Today in history 6/9/2021-6/12/2021

6/9/2021:

Today in history, Coimbra, Portugal falls to Ferdinand, king of Castile in 1064.

Today in history, Jacques Cartier sails into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada in 1534.

Today in history, Mary Ann “Mother” Bickerdyke (see picture below) begins working in Union hospitals in 1861.

Today in history, Robert H. Goddard patents a rocket-fueled aircraft design in 1931.

Today in history, Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declares that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender in 1945.

Today in history, NASA publishes a report on the Challenger accident in 1986.

6/10/2021:

Today in history, The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Today in history, Tripoli declares war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute in 1801.

Today in history, The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, holds its first graduation in 1854.

Today in history, Dorothea Dix is appointed superintendent of female nurses for the Union army in 1861.

Today in history, Japan and Russia agree to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt (see picture below) in 1905.

Today in history, The Republican convention in Chicago endorses women’s suffrage in 1920.

Today in history, The U.S. VII and V corps, advancing from Normandy’s beaches, link up and begin moving inland in 1944.

Today in history, The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager (see picture below), piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947 in 1948.

Today in history, Serb forces begin their withdrawal from Kosovo after signing an agreement with the NATO powers in 1999.

6/11/2021:

Today in history, Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1346.

Today in history, Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon in 1509.

Today in history, Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef in 1770.

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte takes the island of Malta in 1798.

Today in history, Major General Henry W. Halleck (see picture below) finds documents and archives of the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia. This discovery will lead to the publication of the official war records in 1865.

Today in history, Charles E. Duryea receives the first U.S. patent granted to an American inventor for a gasoline-driven automobile in 1895.

Today in history, Charles Lindbergh, a captain in the US Army Air Corps Reserve, receives the first Distinguished Flying Cross ever awarded, for his solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927.

Today in history, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (see picture below) is arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants in 1963.

Today in history,  Margaret Thatcher wins her third consecutive term as Prime Minister in 1987.

6/12/2021:

Today in history, Alfonso V of Aragon is crowned King of Naples in 1442.

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte and his army invade Russia in 1812.

Today in history, The gas mask is patented by Lewis P. Haslett in 1849.

Today in history, The first airplane bombing raid by an American unit occurs in France in 1918.

Today in history, Gangster Al Capone (see picture below) and 68 of his henchmen are indicted for violating Prohibition laws in 1931.

Today in history, Eight of Stalin’s generals are sentenced to death during purges in the Soviet Union in 1937.

Today in history, The Supreme Court rules that states cannot ban interracial marriages in 1967.

Today in history 3/7/2021-3/9/2021

3/7/2021:

Today in history, On the death of Antoninus at Lorium, Marcus Aurelius becomes emperor in 0161.

Today in history, The Greek philosopher Aristotle dies 0322.

Today in history, Aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard — the first person to make an aerial voyage in the New World — dies at the age of 56 in 1809.

Today in history, Soprano Jenny Lind (“the Swedish Nightingale”) makes her debut in Weber’s opera Der Freischultz in 1838.

Today in history, Confederate forces surprise the Union army at the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, but the Union is victorious in 1862.

Today in history, The Japanese bomb the Russian town of Vladivostok in 1904.

Today in history, The film King Kong premieres in New York City in 1933.

Today in history, The board game Monopoly is invented in 1933.

Today in history, Voyager 1 reaches Jupiter in 1979.

3/8/2021:

Today in history, Johannes Kepler (see picture below)discovers the third law of planetary motion in 1618.

Today in history, Queen Anne (see picture below) becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III in 1702.

Today in history, George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in 1790.

Today in history, The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge in 1855.

Today in history, Pope Pius X lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in 1909.

Today in history, Baroness de Laroche (see picture below) becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license in France in 1910.

Today in history, Phyllis Mae Daley (see picture below) receives a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She will become the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II in 1945.

Today in history, Max Conrad circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in a Piper Aztec in 1961.

3/9/2021:

Today in history, The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops in 1617.

Today in history, Connecticut becomes the 5th state in 1788.

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France in 1796.

Today in history, The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process in 1839.

Today in history, The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839 are freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition in 1841.

Today in history, The first and last battle between the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia ends in a draw in 1862.

Today in history, The Barbie doll is unveiled at a toy fair in New York City in 1959.

Today in history, Svetlana Alliluyeva (see picture below), Joseph Stalin‘s daughter, defects to the United States in 1967.

Today in history 11/8/2020-11/14/2020

11/8/2020:

Today in history, Theodosius of Rome passes legislation prohibiting all pagan worship in the empire in 0392.

