Today in History

Today in History

1598 The Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots.

1775 Lord North extends the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbids trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.

1861 After 34 hours of bombardment, Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.

1864 Union forces under Gen. Sherman begin their devastating march through Georgia.

1902 J.C. Penny opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

1919 British forces kill hundreds of Indian nationalists in the Amritsar Massacre.

1933 The first flight over Mount Everest is completed by Lord Clydesdale.

1941 German troops capture Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

1943 Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial.

1945 Vienna falls to Soviet troops.

1960 The first navigational satellite is launched into Earth’s orbit.

1961 The U.N. General Assembly condemns South Africa because of apartheid.

1964 Sidney Poitier becomes the first black individual to win an Oscar for best actor.

1970 An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13, preventing a planned moon landing and jeopardizing the lives of the three-man crew.

1976 The U.S. Federal Reserve begins issuing $2 bicentennial notes.

1979 The world’s longest doubles ping-pong match ends after 101 hours.

Born

1721 John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation.

1732 Frederick Lord North, British prime minister

(1770-82).

1743 Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States (1801-09)

1852 Frank W. Woolworth, American retailer.

1866 Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker], American outlaw and leader of the Wild Bunch.

1899 Alfred Butts, inventor of the board game Scrabble.

1906 Samuel Beckett, playwright, Nobel Prize winner (Waiting for Godot).

1909 Eudora Welty, Southern writer (Delta Wedding, The Optimist’s Daughter).

1922 John Gerard Braine, British novelist (Room at the Top).

1939 Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, Nobel laureate.

History