Today In History...

In 1665 England installs a municipal government in New York, formerly the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam.

In 1776 Virginia's colonial legislature becomes the first to adopt a Bill of Rights.

In 1792 George Vancouver discovers the site of Vancouver, BC.

In 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.

In 1838 The Iowa Territory is organized.

In 1839 The first baseball game is played in America.

In 1898 Philippine nationalists declare independence from Spain.

In 1917 The U.S. Secret Service extends protection of the president to the family as well.

In 1931 Mobster Al Capone is indicted on 5000 violations of prohibition and perjury.

In 1936 The first 50kw radio station is established in Pittsburgh, PA.

In 1937 The Soviet Union executes eight army leaders as a purge under Josef Stalin continued.

In 1939 The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opens in Cooperstown, New York, 100 years to the day on which Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the sport.

In 1942 A tornado kills 35 in Oklahoma City.

In 1957 Paul Anderson of the U.S. back-lifts a record 6270 pounds.

In 1963 Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

In 1963 One of Hollywood's costliest failures, "Cleopatra," starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton premieres in New York.

In 1963 The President's Advisory Council On The Arts is established by President John F. Kennedy.

In 1964 South Africa sentences Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment.

In 1967 The USSR launches Venera IV for a parachute landing on Venus.

In 1967 The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.

In 1971 President Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia Nixon and Edward F. Cox are married in the White House Garden.

In 1974 Little League baseball surrenders to pressure and admits girls.

In 1978 David Berkowitz is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six "Son of Sam" .44-caliber killings in New York.

In 1979 26-year-old cyclist Bryan Allen pedals a 70-pound airplane, the "Gossamer Albatross," 23 miles across the English Channel.

In 1981 The third major-league baseball strike begins.

In 1981 "Raiders Of The Lost Ark," starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, opens in U.S theaters.

In 1982 750,000 stage an anti-nuclear demonstration in New York City's Central Park.

In 1983 Academy Award-winning actress Norma Shearer dies at age 80.

In 1983 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that employers may not be forced to scrap seniority plans that favor white males in order to protect affirmative action gains by minorities and women during hard times.

In 1985 The U.S. House of Representatives votes to provide $27 million in humanitarian aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

In 1986 P.W. Botha declares a national emergency in South Africa.

In 1987 Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's PTL declares bankruptcy.

In 1987 President Reagan publicly challenges Soviet leader Mikhal Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall during a visit to the western side of the Brandenburg Gate.

In 1989 The U.S. Supreme Court expands the abilities of white males to challenge court-approved affirmative action plans, even years after they take effect.

In 1989 Soviet president Gorbachev is greeted by cheering crowds during a visit to West Germany where he announced favoring of total nuclear disarmament in Europe.

In 1990 In a speech to the Supreme Soviet legislature, President Mikhail Gorbachev eases his objection to a reunified Germany.

In 1991 Russians went to the polls to elect Boris N. Yeltsin president of their republic.

In 1991 The Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines erupts.

In 1991 The Chicago Bulls win their first NBA championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one.

In 1992 In a letter to U.S. senators, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said the Soviet Union had shot down nine U.S. planes in the early 1950's and held 12 American survivors.

In 1992 President Bush, addressing the Earth Summit in Brazil, declares America's environmental record "second to none."

In 1994 Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, leader of tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, dies at age 92.

In 1994 O.J. Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman are slashed to death outside her Los Angeles home. (Simpson spent 9 months in 1995 being tried for the killings in Los Angeles court. He was acquitted in October.)

In 1995 The U.S. Supreme Court rules Congress was limited by the same strict standards as states in offering special help to minorities.

In 1995 Rescued Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady is treated to lunch at the White House and a hero's welcome at the Pentagon.

In 1996 A panel of federal judges in Philadelphia block a law against indecency on the Internet, saying the 1996 Communications Decency Act would infringe adults' free-speech rights.

In 1996 Senate Republicans choose Trent Lott to succeed Bob Dole as majority leader.

In 1997 Interleague play gets under way in baseball, ending the 126-year tradition of separating major leagues until the World Series.

In 1997 The Treasury Department introduces a new $50 bill meant to be counterfeit-resistant.

In 1999 Thousands of NATO peacekeeping troops poured into Kosovo.

In 2000 In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said patients cannot use a federal law to sue HMOs for giving doctors a financial incentive to cut treatment costs.

In 2001 President Bush arrives in Madrid, Spain, on his first official trip to Europe.

In 2001 Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, a Saudi Arabian follower of Osama bin Laden, to life in prison without parole for his role in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

In 2012 An Australian coroner’s report rules that a dingo was responsible for the death of a baby in 1980.

In 2012 The World Health Organization concludes that diesel exhaust causes cancer.

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