Today in History

1797 – “Old Ironsides,” the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, was launched in Boston’s harbor.

1805 – The Battle of Trafalgar occurred off the coast of Spain. The British defeated the French and Spanish fleet.

1849 – The first tattooed man, James F. O’Connell, was put on exhibition at the Franklin Theatre in New York City, NY.

1858 – The Can-Can was performed for the first time in Paris.

1879 – Thomas Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp. It would last 13 1/2 hours before it would burn out.

1917 – The first U.S. soldiers entered combat during World War I near Nancy, France.

1918 – Margaret Owen set a typing speed record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.

1925 – The photoelectric cell was first demonstrated at the Electric Show in New York City, NY.

1925 – The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had fined 29,620 people for prohibition (of alcohol) violations.

1927 – In New York City, construction began on the George Washington Bridge.

1944 – During World War II, the German city of Aachen was captured by U.S. troops.

1945 – Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.

1950 – Chinese forces invaded Tibet.

1959 – The Guggenheim Museum was opened to the public in New York. The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

1967 – Thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington, DC, in opposition to the Vietnam War.

1980 – The Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series.

1983 – The Pentagon reported that 2,000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.

1986 – The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave.

The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats.

1991 – Jesse Turner, an American hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly five years of being imprisoned.

1993 – The play “The Twilight of the Golds” opened.

1994 – North Korea and the U.S. signed an agreement requiring North Korea to halt its nuclear program and agree to inspections.

1998 – The New York Yankees set a major league baseball record of 125 victories for the regular and postseason combined.

1998 – Cancer specialist Dr. Jane Henney became the FDA’s first female commissioner.

2003 – The U.S. Senate voted to ban what was known as partial birth abortions.

2003 – North Korea rejected U.S. President George W.

Bush’s offer of a written pledge not to attack in exchange for the communist nation agreeing to end its nuclear weapons program.