Today in history, The Louvre opens in Paris in 1793.

Today in history, President Abraham Lincoln is re-elected in the first wartime election in the United States in 1864.

Today in history, Crystla Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania, becomes the first African-American woman to be elected to a state legislature in 1938.

11/9/2020:

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte participates in a coup and declares himself dictator of France in 1799.

Today in history, The first U.S. Post Office in California opens in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets in 1848. At the time there are only about 15,000 European settlers living in the state.

Today in history, President Theodore Roosevelt leaves Washington, D.C., for a 17-day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside of the United States in 1906.

Today in history, The Berlin Wall is opened after dividing the city for 28 years in 1989.

11/10/2020:

Today in history, U.S. Marine Corps founded in 1775.

Today in history, Henry M. Stanley finds Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji near Unyanyembe in Africa in 1871.

Today in history, The PBS children’s program Sesame Street debuts in 1969.

Today in history, German citizens begin tearing down the Berlin Wall in 1989.

11/11/2020:

Today in history, Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union in 1889.

Today in history, The German leaders sign the armistice ending World War I in 1918.

Today in history, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is dedicated in 1921.

Today in history, Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” is performed for the first time by singer Kate Smith in 1938.

11/12/2020:

Today in history, The first flying-trapeze circus act is performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon in 1859.

Today in history, Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister, and seven others are sentenced to hang by an international tribunal in 1948.

Today in history, The U.S. Supreme Court voids an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools in 1968.

Today in history, Crown Prince Akihito is formally installed as Emperor Akihito of Japan in 1990.

11/13/2020:

Today in history, Texans officially proclaim independence from Mexico in 1836, and calls itself the Lone Star Republic, after its flag, until its admission to the Union in 1845.

Today in history, The London-to-Paris telegraph begins operation in 1851.

Today in history, New York’s Holland Tunnel officially opens for traffic in 1927.

Today in history, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedicated in Washington, DC. in 1982.

11/14/2020:

Today in history, Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick is published in New York in 1851.

Today in history, Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light in 1908.

Today in history, The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) begins the first daily radio broadcasts from Marconi House in 1922.

Today in history, The United States launches Apollo 12, the second mission to the Moon, from Cape Kennedy in 1969.

Today in history 11/6/2020

Today in history, Henry VI is crowned King of England in 1429.

Today in history, The first winter snow falls on the French Army as Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow in 1812.

Today in history, Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States in 1860.

Today in history, A Union force surrounds and scatters defending Confederates at the Battle of Droop Mountain, in West Virginia in 1863.

Today in history, Comanche, the only 7th Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer’s “Last Stand” at the Little Bighorn, dies at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1891.

Today in history, Maine becomes a dry state in 1911.

Today in history, The Bolshevik “October Revolution” (October 25 on the old Russian calendar), led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seizes power in Petrograd in 1917.

Today in history, The first landing of a jet on a carrier takes place on USS Wake Island when an FR-1 Fireball touches down in 1945.

Today in history, Coleman Young becomes the first African-American mayor of Detroit, Michigan in 1973.

Today in history, The Iran arms-for-hostages deal is revealed, damaging the Reagan administration in 1986.

Today in history 10/26/2020

Today in history, The first Continental Congress, which protested British measures and called for civil disobedience, concludes in Philadelphia in 1774.

Today in history, When General Paul Barras resigns his commission as head of France’s Army of the Interior to become head of the Directory, his second-in-command becomes the army’s commander—Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795.

Today in history, The first boat on the Erie Canal leaves Buffalo, N.Y. in 1825.

Today in history, Three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday have a shootout with the Clantons and McLaurys at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory in 1881.

Today in history, Norway signs a treaty of separation with Sweden in 1905. Norway chooses Prince Charles of Denmark as the new king; he becomes King Haakon VII.

Today in history, Germany’s supreme commander, General Erich Ludendorff, resigns, protesting the terms to which the German Government has agreed in negotiating the armistice in 1918. This sets the stage for his later support for Hitler and the Nazis, who claim that Germany did not lose the war on the battlefield but were “stabbed in the back” by politicians.

Today in history, Japanese attack Guadalcanal, sinking two U.S. carriers in 1942.

Today in history, A reconnaissance platoon for a South Korean division reaches the Yalu River in 1950. They are the only elements of the U.N. force to reach the river before the Chinese offensive pushes the whole army down into South Korea.

Today in history, The first New York – Paris transatlantic jet passenger service is inaugurated by Pan Am, while the first New York – London transatlantic jet passenger service is inaugurated by BOAC in 1958.

Today in history, Gary Trudeau’s comic strip Doonesbury first appears in 1970.