Today in History

Today in History

1146 – European leaders outlawed the crossbow.

1645 – American Indians and the Dutch made a peace treaty at New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam later became known as New York.

1682 – William Penn sailed from England and later established the colony of Pennsylvania in America.

1780 – General Benedict Arnold secretly promised to surrender the West Point fort to the British army.

1806 – New York City's second daily newspaper, the 'Daily Advertiser,' was published for the last time.

1809 – Charles Doolittle Walcott first discovered fossils near Burgess Pass. He named the site Burgess Shale after nearby Mt. Burgess.

1862 – The Confederates defeated Union forces at the second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, VA.

1905 – Ty Cobb made his major league batting debut with the Detroit Tigers.

1928 – The Independence of India League was established in India.

1941 – During World War II, the Nazis severed the last railroad link between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.

1945 – General Douglas MacArthur set up Allied occupation headquarters in Japan.

1951 – The Philippines and the United States signed a defense pact.

1956 – In Louisianna, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened.

1960 – A partial blockade was imposed on West Berlin by East Germany.

1963 – The 'Hotline' between Moscow and Washington, DC, went into operation.

1965 – Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court justice. Marshall was the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court.

1982 – P.L.O. leader Yasir Arafat left Beirut for Greece.

1983 – The space shuttle Challenger blasted off with Guion S. Bluford Jr. aboard. He was the first black American to travel in space.

1984 – The space shuttle Discovery lifted off for the first time. On the voyage three communications satellites were deployed.

1991 – The Soviet republic of Azerbaijan declared its independence.

1993 – On CBS-TV 'The Late Show with David Letterman' premiered.

1994 – Rosa Parks was robbed and beaten by Joseph Skipper. Parks was known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, which sparked the civil rights movement.

1996 – An expedition to raise part of the Titanic failed when the nylon lines being used to raise part of the hull snapped.

1999 – The residents of East Timor overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia. The U.N. announced the result on September 4.

2002 – Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum merged to create ConocoPhillips. The new company was the third largest integrated energy company and the second largest refining company in the U.S.

Born

1797 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, novelist best known for Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

1871 Ernest Rutherford, physicist who discovered and named alpha, beta and gamma radiation and was the first to achieve a man-made nuclear reaction.

1893 Huey P. Long, Louisiana politician who served as governor and U.S. senator, known as “The Kingfish.”

1918 Ted Williams, Hall of Fame outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, the last man to hit .400 in a season.

1919 Kitty Wells (Ellen Muriel Deason), first female singer to top the Country Music charts in US (“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,” 1952).

History