Today in History

Today in History

1617 The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.

1734 The Russians take Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.

1788 Connecticut becomes the 5th state.

1796 Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France.

1812 Swedish Pomerania is seized by Napoleon.

1820 Congress passes the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.

1839 The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process.

1841 The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839 are freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.

1862 The first and last battle between the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia ends in a draw.

1864 General Ulysses Grant is appointed commanderin- chief of the Union forces.

1911 The funding for five new battleships is added to the British military defense budget.

1915 The Germans take Grondno on the Eastern Front.

1916 Mexican bandit Pancho Villa leads 1,500 horsemen on a raid of Columbus, N.M. killing 17 U.S. soldiers and citizens.

1932 Eamon De Valera is elected president of the Irish Free State and pledges to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown.

1936 The German press warns that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections will be arrested.

1939 Czech President Emil Hacha ousts pro-German Joseph Tiso as the Premier of Slovakia in order to preserve Czech unity.

1940 Britain frees captured Italian coal ships on the eve of German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop’s visit to Rome.

1956 British authorities arrest and deport Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He is accused of supporting terrorists.

1957 Egyptian leader Nasser bars U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.

1959 The Barbie doll is unveiled at a toy fair in New York City.

1964 The first Ford Mustang rolls off the Ford assembly line.

1967 Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin‘s daughter defects to the United States.

1968 General William Westmoreland asks for

206,000 more troops in Vietnam.

1975 Iraq launches an offensive against the rebellious Kurds.

1986 Navy divers find the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.

Born

1451 Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator.

1824 Leland Stanford, railroad builder, founder of Stanford University.

1890 Vyacheslav Molotov, former Soviet Prime Minister.

1892 Vita Sackville-West, writer.

1905 Peter Quennell, biographer.

1910 Samuel Barber, American composer (“Adagio for Strings,” Vanessa).

1918 Frank Morrison Spillane [Mickey Spillane], crime writer (Kiss Me, Deadly, The Erection Set).

1930 Ornette Coleman, jazz saxophonist.

1934 Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, the first man to orbit the Earth.

1943 Bobby Fischer, first American world chess champion.

1947 Keri Hulme, New Zealand novelist (The Bone People).

History