II was crowned emperor in 1841 and proved to be a much more capable leader than his father. During his five-decade reign, Brazil enjoyed unprecedented stability, as its troubled economy stabilized and began to grow. However, he later alienated certain sectors in society, such as the military and the growing urban middle class. After being deposed in 1889, Pedro II went to Europe, where he died in exile two years later.

Plane crashes into plantation

On this day in 1978 a plane carrying Muslim pilgrims from Mecca to Indonesia crashes in Sri Lanka, killing 183 people.
The Icelandic Airlines DC-8 was chartered by Garuda Indonesian Airways to carry Muslim pilgrims back to Indonesia from their trek to Mecca. The flight was scheduled to takeoff from Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia and land at Surabaya Airport in Indonesia, with a stopover in Sri Lanka to refuel and take on new crew members.
The flight went smoothly until it began its approach to Colombo Airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka. At 10:53 p.m., the pilot of the DC-8 requested the use of runway 22 and began a normal approach, but thirty minutes later, the plane crashed into a rubber and coconut plantation.
A probe using blackboxes, revealed that the pilots had made several small, yet crucial, errors including failure to monitor the plane’s so-called sink rate as it was actually descending too quickly as it came to the runway until it was too late to abort the landing.
The plane hit the tops of several coconut trees a mile short of the runway and then slammed into a field of rubber trees. One hundred seventy five passengers and 8 crew members died in the crash and subsequent fire. Another 32 people suffered serious injuries. Miraculously, the front of the main cabin was not affected by the fire, allowing 47 people to walk away from the crash.