Today in History

Today in History

1635 – The French colony of Guadeloupe was established in the Caribbean.

1675 – Frederick William of Brandenburg crushed the Swedes.

1709 – The Russians defeated the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava.

1776 – American Colonists repulsed a British sea attack on Charleston, SC.

1778 – Mary 'Molly Pitcher' Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his gun after he was overcome with heat.

1869 – R. W. Wood was appointed as the first Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy.

1894 – The U.S. Congress made Labor Day a U.S. national holiday.

1902 – The U.S. Congress passed the Spooner bill, it authorized a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama.

1911 – Samuel J. Battle became the first African-American policeman in New York City.

1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo along with his wife, Duchess Sophie.

1919 – The Treaty of Versailles was signed ending World War I exactly five years after it began. The treaty also established the League of Nations.

1921 – A coal strike in Great Britain was settled after three months.

1930 – More than 1,000 communists were routed during an assault on the British consulate in London.

1939 – Pan American Airways began the first transatlantic passenger service.

1938 – The U.S. Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure costruction loans.

1940 – The 'Quiz Kids' was heard on NBC radio for the first time.

1942 – German troops launched an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.

1943 – 'The Dreft Star Playhouse' debuted on NBC radio.

1944 – 'The Alan Young Show' debuted on NBC radio.

1945 – U.S. General Douglas MacArthur announced the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.

1949 – The last U.S. combat troops were called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.

1950 – North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.

1951 – 'Amos ’n’ Andy' moved to CBS-TV from radio.

1954 – French troops began to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin Province.

1960 – In Cuba, Fidel Castro confiscated Americanowned oil refineries without compensation.

1964 – Malcolm X founded the Organization for Afro American Unity to seek independence for blacks in the Western Hemisphere.

1965 – The first commercial satellite began communications service. It was Early Bird (Intelsat I).

1967 – Israel formally declared Jerusalem reunified under its sovereignty following its capture of the Arab sector in the June 1967 war.

1971 – The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

1972 – U.S. President Nixon announced that no new draftees would be sent to Vietnam.

1976 – The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.

1978 – The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the medical school at the University of California at Davis to admit Allan Bakke. Bakke, a white man, argued he had been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.

1996 – The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a

153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.

1996 – Charles M. Schulz got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

History