Today in History

Today in History

48 BC On landing in Egypt, Pompey is murdered on the orders of Ptolemy.

855 The Emperor Lothar dies in Gaul, and his kingdom is divided between his three sons.

1066 William, Duke of Normandy, soon to be known as William the Conqueror invades England.

1106 King Henry of England defeats his brother Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai and reunites England and Normandy.

1238 James of Aragon retakes Valencia, Spain, from the Arabs.

1607 Samuel de Champlain and his colonists return to France from Port Royal Nova Scotia.

1794 The Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which is directed against France, is signed.

1864 Union General William Rosecrans blames his defeat at Chickamauga on two of his subordinate generals. They are later exonerated by a court of inquiry.

1874 Colonel Ronald Mackenzie raids a war camp of Comanche and Kiowa at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, slaughtering 2,000 of their horses.

1904 A woman is placed under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

1912 W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” is published.

1913 Race riots in Harriston, Mississippi, kill 10 people.

1924 Three U.S. Army aircraft arrive in Seattle, Washington after completing a 22-day round-the-world flight.

1928 Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory; it remained for Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to isolate the active ingredient, allowing the “miracle drug” to be developed in the 1940s.

1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland; Warsaw surrenders to German troops.

1958 France ratifies a new constitution.

1959 Explorer VI, the U.S. satellite, takes the first video pictures of Earth.

1961 A military coup in Damascus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958.

1963 Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art work Whaam!, depicting in comic-book style a US jet shooting down an enemy fighter, is exhibited for the first time; it will become one of the best known examples of pop art.

1995 Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip. 1996 Afghanistan’s former president (1986-92) Mohammad Najibullah is tortured and murdered by the Taliban.

2008 SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1.

Born

1820 Friedrich Engels, socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

1901 Ed Sullivan, television host.

1909 Al Capp, cartoonist who created the “Li’l Abner” comic strip.

1915 Ethel Rosenberg, who, with her husband Julius, became one of the first American civilians executed for espionage.

1924 Marcello Mastroianni, Italian actor (La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2).

1934 Brigitte Bardot, French actress.

1938 Ben E. King, lead singer of The Drifters and composer of “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand by Me.”

1938 Koko Taylor, blues singer.

1939 Stuart Kauffman, theoretical biologist renowned for his work in studying the origin of life and the origins of molecular organization.

1943 Winston “Win” Percy, three-time British Touring Car Champion, regarded by many as the World’s Number One Touring Car Driver

1960 Jennifer Rush, singer, songwriter (“The Power of Love”).

History