On This Date

1540 - Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj. 

1630 - Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter's surface. 

1681 - Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France. 

1756 - Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War. 

1792 - The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers. 

1814 - Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway's constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed. 

1875 - The first Kentucky Derby was run at Louisville, KY. 

1877 - The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes. 

1881 - Frederick Douglass was appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC. 

1926 - The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti. 

1932 - The U.S. Congress changed the name "Porto Rico" to "Puerto Rico." 

1939 - The first fashion to be shown on television was broadcast in New York from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel. 

1940 - Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France. 

1946 - U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen. 

1948 - The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel. 

1954 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal. 

1956 - The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ. 

1973 - The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings. 

1975 - NBC TV bought the rights to show "Gone With the Wind." The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000. 

1980 - Rioting erupted in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting. 

1985 - Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of "Dallas" on CBS-TV. He returned the following season. 

1987 - Eric ‘Sleepy’ Floyd of the Golden State Warriors set a playoff record for points in a single quarter with 29. 

1987 - An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake. 

1990 - Kelsey Grammer was sentenced to 30 days in jail for DWI. 

1996 - U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan's Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994. 

1997 - Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire. 

1997 - Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin were married in London. 

1998 - New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game. 

1999 - Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation. 

1999 - Alex Trebek received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

2000 - Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls. 

2000 - Austria, the U.S. and six other countries agreed on the broad outline of a plan that would compensate Nazi-Era forced labor. 

2000 - It was announced that Terra Networks SA and Lycos would be merging with the new name to be Terra Lycos. Terra made the deal happen with the purchase of $12.5 billion in stock. 

2001 - The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip. 

2006 - The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking. 

2007 - Trains crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.

1770 - Marie Antoinette, at age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15. 

1866 - The U.S. Congress authorized the first 5-cent piece to be minted. 

1868 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson was acquitted during the Senate impeachment, by one vote. 

1879 - The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England set up the Afghan state. 

1881 - In Germany the first electric tram for the public started service. 

1888 - The first demonstration of recording on a flat disc was demonstrated by Emile Berliner. 

1888 - The capitol of Texas was dedicated in Austin. 

1910 - The U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by the U.S. Congress. 

1914 - The American Horseshoe Pitchers Association (AHPA) was formed in Kansas City, Kansas. 

1920 - Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome. 

1929 - The first Academy Awards were held in Hollywood. 

1939 - The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians met at Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the first baseball game to be played under the lights in the American League. 

1946 - "Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway. 

1946 - Jack Mullin showed the world the first magnetic tape recorder. 

1948 - The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece. It had been a week after he'd disappeared. 

1960 - A Big Four summit in Paris collapsed due to the American U-2 spy plane incident. 

1960 - Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California, demonstrated the first working laser. 

1963 - After 22 Earth orbits Gordon Cooper returned to Earth, ending Project Mercury. 

1965 - Spaghetti-O's went on sale. 

1969 - Venus 5, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the planet Venus. 

1971 - U.S. postage for a one-ounce first class stamp was increased from 6 to 8 cents. 

1975 - Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. 

1977 - Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling on top of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying. 

1985 - Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the NBA. 

1987 - The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load. 

1988 - A report released by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine was addictive in similar was as heroin and cocaine. 

1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police do not have to have a search warrant to search discarded garbage. 

1991 - Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress. 

1992 - The Endeavour space shuttle landed safely after its maiden voyage. 

1996 - Admiral Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, the nation's top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question. 

1997 - In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko gave control of the country to rebel forces ending 32 years of autocratic rule. 

2000 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated to run for U.S. Senator in New York. She was the first U.S. first lady to run for public office. 

2003 - Adam Rich was placed on three years probation after he pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and being under the influence of a controlled substance. He was also ordered to take part ina 60-day treatment program and pay about $1,200 in fines. 

2005 - Sony Corp. unveiled three styles of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine.

1602 - Cape Cod was discovered by Bartholomew Gosnold. 

