Today in history 6/1/2021-6/4/2021

6/1/2021:

Today in history, The British government orders the port of Boston closed in 1774.

Today in history, The first U.S. congressional act on administering oaths becomes law in 1789.

Today in history, American navy captain James Lawrence (see picture below), mortally wounded in a naval engagement with the British, exhorts to the crew of his vessel, the Chesapeake, “Don’t give up the ship!” in 1812.

Today in history, The National Defense Act increases the strength of the U.S. National Guard by 450,000 men in 1916.

Today in history, The Douglas DC-4 (see picture below) makes its first passenger flight from Chicago to New York in 1939.

Today in history, The U.S. reports finding wiretaps in the American embassy in Moscow in 1978.

6/2/2021:

Today in history, Pope Paul III bans the enslavement of Indians in the New World in 1537.

Today in history, The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to allow British soldiers into their houses, is reenacted in 1774.

Today in history, Maximilien Robespierre, a member of France’s Committee on Public Safety, initiates the “Reign of Terror” in 1793.

Today in history, The first baseball game under electric lights is played in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1883.

Today in history, The United States grants full citizenship to American Indians in 1924.

Today in history, Jamaican-born track star Herb McKenley (see picture below) sets a new world record for the 400 yard dash in 1948.

Today in history, Elizabeth II (see picture below) is crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey in 1953.

6/3/2021:

Today in history, Christian Crusaders of the First Crusade seize Antioch, Turkey in 1098.

Today in history, Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain in 1539.

Today in history, The classic baseball poem “Casey at the Bat,” written by Ernest L. Thayer (see picture below), is published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1888.

Today in history, The Finnish Parliament ratifies a treaty with Germany in 1918.

Today in history, The German Luftwaffe hits Paris with 1,100 bombs in 1940.

Today in history, Astronaut Edward White (see picture below) becomes the first American to walk in space when he exits the Gemini 4 space capsule in 1965.

Today in history, The Chinese government begins its crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square (see picture below). Hundreds are killed and thousands are arrested in 1989.

6/4/2021:

Today in history, The fortress at Osaka, Japan, falls to Shogun Ieyasu (see picture below) after a six-month siege in 1615.

Today in history, The Freemasons are founded in London in 1717.

Today in history, Tripoli is forced to conclude peace with the United States after a conflict over tribute in 1805.

Today in history, Gold is discovered in Alaska’s Indian Creek in 1911.

Today in history, The British complete the evacuation of 300,000 troops at Dunkirk in 1940.

Today in history, Allied troops liberate Rome in 1944.

Today in history, Black activist Angela Davis (see picture below) is found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy in 1972.

Today in history 10/12/2020

Today in history, Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas in 1492.

Today in history, Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1576.

Today in history, The song “Three Blind Mice” is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song in 1609.

Today in history, Admiral Sir George Rooke defeats the French fleet off Vigo in 1702.

Today in history, Shah Sultan Husayn surrenders the Persian capital of Isfahan to Afgan rebels after a seven month siege in 1722.

Today in history, Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, dies under mysterious circumstances in Tennessee in 1809.

Today in history, The Anglo-Boer War begins in 1899.

Today in history, Despite international protests, Edith Cavell (see picture below), an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners in 1915.

Today in history, Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison in 1933.

Today in history, Eugenie Anderson (see picture below) becomes the first woman U.S. ambassador in 1949.

Today in history, The House of Representatives passes the Equal Rights Amendment 354-23 in 1971.

Today in history, NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus in 1994.

Today in strangeness for 7/26/2020-8/1/2020

Here’s this week’s today in strangeness. Hope you enjoy!

July 26th/27th:

Today in strangeness, A grasshopper invasion descended over Iowa, Nebraska and So. Dakota devouring thousands of crop acres (1931). And on this day in 1940, Bugs Bunny made his big screen debut in the Warner Brothers cartoon, “A Wild Hare.”

Mars In 4K: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/watch-mars-in-4k/

July 28th:

Today in strangeness, On this date in 1976, a massive earthquake struck the city of Tangshan, China. The official death toll from the quake was an astounding 242,000 people, making it the deadliest earthquake in modern history. Some in China suspect that the true number of fatalities could be double or triple the number reported by Chinese officials.

Bizarre Bigfoot Encounter Reported in New York: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-bizarre-bigfoot-encounter-reported-in-new-yorks-hudson-valley/

July 29th:

Today in strangeness, Happy Birthday, NASA! In response to the Soviet’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the US Congress passed legislation on this date in 1958 to establish a civilian agency coordinating America’s space exploration. On July 29, 1947, a gas leak explosion in a beauty parlor caused the death of 10 women in Harrisonburg, VA.

Infamous Windsor Hum Silenced at Last?: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/infamous-windsor-hum-silenced-at-last/

Police Responding to Big Cat Report Discover Stuffed Animal: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/police-responding-to-big-cat-report-discover-stuffed-animal/

July 30th:

Today in strangeness, On this day in 1838, a rain of frogs fell in London. This date also saw the disappearance of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (1975), and the very first car ad, which beckoned magazine readers to “dispense with a horse” (1898).

Ireland’s Most Haunted House Up for Sale: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/irelands-most-haunted-house-up-for-sale/

Stonehenge Boulder Mystery Solved?: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/stonehenge-boulder-mystery-solved/

July 31st/August 1st:

Today in strangeness, On this date in 1930, the radio mystery program The Shadow aired for the first time. On July 31, 1954, an official announcement was made by researchers that Los Angeles smog was caused by the chemical reaction of sunlight on auto and industrial emissions. And on this day in 1964, the first close-up photographs of the moon were sent back to Earth by Ranger 7.

NASA Launches Mars Perseverance Rover: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/nasa-launches-mars-perseverance-rover/

Commercial Crop Circles Created in Kansas and New York: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-commercial-crop-circles-created-in-kansas-and-new-york/

Today in history 7/1/2020

Today in history, Vespasian, a Roman army leader, is hailed as a Roman emperor by the Egyptian legions in 69.

Today in history, England and Scotland sign the Peace of Greenwich in 1543.

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte takes Alexandria, Egypt in 1798.

Today in history, Charles Darwin (see picture below) presents a paper on his theory of evolution to the Linnean Society in London in 1838.

Today in history, The Battle of the Somme (see picture below) begins. Approximately 30,000 men are killed on the first day, two-thirds of them British in 1916.

Today in history, The New York State Commission Against Discrimination is established–the first such agency in the United States in 1945.

Today in history, The U.S. postmaster introduces the ZIP code in 1963.

Today in history 6/30/2020

Today in history, Charles Dickens reads from A Christmas Carol at St. Martin’s Hall in London–his first public reading in 1857.

Today in history, Jean Francois Gravelet aka Emile Blondin, a French daredevil, becomes the first man to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859.

Today in history, A mysterious explosion, possibly the result of a meteorite, levels thousands of trees in the Tunguska region of Siberia with a force approaching twenty megatons in 1908.

Today in history, Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone With the Wind (see picture below), is published in 1936.

Today in history, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrate their invention, the , for the first time in 1948.

Today in history, Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho (see picture below), opens in 1960.