Today in History

Today in History

1572 The Sea Beggars under Guillaume de la Marck land in Holland and capture the small town of Briel.

1778 Oliver Pollock, creates the dollar sign.

1863 The first wartime conscription law goes into effect in the United States.

1865 At the Battle of Five Forks, Gen. Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.

1868 The Hampton Institute is founded in Hampton, Va.

1905 Berlin and Paris are linked by telephone.

1918 England’s Royal Air Force is formed.

1920 Germany’s Workers Party changes its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis).

1924 Adolf Hitler sentenced to five years in prison for the “Beer Hall Putsch.”

1928 China’s Chiang Kai-shek begins attacks on communists.

1929 The yo-yo is introduced in the United States by Louie Marx.

1939 The Spanish Civil War effectively ends with the official recognition of Franco’s government.

1942 The U.S. Navy begins a partial convoy system in the Atlantic.

1945 U.S. forces launch invasion of Okinawa.

1946 A miner’s strike in the U.S. idles 400,000 workers.

1948 The Berlin Airlift begins, relieving the surrounded city from the Soviet siege.

1951 United Nations forces again move northward across the 38th Parallel in Korea.

1954 The U.S. Air Force Academy is founded in Colorado.

1968 The U.S. Army launches Operation Pegasus, the reopening of a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base.

1970 The U.S. Army charges Captain Ernest Medina for his role in the My Lai massacre.

1982 The United States transfers control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.

Born

1578 William Harvey, English physician and biologist.

1815 Otto Von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany.

1868 Edmond Rostand, French dramatist (Cyrano de Bergerac).

1883 Lon Chaney, film actor.

1883 William Manchester, U.S. historian and biographer.

1895 Alberta Hunter, blues singer.

1919 Joseph E. Murray, transplant physician.

1929 Milan Kundera, Czech writer (The Farewell Party, The Unbearable Lightness of Being).

History