1614 - An aristocratic uprising in France ended with the treaty of St.Menehould. 

1618 - Johannes Kepler discovered his harmonics law. 

1702 - The War of Spanish Succession began. 

1768 - Under the Treaty of Versailles, France purchased Corsica from Genoa. 

1795 - Napoleon entered the Lombardian capital of Milan. 

1849 - Neapolitan troops entered Palermo, and were in possession of Sicily. 

1856 - Lyman Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was born. 

1862 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

1911 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. 

1916 - U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder. 

1918 - Regular airmail service between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, began under the direction of the Post Office Department, which later became the U.S. Postal Service. 

1926 - Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth were forced down in Alaska after a four-day flight over an icecap. Ice had begun to form on the dirigible Norge. 

1926 - The New York Rangers were officially granted a franchise in the NHL. The NHL also announced that Chicago and Detroit would be joining the league in November. 

1930 - Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess. 

1940 - Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio began his historic major league baseball hitting streak of 56 games. 

1942 - Gasoline rationing began in the U.S. The limit was 3 gallons a week for nonessential vehicles. 

1948 - Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon only hours after declaring its independence. 

1951 - AT&T became the first corporation to have one million stockholders. 

1957 - Britain dropped its first hydrogen bomb on Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean. 

1958 - Sputnik III, the first space laboratory, was launched in the Soviet Union. 

1963 - The last Project Mercury space flight was launched. 

1964 - The Smothers Brothers, Dick and Tom, gave their first concert in Carnegie Hall in New York City. 

1970 - U.S. President Nixon appointed America's first two female generals. 

1970 - Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, were killed when police opened fire during student protests. 

1972 - Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, MD while campaigning for the U.S. presidency. Wallace was paralyzed by the shot. 

1975 - The merchant ship U.S. Mayaguez was recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. 

1980 - The first transcontinental balloon crossing of the United States took place. 

1983 - In Boston,MA, the Madison Hotel was destroyed by implosion. 

1988 - The Soviet Union began their withdrawal of its 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. Soviet forces had been there for more than eight years. 

1990 - Vincent Van Gogh's "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" was sold for $82.5 million. The sale set a new world record. 

1997 - The Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a mission to deliver urgently needed repair equipment and a fresh American astronaut to Russia's orbiting Mir station. 

1999 - The Russian parliament was unable a attain enough votes to impeach President Boris Yeltsin.

1264 - King Henry III was captured by his brother in law Simon deMontfort at the Battle of Lewes in France. 

1509 - In the Battle of Agnadello, French defeated Venitians in Northern Italy. 

1610 - French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) was assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravillac. 

1643 - Louis XIV became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. 

1727 - Thomas Gainsborough was born. He was an English painter. 

1787 - Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution. 

1796 - The first smallpox vaccination was given by Edward Jenner. 

1804 - William Clark set off the famous expedition from Camp Dubois. A few days later, in St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis joined the group. The group was known as the "Corps of Discovery." 

1811 - Paraguay gained independence from Spain. 

1853 - Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk. 

1862 - The chronograph was patented by Adolphe Nicole. 

1874 - McGill University and Harvard met at Cambridge, MA, for the first college football game to charge admission. 

1878 - The name Vaseline was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough. 

1879 - Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Telephone Company of Europe. 

1897 - "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Phillip Sousa was performed for the first time. It was at a ceremony where a statue of George Washington was unveiled. 

1897 - Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph. 

1904 - In St. Louis, the Olympic games were held. It was the first time for the games to be played in the U.S.

1913 - The Rockefeller Foundation was created by John D. Rockefeller with a gift of $100,000,000. 

1935 - The Philippines ratified an independence agreement. 

1940 - The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany. 

1942 - The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress. 

1942 - "Lincoln Portrait" by Aaron Copland was performed for the first time by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. 

1942 - The British, while retreating from Burma, reached India. 

1948 - Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the independent State of Israel as British rule in Palestine came to an end. 

