Today in History

Today in History

1471 In England, the Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

1626 American Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.

1715 A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.

1776 Rhode Island declares independence from England.

1795 Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.

1814 Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.

1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.

1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army.

1927 Aballoon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.

1930 Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.

1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.

1942 The United States begins food rationing.

1961 13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.

1970 Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.

Born

1796 Horace Mann, educator and author.

1820 Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker’s Almanac)

1825 Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.

1827 John Hanning Speke, English explorer.

1874 Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer. 1884 Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.

1928 Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.

1929 Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.

1939 Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).

1949 Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).

History