Today in History

Today in History

History

1327 King Edward II of England is deposed.

1558 The French, under the Duke of Guise, finally take the port of Calais from the English.

1785 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American Dr. John Jeffries make the first crossing of the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon.

1807 Responding to Napoleon Bonaparte's attempted blockade of the British Isles, the British blockade Continental Europe.

1865 Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.

1901 New York stock exchange trading exceeds two million shares for the first time in history.

1902 The Imperial Court of China returns to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumes her reign.

1918 The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.

1934 Six thousand pastors in Berlin defy the Nazis insisting that they will not be silenced.

1944 The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, the Bell P-59 Airacomet.

1945 U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. is killed in the Pacific.

1952 French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.

1955 Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House.

1975 Vietnamese troops take Phuoc Binh in a new fullscale offensive.

1979 Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge are overthrown when Vietnamese troops seize the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation providing $ 1.5 billion in loans to salvage Chrysler Corporation.

1985 Vietnam seizes the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai border.

1985 Japan launches its first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, the first deep space probe launched by any nation other than the United States or the USSR.

1989 Prince Akihito is sworn in as Emperor of Japan, following the death of his father, Hirohito.

1990 Safety concerns over structural problems force the Leaning Tower of Pisa to be closed to the public.

1993 The Bosnian Army carries out a surprise attack on the village of Kravica in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.

1999 The impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton opens in the Senate.

Born

1718 Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War hero.

1745 Etienne Montgolfier, French inventor who, with his brother, launched the first successful hot-air balloon.

1800 Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States.

1845 Louis III, the last King of Bavaria.

1911 Butterfly McQueen (Thelma McQueen), actress best known for her role as Scarlett O’Hara’s maid Prissy in Gone with the Wind (1939); won a Daytime Emmy portraying Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in “The Seven Wishes of Joanna Peabody,” an ABC Afterschool Special.

1912 Charles Addams, cartoonist; creator of the Addams Family.

1922 Jean-Pierre Rampal, flautist.

1930 Jack Greene, country singer, musician; won the Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year for “There Goes My Everything” (1967).

1939 Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark.

1948 Kenny Loggins, singer, songwriter; half of the Loggins and Messina duo.

1957 Katie Couric, journalist, author; has hosted news and talk shows on all three major TV networks.