Today in History

Today in History

1263 The Norwegians and Scots face off against each other in the Battle of Largs, an indecisive engagement between the two kingdoms on the Firth of Clyde near Largs, Scotland. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History]

1535 Having landed in Quebec a month ago, Jacques Cartier reaches a town, which he names Montreal.

1780 John André, a British Army officer, is hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold’s attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York, to the British. On the eve of his execution, André draws this self-portrait. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History]

1814 Spanish Royalists troops under Mariano Osorio defeats rebel Chilean forces of Bernardo O’Higgins and José Miguel Carrera in the Battle of Rancagua. [From MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History]

1862 An Army under Union General Joseph Hooker arrives in Bridgeport, Alabama to support the Union forces at Chattanooga. Chattanooga’s Lookout Mountain provides a dramatic setting for the Civil War’s battle above the clouds.

1870 The papal states vote in favor of union with Italy. The capital is moved from Florence to Rome.

1871 Mormon leader Brigham Young, 70, is arrested for polygamy. He is later convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the conviction.

1879 A dual alliance is formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agree to come to the other’s aid in the event of aggression.

1909 Orville Wright sets an altitude record, flying at

1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham’s previous record of 508 feet.

1931 Aerial circus star Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from Misawa City, Japan.

1941 The German army launches Operation Typhoon, the drive towards Moscow.

1950 The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schultz, makes its first appearance in newspapers.

1964 Scientists announce findings that smoking can cause cancer.

1967 Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, is sworn in. Marshall had previously been the solicitor general, the head of the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a leading American civil rights lawyer.

1980 Congressional Representative Mike Myers is expelled from the US House for taking a bribe in the Abscam scandal, the first member to be expelled since

1861.

1990 Flight 8301 of China’s Xiamen Airlines is hijacked and crashed into Baiyun International Airport, hitting two other aircraft and killing 128 people.

2001NATO backs US military strikes in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Born

1847 Paul von Hindenburg, German Field Marshall during World War I and second president of the Weimar Republic.

1869 Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, political leader of India and pioneer of nonviolent activism.

1871 Cordell Hull, Secretary of State for President Franklin Roosevelt.

1879 Wallace Stevens, poet.

1890 Julius Henry ‘Groucho’ Marx, comedian, one of the five Marx brothers (the others being Chico, Harpo, Zeppo and Gummo).

1900 William A. ‘Bud’ Abbott, comedian, the straight man to Lou Costello.

1901 Roy Campbell, poet (The Flaming Terrapin).

1904 Graham Greene, novelist (The Power and The Glory, The Heart of the Matter).

1907 Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, Scottish biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1957) for his work on nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes.

1933 John Bertrand Gurdon, English developmental biologist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (2012) for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells.

History