Today in History

Today in History

1521Ferdinand Magellan discovers Guam.

1820 The Missouri Compromise is enacted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe, providing for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.

1836 After fighting for 13 days, the Alamo falls.

1853 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata premieres in Venice.

1857 The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision holds that blacks cannot be citizens.

1860 While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln makes a speech defending the right to strike.

1862 The USS Monitor left New York with a crew of

63, seven officers and 56 seamen.

1884 Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, present President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.

1888 Louisa May Alcott dies just hours after the burial of her father.

1899 Aspirin is patented following Felix Hoffman’s discoveries about the properties of acetylsalicylic acid.

1901 A would-be assassin tries to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.

1914 German Prince Wilhelm de Wied is crowned as King of Albania.

1916 The Allies recapture Fort Douaumont in France during the Battle of Verdun.

1928 A Communist attack on Beijing results in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fleeing to Swatow.

1939 In Spain, Jose Miaja takes over Madrid government after a military coup and vows to seek “peace with honor.”

1943 British RAF fliers bomb Essen and the Krupp arms works in the Ruhr, Germany.

1945 Cologne, Germany, falls to General Courtney Hodges’ First Army.

1947 Winston Churchill opposes the withdrawal of troops from India.

1948 During talks in Berlin, the Western powers agree to internationalize the Ruhr region.

1953 Upon Josef Stalin’s death, Georgi Malenkov is named Soviet premier.

1960 The Swiss grant women the right to vote in municipal elections.

1965 The United States announces that it will send

3,500 troops to Vietnam.

1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his plan to establish a draft lottery.

1973 President Richard Nixon imposes price controls on oil and gas.

1975 Iran and Iraq announce that they have settled the border dispute.

1980 Islamic militants in Tehran say that they will turn over the American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.

1981 President Reagan announces plans to cut 37,000 federal jobs.

1987 The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. At least 26 are dead.

Born

1475 Michelangelo Buonarroti, painter, sculptor and architect.

1806 Elizabeth Barret Browning, poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese).

1831 Philip Henry Sheridan, Union Army general.

1885 Ring Lardner, writer (You Know Me, Al).

1899 Richard Leo Simon, publisher, partner of Max Schuster.

1908 Lou Costello, American comedian, partner of Bud Abbott.

1928 Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Columbian-born novelist (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera).

1937 Valentina Nikolayeva-Tereshkova, Russian astronaut, the first woman to orbit the Earth.

1944 Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, operatic soprano.

History