Today In History...

Today In History...

   In 1803 Congress votes to accept Ohio's borders and constitution.

           (However, Congress did not ratify Ohio's statehood until 1953.)

   In 1807 Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested in Alabama for treason,

           but is later acquitted.

   In 1831 The first practical U.S. coal-burning locomotive makes its first

           trial run in Pennsylvania.

   In 1846 The Texas state government is formally installed at Austin.

   In 1864 The Knights of Pythias are founded in Washington, DC.

   In 1881 Kansas becomes the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

   In 1902 France makes smallpox vaccinations mandatory.

   In 1925 President Coolidge proposes phasing out inheritance tax.

   In 1934 Bob Hope and Dolores Reade are married.

   In 1935 Tennessee votes to retain anti-evolution laws.

   In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signs an executive order suspending the

           civil rights of some 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.

   In 1942 During World War II, about 150 Japanese warplanes attack the

           Australian city of Darwin.

   In 1945 U.S. Marines land on the Japansese-held island of Iwo Jima in the

           Western Pacific.

   In 1959 An agreement is signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus

           its independence.

   In 1960 Bill Keene's "The Family Circus" comic strip debuts.

   In 1963 The Soviet Union informs President Kennedy that it would withdraw

           "several thousand" of an estimated 17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.

   In 1969 Seven Israeli spies are executed in Iraq.

   In 1969 The Boeing 747 jumbo jet is test flown for the first time.

   In 1977 President Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino aka "Tokyo Rose."

   In 1982 John Z. DeLorean's motor company goes bankrupt.

   In 1983 13 people are found shot to death at a gambling club in Seattle's

           Chinatown district in what became known as the "Wah Mee Massacre."

   In 1985 150 are killed when a Iberia Air Lines Boeing 727 crashes into a

           mountain while flying from Madrid, Spain, to Bilbao.

   In 1986 The U.S. Senate approves a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after

           the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

   In 1987 President Reagan lifts sanctions against Poland.

   In 1987 New York Governor Mario Cuomo announces that he would not run for

           president in 1988.

   In 1988 A group calling itself the "Organization of the Oppressed on Earth"

           claims responsibility for the kidnapping of Lt. Col. William Higgens

           in Lebanon.

   In 1990 U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, snubbed by Philippine President

           Corazon Aquino, meets in Manila with Defense Minister Fidel Ramos

           regarding the future of U.S. bases in the country.

   In 1991 Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin delivers an unprecedented

           public appeal for Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to resign.

   In 1992 Former Irish Republican Army fighter Joseph Doherty is deported from

           the U.S. to a jail in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following a 10-year

           battle for political asylum.

   In 1993 President Clinton, visiting Hyde Park, NY, suggests the U.S. might

           have to consider a national sales tax in the next 10 years or so.

   In 1994 American speed skater Bonnie Blair wins the fourth Olympic gold medal

           of her career as she won the 500-meter race in Lillehammer, Norway.

   In 1995 Colin Ferguson is convicted of six counts of murder in the December,

           1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings that killed six people and

           wounded 19 others. (He is later sentenced to life in prison.)

   In 1995 A day after being named the new chairwoman of the NAACP, Myrlie

           Evers-Williams said she intended to take the group back to its

           grass roots.

   In 1996 Baseball showman Charlie O. Finley dies in Chicago at age 77.

   In 1997 Deng Xiaoping, the last of China's major Communist revolutionaries,

           dies.

   In 1997 Detroit's daily newspapers accept a back-to-work offer from

           employees who'd been on strike for 19 months.

   In 2000 George W. Bush defeats John McCain in the South Carolina Republican

           primary for U.S. president.

   In 2000 President George W. Bush opens a museum commemorating the 1995

           Oklahoma City bombing.

   In 2002 President Bush opens a two-day visit to South Korea.

   In 2002 In Salt Lake City, bobsledders Jill Bakken & Vonetta Flowers win the

           gold, with Flowers becoming the first black athlete ever to win a

           gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

   In 2008 Toshiba announces its formal recall of its HD DVD video formatting, 

           ending the format war between it and Sony's Blu-Ray Disc.