1955 - The Warsaw Pact, a Easter European mutual-defense treaty, was signed in Poland by eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union. 

1961 - A bus carrying Freedom Riders was bombed and burned in Alabama. 

1969 - Jacqueline Susann’s second novel, "The Love Machine," was published by Simon and Schuster. 

1973 - Skylab One was launched into orbit around Earth as the first U.S. manned space station. 

1975 - U.S. forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia. About 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the military operation. 

1980 - U.S. President Carter inaugurated the Department of Health and Human Services. 

1985 - The first McDonald's restaurant became the first fast-food business museum. It is located in Des Plaines,Illinois. 

1988 - In the Andean village of Cayara, Peru's military was involved in a massacre of at least 26 peasants. 

1992 - Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev addressed members of the U.S. Congress, appealing to them to pass a bill to aid the people of the former Soviet Union. 

1996 - A tornado hit 80 villages in nothern Bangladesh. More than 440 people were killed. 

1998 - The Associated Press marked its 150th anniversary. 

1998 - The final episode of the TV series "Seinfeld" aired after nine years on NBC. 

1999 - North Korea returned the remains of six U.S. soldiers that had been killed during the Korean War. 

1999 - Jess Marlow received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

2005 - The art exhibit "Gumby and Friends: The First 50 Years" opened at the Lynn House Gallery in Antioch, CA.

1607 - Jamestown, Virginia, was settled as a colony of England. 

1648 - Margaret Jones of Plymouth was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck. 

1779 - The War of Bavarian Succession ended. 

1787 - Captain Arthur Phillip left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed eleven ships full of convicts on January 18, 1788, at Botany Bay. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson. 

1821 - The first practical printing press was patented in the U.S. by Samuel Rust. 

1846 - The U.S. declared that war already existed with Mexico. 

1854 - The first big American billiards match was held at Malcolm Hall in Syracuse, NY. 

1861 - Britain declared its neutrality in the American Civil War. 

1864 - The Battle of Resaca commenced as Union General Sherman fought towards Atlanta during the American Civil War. 

1865 - The last land engagement of the American Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far southTexas, more than a month after Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, VA. 

1867 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War. 

1873 - Ludwig M. Wolf patented the sewing machine lamp holder. 

1880 - Thomas Edison tested his experimental electric railway in Menlo Park. 

1888 - Slavery was abolished in Brazil. 

1911 - The New York Giants set a major league baseball record. Ten runners crossed home plate before the first out of the game against St. Louis. 

1912 - Royal Flying Corps was established in England. 

1913 - Igor Sikorsky flew the first four engine aircraft. 

1917 - Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. 

1918 - The first airmail postage stamps were issued with airplanes on them. The denominations were 6, 16, and 24 cents. 

1926 - In Warsaw, Joseph Pilsudski had President Wojciechowski arrested. 

1927 - "Black Friday" occurred in Germany. 

1940 - Winston Churchill made his first speech as the prime minister of Britain. 

1949 - The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in Wilmar, AR. 

1954 - U.S. President Eisenhower signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act. 

1958 - French troops took control of Algiers. 

1958 - U.S. Vice President Nixon's limousine was battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela. 

1967 - Mickey Mantle hit his 500th homerun. 

1968 - Peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam began in Paris. 

1975 - Hailstones the size of tennis balls hit Wenerville, TN. 

1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca. 

1982 - The Chicago Cubs became the first major league baseball team to win 8,000 games. 

1985 - Tony Perez became the oldest major league baseball player to hit a grand slam home run at the age of 42 and 11 months. 

1985 - A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group's headquarters. 11 people died in the fire that resulted. 

1996 - In Bangladesh 600 people were killed by a tornado. 

1998 - India did a second round of nuclear tests. The first round had been done 2 days earlier. Within hours the U.S.and Japan imposed tough economic sanctions. India claimed that the tests were necessary to maintain India's national security. 

1999 - In Moscow, the impeachment of Russian President Boris Yeltsin began.