Today in History

Today in History

1774 Britain passes the Coercive Act against rebellious Massachusetts.

1854 Britain and France declare war on Russia.

1864 Agroup of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1885 The Salvation Army is officially organized in the United States.

1908 Automobile owners lobby Congress in support of a bill that calls for vehicle licensing and federal registration.

1910 The first seaplane takes off from water at Martinques, France.

1917 The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britain’s first official service women.

1921 President Warren Harding names William Howard Taft as chief justice of the United States.

1930 Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.

1933 Nazis order a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.

1939 The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to Francisco Franco.

1941 The Italian fleet is routed by the British at the Battle of Battle of Cape Matapan

1941 English novelist Virginia Woolf throws herself into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Her body will not be found until April 18.

1942 A British ship, the HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-

BIBLE VERSE

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Ephesians 6:14-16 Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.

1945 Germany launches the last of its V-2 rockets against England.

1946 Juan Peron is elected President of Argentina. He will hold the office for six years.

1962 The U.S. Air Force announces research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.

1969 Dwight D. Eisenhower dies at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.

1979 A major accident occurs at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant

1986 The U.S. Senate passes $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras.

1990 Jesse Owens receives the Congressional Gold Medal from President George Bush.

1999 An American Stealth F117 Nighthawk is shot down over northern Yugoslavia during NATO air strikes.

Born

1652 Samuel Sewall, British colonial merchant and one of the Salem witch trial judges.

1818 Wade Hampton, Confederate general in the American Civil War.

1862 Aristide Briand, premier of France (1909-22).

1868 Maxim Gorky, Russian short story writer and novelist.

1895 James McCudden, the first RAF pilot to receive the Victoria Cross.

1909 Nelson Algren, novelist (The Man with the Golden Arm, AWalk on the Wild Side).

1929 Frederick Exley, American novelist (A Fan’s Notes).

1930 Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist, helped confirm the existence of quarks.

1936 Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian novelist (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the Andes).

History