Today in history 3/26/2021-3/27/2021

3/26/2021:

Today in history, The famous Flemish composer Heinrich Issac dies in 1517.

Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa, Palestine in 1799.

Today in history, The territory of New Orleans is organized in the Louisiana Purchase in 1804.

Today in history, German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven dies in Vienna. He had been deaf for the later part of his life, but said on his death bed “I shall hear in heaven” in 1827.

Today in history, Eastman Film Co. manufactures the first commercial motion picture film in 1885.

Today in history, The United States Air Force flag design is approved in 1951.

Today in history, Dr. Jonas Salk (see picture below) announces a new vaccine against polio in 1953.

Today in history, The United States sets off an H-bomb blast in the Marshall Islands, the second in four weeks in 1954.

Today in history, The Camp David treaty is signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979.

Today in history, Ground is broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982.

Today in history, The first free elections take place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin (see picture below) is elected in 1989.

3/27/2021:

Today in history, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon (see picture below)  sights Florida in 1512.

Today in history, The U.S. government establishes a permanent navy with the authorization to build six frigates in 1794.

Today in history, The Treaty of Amiens is signed, ending the French Revolutionary War in 1802.

Today in history, The first long-distance telephone call is made from Boston to New York in 1884.

Today in history, The Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi achieves the first international radio transmission between England and France in 1899.

Today in history, The first cherry blossom trees (see picture below), a gift from Japan, are planted in Washington, D.C. in 1912.

Today in history, General Dwight Eisenhower declares that the German defenses on the Western Front have been broken in 1945.

Today in history, The United States announces a plan to explore space near the moon in 1958.

Today in history, Washington, D.C. opens its subway system in 1976.

Today in history 2/19/2021-2/21/2021

2/19/2021:

Today in history, The revolt of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, against King Henry IV, ends with his defeat and death at Bramham Moor in 1408.

Today in history, Philip V of Spain makes his ceremonial entry into Madrid in 1701.

Today in history, Rescuers finally reach the ill-fated Donner Party in the Sierras in 1847.

Today in history, Russian Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in 1861.

Today in history, Smallpox vaccination becomes obligatory in France in 1902.

Today in history, British and French warships begin their attacks on the Turkish forts at the mouth of the Dardenelles, in an abortive expedition to seize the straits of Gallipoli in 1915.

Today in history, Dr. Lane of Princeton estimates the earth’s age at one billion years in 1926.

Today in history, The U.S. Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force begin “Big Week,” a series of heavy bomber attacks against German aircraft production facilities in 1944.

Today in history, Robert F. Kennedy suggests the United States offer the Vietcong a role in governing South Vietnam in 1966.

2/20/2021:

Today in history, Pope Julius II dies. He will lie in rest in a huge tomb sculpted by Michelangelo in 1513.

Today in history, The U.S. Postal Service is created in 1792.

Today in history, The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state in the Union in 1809.

Today in history, Polish revolutionaries defeat the Russians in the Battle of Grochow in 1831.

Today in history, President Woodrow Wilson opens the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915.

Today in history, Lt. Edward O’Hare downs five out of nine Japanese bombers that are attacking the carrier Lexington in 1942.

Today in history, The Ford Foundation gives a $25 million grant to the Fund for Advancement of Education in 1954.

Today in history, The FCC applies the equal time rule to TV newscasts of political candidates in 1959.

Today in history, Mercury astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.

Today in history, Ranger 8 hits the moon and sends back 7,000 photos to the United States in 1965.

2/21/2021:

Today in history, Michael Romanov, a son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar in 1631.

Today in history, The British blockade of Toulon is broken by 27 French and Spanish warships attacking 29 British ships in 1744.

Today in history, The world’s first telephone book is issued by the New Haven Connecticut Telephone Company containing the names of its 50 subscribers in 1878.

Today in history, The Washington Monument is dedicated in Washington, D.C. in 1885.

Today in history,  The Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, begins in 1905.

Today in history, The U. S. Eighth Army launches Operation Killer, a counterattack to push Chinese forces north of the Han River in Korea in 1951.

Today in history, Richard Nixon (see picture below) arrives in Beijing, China, becoming the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the United States in 1972.

Today in history 8/10/2020

Today in history, King Francis of France declares that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin in 1539.

Today in history, Louis XVI of France is arrested and taken into custody as his Swiss Guards are massacred by a Parisian mob in an assault that will become known as the Storming of the Tuileries Palace. The insurrection will be one of the defining events in the history of the French Revolution in 1772.

Today in history, William Driver (see picture below) of Salem, Massachusetts, is the first to use the term “Old Glory” in connection with the American flag, when he gives that name to a large flag aboard his ship, the Charles Daggett in 1831.

Today in history, The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson (see picture below) in 1846.

Today in history, The House of Lords in Great Britain gives up its veto power, making the House of Commons the more powerful House in 1911.

Today in history, The National Military Establishment is renamed the Department of Defense in 1949.

Today in history, NASA launches Discoverer 13 (see picture below), a satellite; it would become the first object ever recovered from orbit in 1960.

Today in history, The last British troops leave Hong Kong. After 156 years of British rule, the island is returned to China in 1997.

Today in history 7/21/2020

7/21/2017:

Today in history, Henry IV defeats the Percys in the Battle of Shrewsbury in England in 1403.

Today in history, The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War and cedes Dutch New Amsterdam to the English in 1667.

Today in history, Russia and Turkey sign the Treaty of Pruth, ending the year-long Russo-Turkish War in 1711.

Today in history, In the first major battle of the Civil War, Confederate forces defeat the Union Army along Bull Run near Manassas Junction, Virginia. The battle becomes known as Manassas by the Confederates, while the Union calls it Bull Run in 1861.

Today in history, Wild Bill Hickok kills gunman Dave Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, in what is regarded as the first formal quick-draw duel in 1865.

Today in history, The James Gang (see picture below) robs a train in Adair, Iowa in 1873.

Today in history, Mary Church Terrell founds the National Association of Colored Women in Washington, D.C. in 1896.

Today in history, John Scopes is found guilty for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tenn., and is fined $100 in 1925.

Today in history, Sirimavo Bandaranaike (see picture below) becomes the first woman prime minister of Ceylon in 1960.

Today in history 4/24/2020

Today in history, St. Nicholas I begins his reign as Catholic Pope in 858.

Today in history, Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America in 1519.

Today in history, Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (see picture below) composes “La Marseillaise”. It will become France’s national anthem in 1792.

Today in history, The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation in 1800.

Today in history, U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates in 1805.

Today in history, A patent is granted for the first soda fountain in 1833.

Today in history, Spain declares war on United States, rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba in 1898.

Today in history, Irish nationalists launch the Easter Uprising against British occupation in 1916.

Today in history, The Berlin airlift begins to relieve the surrounded city in 1948.

Today in history, Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (see picture below) in 1953.

Today in history, President John Kennedy accepts “sole responsibility” for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

Today in history, The IBM Personal Computer (see picture below) is introduced in 1981.