Today in History

Today in History

364 On the death of Jovian, a conference at Nicaea chooses Valentinan, an army officer who was born in the central European region of Pannania, to succeed him in Asia Minor.

1154 William the Bad succeeds his father, Roger the II, in Sicily.

1790 As a result of the Revolution, France is divided into 83 departments.

1815 Napoleon and 1,200 of his men leave Elba to start the 100-day re-conquest of France.

1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels publish The Communist Manifesto in London.

1871 France and Prussia sign a preliminary peace treaty at Versailles.

1901 Boxer Rebellion leaders Chi-Hsin and Hsu-Cheng-Yu are publicly executed in Peking.

1914 Russian aviator Igor Sikorsky carries 17 passengers in a twin engine plane in St. Petersburg.

1916 General Henri Philippe Petain takes command of the French forces at Verdun.

1917 President Wilson publicly asks congress for the power to arm merchant ships.

1924 U.S. steel industry finds claims an eight-hour day increases efficiency and employee relations.

1933 Ground is broken for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

1936 Japanese military troops march into Tokyo to conduct a coup and assassinate political leaders.

1941 British take the Somali capital in East Africa.

1943 U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators pound German docks and U-boat lairs at Wilhelmshaven.

1945 Syria declares war on Germany and Japan.

1951 The 22nd Amendment is added to the Constitution limiting the Presidency to two terms.

1964 Lyndon B. Johnson signs a tax bill with $11.5 billion in cuts.

1965 Norman Butler is arrested for the murder of Malcom X.

1968 Thirty-two African nations agree to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa.

1970 Five Marines are arrested on charges of murdering 11 South Vietnamese women and children.

1972 Soviets recover Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.

1973 A publisher and 10 reporters are subpoenaed to testify on Watergate.

1990 Daniel Ortega, communist president of Nicaragua, suffers a shocking election defeat at the hands of Violeta Chamorro.

1993 A bomb rocks the World Trade Center in New York City. Five people are killed and hundreds suffer from smoke inhalation.

Born

1802 Victor Hugo, French novelist and poet (Les Misérables).

1829 Levi Strauss, creator of blue jeans.

1832 John George Nicolay, private secretary to Abraham Lincoln

1846 William Frederick Cody, aka “Buffalo Bill”.

1877 Rudolph Dirks, cartoonist, creator of the “Katzenjammer Kids.”

1879 Mabel Dodge Luhan, American biographer.

1893 I(vor) A(rmstrong) Richards, writer, critic and teacher.

1928 Antoine “Fats” Domino, American singer.

History