Today in History

Today in History

1558 – The French took the French town of Thioville from the English.

1611 – English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers.

1772 – Slavery was outlawed in England.

1807 – British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, a provocation leading to the War of 1812.

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated a second time.

1832 – J.I. Howe patented the pin machine.

1868 – Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.

1870 – The U.S. Congress created the Department of Justice.

1874 – Dr. Andrew Taylor Still began the first known practice of osteopathy.

1909 – The first transcontinental auto race ended in Seattle, WA.

1911 – King George V of England was crowned.

1915 – Austro-German forces occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreat.

1925 – France and Spain agreed to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.

1933 – Germany became a one political party country when Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.

1939 – The first U.S. water-ski tournament was held at Jones Beach, on Long Island, New York.

1940 – France and Germany signed an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the Nazis.

1941 – Under the codename Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

1942 – A Japanese submarine shelled Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1942 – In France, Pierre Laval declared 'I wish for a German victory'.

1942 – V-Mail, or Victory-Mail, was sent for the first time.

1944 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the 'GI Bill of Rights' to provide broad benefits for veterans of the war.

1945 – During World War II, the battle for Okinawa officially ended after 81 days.

1946 – Jet airplanes were used to transport mail for the first time.

1956 – The battle for Algiers began as three buildings in Casbah were blown up.

1959 – Eddie Lubanski rolled 24 consecutive strikes in a bowling tournament in Miami, FL.

1964 – The U.S. Supreme Court voted that Henry Miller's book, 'Tropic of Cancer', could not be banned.

1970 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It required that the voting age in the United States to be 18.

1973 – Skylab astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space.

1974 – In Chicago, the Sears Tower Skydeck opened. (Willis Tower)

1978 – James W. Christy and Robert S. Harrington discovered the only known moon of Pluto. The moon is named Charon.

1980 – The Soviet Union announced a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

1989 – The government of Angola and the anti-Communist rebels of the UNITA movement agreed to a formal truce in their 14-year-old civil war.

1990 – Checkpoint Charlie was dismantled in Berlin.

1992 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that hate-crime laws that ban cross-burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.

1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that evidence illegally obtained by authorities could be used at revocation hearings for a convicted criminal's parole.

1998 – The 75th National Marbles Tournament began in Wildwood, NJ.

1999 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that persons with remediable handicaps cannot claim discrimination in employment under the Americans with Disability Act.

2009 – Eastman Kodak Company announced that it would discontinue sales of the Kodachrome Color Film.

History