Today in History

Today in History

1483 – King Richard III of England was crowned.

1699 – Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was captured in Boston, MA, and deported back to England.

1777 – British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

1854 – In Jackson, MI, the Republican Party held its first convention.

1858 – Lyman Blake patented the shoe manufacturing machine.

1885 – Louis Pasteur successfully tested his anti-rabies vaccine. The child used in the test later became the director of the Pasteur Institute.

1905 – Fingerprints were exchanged for the first time between officials in Europe and the U.S. The person in question was John Walker.

1917 – During World War I, Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba from the Turks.

1919 – A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

1923 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established.

1928 – 'The Lights of New York' was previewed in New York's Strand Theatre. It was the first all-talking movie.

1932 – The postage rate for first class mail in the U.S. went from 2-cents to 3-cents.

1933 – The first All-Star baseball game was held in Chicago. The American League beat the National League 4-2.

1942 – Diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

1945 – U.S. President Truman signed an order creating the Medal of Freedom.

1945 – Nicaragua became the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.

1947 – 'Candid Microphone' began airing on ABC radio.

1948 – Frieda Hennok became the first woman to serve as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

1957 – Althea Gibson won the Wimbledon women’s singles tennis title. She was the first black athlete to win the event.

1966 – Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth with Dr. Hastings Banda as its first president.

1967 – The Biafran War erupted. The war lasted twoand- a-half years. About 600,000 people died.

1981 – Former President of Argentina Isabel Peron was freed after five years of house arrest by a federal court.

1981 – The Dupont Company announced an agreement to purchase Conoco, Inc. (Continental Oil Co.) for $7 billion. At the time it was the largest merger in corporate history.

1983 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retirement plans could not pay women smaller monthly payments solely because of their gender.

1983 – Fred Lynn (California Angels) hit the first grand slam in an All-Star game. The American League defeated the National League 13-3.

1985 – Martina Navratilova won her 4th consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

1985 – The submarine Nautilus arrived in Groton, Connecticut. The vessel had been towed from Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

1988 – Several popular beaches were closed in New York City due to medical waste and other debris began washing up on the seashores.

1989 – The U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1-A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, TX. The dismantling was under the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

1996 – Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title.

1997 – The Mars Pathfinder released Sojourner, a robot rover on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft landed on the red planet on July 4th.

1997 – In Cambodia, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen ousted First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and claimed to have the capital under his control.

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