Today in History
Today in History
1689 Englandʼs “Bloodless Revolution” reaches its climax when parliament invites William and Mary to become joint sovereigns.
1807 President Thomas Jefferson exposes a plot by Aaron Burr to form a new republic in the Southwest.
1813 During the War of 1812, British forces under Henry Proctor defeat a U.S. contingent planning an attack on Fort Detroit.
1824 A British force is wiped out by an Asante army under Osei Bonsu on the African Gold Coast. This is the first defeat for a colonial power.
1863 In an attempt to out flank Robert E. Leeʻs Army of Northern Virginia, General Ambrose Burnside leads his army on a march to north Fredericksburg, but foul weather bogs his army down in what will become known as the “Mud March.”
1879 Eighty-two British soldiers hold off attacks by
4,000 Zulu warriors at the Battle of Rorkeʼs Drift in South Africa.
1905 Russian troops fire on civilians beginning Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.
1912 Second Monte Carlo auto race begins.
1913 Turkey consents to the Balkan peace terms and gives up Adrianople.
1930 Admiral Richard Byrd charts a vast area of Antarctica.
1932 Government troops crush a Communist uprising in Northern Spain.
1939 ANazi order erases the old officer caste, tying the army directly to the Party.
1943 Axis forces pull out of Tripoli for Tunisia, destroying bases as they leave.
1944 U.S. troops under Major General John P. Lucas make an amphibious landing behind German lines at Anzio, Italy, just south of Rome.
1971 Communist forces shell Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the first time.
1979 Abu Hassan, the alleged planner of the 1972 Munich raid, is killed by a bomb in Beirut.
1982 President Ronald Reagan formally links progress in arms control to Soviet repression in Poland.
Born
1440 Ivan III (the Great), grand prince of Russia.
1561 Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman, essayist (The Advancement of Learning).
1788 Lord George Byron, English romantic poet (“Lara,” “Don Juan.”)
1874 D.W. [David Wark] Griffith, influential U.S. film director (The Birth of A Nation, Intolerance).
1890 Fred Vinson, Thirteenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1906 Willa Brown-Chappell, pioneer aviator.
History
