Today in History

Today in History

1776 – 'Common Sense' by Thomas Paine was published.

1840 – The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.

1861 – Florida seceded from the United States.

1863 – Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.

1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

1901 – Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX.

1911 – Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA.

1920 – The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.

1920 – The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva.

1927 – Fritz Lang's film 'Metropolis' was first shown, in Berlin.

1928 – The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.

1943 – The quiz show, 'The Better Half,' was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio.

1946 – The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented.

1950 – Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff.

1951 – Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City.

1957 – Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden.

1963 – The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB)

1971 – 'Masterpiece Theatre' premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was 'The First Churchills.'

1978 – The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.

1981 – In El Salvador, Marxist insurgents launched a 'final offensive'.

1984 – The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.

1986 – The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, 'Showboat', opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

1990 – Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing prodemocracy protests had saved China from 'the abyss of misery.'

1990 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world's largest entertainment company.

1994 – In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.

1997 – Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15,

1998.

2000 – It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14,

2000.

2001 – American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.

2002 – In France, the 'Official Journal' reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies.

History