Today in History

Today in History

296 St. Gaius ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

536 St. Agapitus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil.

1509 Henry VIII ascends to the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.

1529 Spain and Portugal divide the eastern hemisphere in the Treaty of Saragossa.

1745 The Peace of Fussen is signed.

1792 President George Washington proclaims American neutrality in the war in Europe.

1861 Robert E. Lee is named commander of Virginia forces.

1889 The Oklahoma land rush officially starts at noon as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.

1898 In the first action of the Spanish-American War, the USS Nashville, takes on a Spanish ship.

1915 At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans use poison gas for the first time.

1918 British naval forces attempt to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle of Zeebrugge.

1931 Egypt signs treaty of friendship with Iraq.

1944 Allies launch major attack against the Japanese in Hollandia, New Guinea.

1954 The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin. They are broadcast on television.

1955 Congress orders all U.S. coins to bear the motto “In God We Trust.”

1976 Barbara Walters becomes the first female nightly news anchor on network television.

1995 In Africa, Rwandan troops kill thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho.

Born

1451 Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain, patron of Christopher Columbus.

1707 Henry Fielding, English novelist (Tom Jones).

1724 Immanuel Kant, German philosopher.

1870 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov), leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and first head of the U.S.S.R.

1873 Ellen Glasgow, American novelist.

1876 Ole Edvart Rolvaag, novelist (Giants in the Earth).

1899 Vladimir Nabokov, Russian novelist (Lolita).

1904 J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, director of the Manhattan Project.

1916 Yehudi Menuhin, violinist.

1918 Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man (8’11.1?).

1922 Charles Mingus, jazz bassist.

1943 Louise Gluck, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

History