Today in History

490 B.C. – The Battle of Marathon took place between the invading Persian army and the Athenian Army. The marathon race was derived from the events that occurred surrounding this battle.

1776 – The second Continental Congress officially made the term “United States”, replacing the previous term “United Colonies.”

1836 – Abraham Lincoln received his license to practice law.

1850 – California became the 31st state to join the union.

1893 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland’s wife, Frances Cleveland, gave birth to a daughter, Esther. It was the first time a president’s child was born in the White House.

1904 – Mounted police were used for the first time in the City of New York.

1911 – Italy declared war on the Ottoman Turks and annexed Libya, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica in North Africa.

1919 – Alexander Graham Bell and Casey Baldwin’s HD-4, a hydrofoil craft, set a world marine speed record.

1926 – The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

1942 – Japan dropped incendiaries over NE in an attempt to set fire to the forests in Oregon and Washington. The forest did not ignite.

1943 – During World War II Allied forces landed at Taranto and Salerno.

1946 – Ben Alexander hosted “Heart’s Desire” for the first time on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

1948 – North Korea became the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.

1950 – Sal Maglie (New York Giants) pitched a fourth consecutive shutout. Only four other pitchers in the National League had ever accomplished this feat.

1957 – The first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction was signed into law by U.S. President Eisenhower.

1965 – French President Charles de Gaulle announced that France was withdrawing from NATO to protest the domination of the U.S. in the organization.

1965 – Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched the eighth perfect game in major league baseball history.

1971 – Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings retired from the National Hockey League (NHL).

1979 – Tracy Austin, at 16, became the youngest player to win the U.S. Open women’s tennis title.

1981 – Nicaragua declared a state of economic emergency and banned strikes.

1983 – The Soviet Union announced that the Korean jetliner the was shot down on September 1, 1983 was not an accident or an error.

1984 – Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears broke Jim Brown’s combined yardage record when he reached

15,517 yards.

1986 – Frank Reed was taken hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian kidnappers. The director of a private school in Lebanon was released 44 months later.

1986 – Gennadiy Zakharov was indicted by a New York jury on espionage charges. Zakharov was a Soviet United Nations employee.

1987 – Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer aired for the last time on CBS.

1993 – Israeli and PLO leaders agreed to recognize each other.

1994 – The U.S. agreed to accept about 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year. This was in return for Cuba’s promise to halt the flight of refugees.

1995 – Amtrak’s Broadway Limited service made its final run between New York City, NY and Chicago, IL.

1997 – Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political ally, formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland’s future.

1998 – Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivered to the U.S. Congress 36 boxes of material concerning his investigation of U.S. President Clinton.

1998 – Four tourists who had paid $32,500 each were taken in submarine to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

The ship is 2 miles below the Atlantic off Newfoundland.

1999 – The Sega Dreamcast game system went on sale.

By 1:00pm all Toys R Us locations in the U.S. had sold out.

2008 – The iTunes Music Store reached 100 million applications downloaded.

2009 – The iTunes Music Store reached 1.8 billion applications downloaded.