Today in History_

Today in History_

History

1547 Ivan IV crowns himself the new Czar of Russia in Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.

1786 The Council of Virginia guarantees religious freedom.

1847 John C. Fremont, the famed “Pathfinder” of Western exploration, is appointed governor of California.

1865 General William T. Sherman begins a march through the Carolinas.

1900 The U.S. Senate recognizes the Anglo-German Treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands.

1909 One of Ernest Shackleton‘s polar exploration teams reaches the Magnetic South Pole.

1914 Maxim Gorky is authorized to return to Russia after an eight year exile for political dissidence.

1920 The League of Nations holds its first meeting in Paris.

1920 The Allies lift the blockade on trade with Russia.

1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt asks for an extension of the Social Security Act to include more women and children.

1940 Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.

1942 Japan’s advance into Burma begins.

1944 Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.

1945 The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.

1956 The Egyptian government makes Islam the state religion.

1965 Eighteen are arrested in Mississippi for the murder of three civil rights workers.

1975 The Irish Republican Army calls an end to a

25-day cease fire in Belfast.

1979 The Shah leaves Iran.

1991 The Persian Gulf War begins. The massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq — Operation Desert Storm — ends on February 28, 1991 when President George H. W. Bush declares a cease-fire and Iraq pledges to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms.

Born

1757 Samuel Mclntire, architect of Salem, Massachusetts.

1749 Vittorio Alfieri, Italian tragic poet (Cleopatra, Parigi shastigliata).

1821 John C. Breckinridge, 14th U.S. Vice President, Confederate Secretary of War.

1909 Ethel Merman, U.S. singer and actress, the “Queen of Broadway”.

1933 Susan Sontag, American essayist and novelist (The Style of Radical Will, Illness as a Metaphor).