Today in History

Today in History

1535 – French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail for North America.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after she was convicted of adultery.

1568 – After being defeated by the Protestants, Mary the Queen of Scots, fled to England where she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth.

1608 – The Protestant states formed the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists.

1643 – Delegates from four New England colonies met in Boston to form a confederation.

1796 – The first U.S. game law was approved. The measure called for penalties for hunting or destroying game within Indian territory.

1847 – The first English-style railroad coach was placed in service on the Fall River Line in Massachusetts.

1856 – U.S. Senator Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery.

1857 – The electric fire alarm system was patented by William F. Channing and Moses G. Farmer.

1858 – A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hameton executed unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.

1864 – The Union and Confederate armies launched their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania in Virginia.

1906 – The Federated Boys' Clubs, forerunner of the Boys' Clubs of America, were organized.

1911 – The first American criminal conviction that was based on fingerprint evidence occurred in New York City.

1912 – The Associated Advertising Clubs of America held its first convention in Dallas, TX.

1921 – The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1926 – Benito Mussolini announced that democracy was deceased. Rome became a fascist state.

1926 – In Damascus, Syria, French shells killed 600 people.

1928 – The first frog-jumping jubilee held in Calaveras County, CA.

1935 – T.E. Lawrence 'Lawrence of Arabia' died from injuries in a motorcycle crash in England.

1943 – Winston Churchill told the U.S. Congress that his country was pledging their full support in the war against Japan.

1958 – Canada and the U.S. formally established the North American Air Defense Command.

1962 – Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of 'Happy Birthday' for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The event was a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden.

1964 – The U.S. State Department reported that diplomats had found about 40 microphones planted in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

1967 – The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain that banned nuclear weapons from outer space.

1974 – Erno Rubik invented the puzzle what would later become known as the Rubik's Cube.

1967 – U.S. planes bombed Hanoi for the first time.

1981 – The Empire State Building was designated a New York City Landmark.

1988 – In Jacksonville, FL, Carlos Lehder Rivas was convicted of smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into the United States. Rivas was the co-founder of Colombia's Medellin drug cartel.

1989 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 2,500 for the first time. The close for the day was 2,501.1.

1992 – U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the CBS sitcom 'Murphy Brown' for having its title character decide to bear a child out of wedlock.

1992 – The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibits Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises.

1993 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed about

3,500 (3,500.03) for the first time.

1998 – In Russia, strikes broke out over unpaid wages.

1998 – Bandits stole three of Rome's most important paintings from the National Gallery of Modern Art.

History