Today in History

Today in History

1755 English lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language.

1784 The first balloon is flown in Ireland.

1813 U.S. troops under James Wilkinson lay siege to the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.

1858 At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists.

1871 ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok becomes the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

1861 President Lincoln mobilizes Federal army.

1865 Abraham Lincoln dies from John Wilkes Booth‘s assassination bullet.

1912 With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.

1917 British forces defeat the Germans at the Battle of Arras.

1923 Insulin becomes generally available for people suffering with diabetes.

1923 The first sound films shown to a paying audience are exhibited at the Rialto Theater in New York City.

1940 French and British troops land at Narvik, Norway.

1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt is buried on the grounds of his Hyde Park home.

1948 Arab forces are defeated in battle with Israeli forces.

1952 President Harry Truman signs the official Japanese peace treaty.

1955 Ray Kroc starts the McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants.

1959 Cuban leader Fidel Castro begins a U.S. goodwill tour.

1960 The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes at Shaw University.

1971 North Vietnamese troops ambush a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.

1986 U.S. warplanes attack Libya.

Born

1452 Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, scientist and visionary

1684 Catherine I, empress of Russia

1741 Charles Wilson Peale, portrait painter and inventor

1800 Sir James Clark Ross, Scottish explorer who located the Magnetic North Pole.

1832 Wilhelm Busch, German painter and poet, created the precursor to the comic strip.

1843 Henry James, writer and critic.

1874 George Harrison Shull, American botanist, developer of hybrid corn.

1874 Johannes Stark, Novel Prize-winning German physicist.

1880 Max Wertheimer, Czech-born psychologist.

1889 Thomas Hart Benton, painter, muralist.

1889 Asa Phillip Randolph, American labor leader and Civil Rights advocate.

1898 Bessie Smith, American blues singer.

1904 Arshile Gorky, abstract painter.

1922 Harold Washington, first black mayor of Chicago

1922 Neville Mariner, conductor.

1932 Eva Figes, British novelist.

1940 Jeffrey Archer, English novelist and politician (Kane and Abel, Honor Among Thieves).

History