Today in History

Today in History

1154 Henry II is crowned king of England.

1562 The French Wars of Religion between the Huguenots and the Catholics begins with the Battle of Dreux.

1793 French troops recapture Toulon from the British.

1862 Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in Union generals Grant and Rosecrans rear, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.

1900 The French Parliament votes amnesty for everyone involved in the Dreyfus Affair.

1909 American socialist women denounce suffrage as a movement of the middle class.

1941 Japanese land on Hong Kong and clash with British troops.

1941 Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.

1942 The British advance 40 miles into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony.

1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops begin pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in front of the advancing German Army.

1945 Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as U.S. delegate to the United Nations.

1950 The North Atlantic Council names General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Western European defense forces.

1959 Reputed to be the last civil war veteran, Walter Williams, dies at 117 in Houston.

1974 Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as vice president of the United states after a House of Representatives vote.

1982 Four bombs explode at South Africa’s only nuclear power station in Johannesburg.

1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement that committed Britain to return Hong Kong to China in

1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. Hong Kong was leased by China to Great Britain in 1898 for 99 years.

1998 President Bill Clinton is impeached. The House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton was the second president in American history to be impeached.

2001 The highest barometric pressure ever recorded (1085.6 hPa, 32.06 inHg) occurs at Tosontsengel, Khovsgol, Mongolia.

2001 Rioting begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the country’s economic crisis.

2012 Park Geun-hye elected President of South Korea, the nation’s first female chief executive.

Born

1683 Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain.

1820 Mary Ashton Livermore, a temperance worker, women’s rights activist, lecturer, and writer. Founded her own suffrage paper, the Agitator, in 1869.

1906 Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet General Secretary of the Communist party and President of the Supreme Soviet from 1964 until 1982.

1915 Edith Piaf, internationally famous French cabaret singer, best remembered for her songs “La Vie en rose” and “Non, je ne regrette rein.”

1933 Cicely Tyson, actress, best remembered for her role in The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman.

1940 Phil Ochs, singer, songwriter, producer; best known for his protest songs of the 1960s.

1941 Maurice White, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; founder of the band Earth, Wind & Fire; member of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

1943 US Marine Corps four-star general James L. Jones Jr.; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe

(2003–2006); Commandant of the Marine Corps

(1999–2003); National Security Advisor (2009–2010).

History