Today in History

Today in History

357 Constantius II visits Rome for the first time.

1282 Villagers in Palermo lead a revolt against French rule in Sicily.

1635 Virginia Governor John Harvey is accused of treason and removed from office.

1760 French forces besieging Quebec defeat the British in the second Battle on the Plains of Abraham.

1788 Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the constitution.

1789 The crew of the HMS Bounty mutinies against Captain William Bligh.

1818 President James Monroe proclaims naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

1856 Yokut Indians repel an attack on their land by

100 would-be Indian fighters in California.

1902 Revolution breaks out in the Dominican Republic.

1910 The first night air flight is performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.

1916 British declare martial law throughout Ireland.

1919 Les Irvin makes the first jump with an Army Air Corps parachute.

1920 Azerbaijan joins the Soviet Union.

1930 The first organized night baseball game is played in Independence, Kansas.

1932 A yellow fever vaccine for humans is announced.

1945 Benito Mussolini is killed by Italian partisans.

1946 The Allies indict Tojo on 55 counts of war crimes

1947 Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia.

1953 French troops evacuate northern Laos.

1965 The U.S. Army and Marines invade the Dominican Republic.

1967 Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army and is stripped of his boxing title.

1969 Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France.

Born

1442 Edward IV, king of England (1461-1470, 1471-

1483), first king of the House of York.

1758 James Monroe, fifth President of the United States (1817-1825).

1878 Lionel Barrymore, American stage, screen and radio actor.

1892 John Jacob Niles, American folk singer and folklorist.

1898 William Soutar, Scottish poet.

1902 Johan Borgen, Norwegian novelist.

1912 Odette Hallowes, British secret agent.

1926 Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (To Kill a Mockingbird).

1930 James Baker III, Cabinet secretary for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

1936 Kenneth White, poet and essayist.

1937 Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq.

1937 Jean Redpath, Scottish folk singer.

History