Today in History

Today in History

1577 – Five ships under the command of Sir Francis Drake left Plymouth, England, to embark on Drake's circumnavigation of the globe. The journey took almost three years.

1636 – The United States National Guard was created when militia regiments were organized by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1642 – New Zealand was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman.

1769 – Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, received its charter.

1809 – The first abdominal surgical procedure was performed in Danville, KY, on Jane Todd Crawford. The operation was performed without an anesthetic.

1816 – John Adamson received a patent for a dry dock.

1862 – In America, an estimated 11,000 Northern soldiers were killed or wounded when Union forces were defeated by Confederates under General Robert E. Lee, at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

1883 – The border between Ontario and Manitoba was established.

1884 – Percy Everitt received a patent for the first coinoperated weighing machine. 1913 – In the U.S., the Federal Reserve System was established.

1918 – U.S. President Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit a European country while holding office.

1921 – Britain, France, Japan and the United States signed the Pacific Treaty.

1937 – Japanese forces took the Chinese city of Nanking (Nanjing). An estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed over the next six weeks. The event became known as the 'Rape of Nanking.'

1944 – During World War II, the U.S. cruiser Nashville was badly damaged in a Japanese kamikaze suicide attack. 138 people were killed in the attack.

1961 – Anna Mary Robertson Moses, 'Grandma Moses,' passed away at the age of 101.

1964 – In El Paso, TX, President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off an explosion that diverted the Rio Grande River, reshaping the U.S.Mexican border. This ended a century-old border dispute.

1966 – The rights to the first four Super Bowls were sold to CBS and NBC for total of $9.5 million.

1978 – The Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony U.S. dollar. The coin began circulation the following July.

1980 – Three days after a disputed general election, Uganda’s President Milton Obote was returned to office.

1981 – Authorities in Poland imposed martial law in an attempt to crackdown on the Solidarity labor movement. Martial law ended formally in 1983.

1982 – The Sentry Armored Car Company in New York discovered that $11 million had been stolen from its headquarters overnight. It was the biggest cash theft in U.S. history.

1987 – U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the Reagan administration would begin making funding requests for the proposed Star Wars defense system.

1988 – A bankruptcy judge in Columbia, SC, ordered the assets of the troubled PTL television ministry sold to a Toronto real estate developer for $65 million.

1989 – South African President F.W. de Klerk met for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk's office in Cape Town.

History