Today In History...

Today In History...

   In 1631 The founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, arrives in Boston from

           England with his wife.

   In 1663 A giant earthquake rocks Canada.

   In 1783 Sweden recognizes the independence of the United States.

   In 1881 Phoenix, Arizona, is incorporated.

   In 1887 Snow falls in San Francisco recording its all-time snowfall record

           of 3.7 inches.

   In 1917 The present Mexican constitution is adopted.

   In 1917 Congress overrides President Wilson's veto of an immigration act

           sharply curtailing the influx of Asians.

   In 1917 Mexico's constitution is adopted.

   In 1921 The Yankees purchase 20 acres in the Bronx for Yankee Stadium.

   In 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proposed adding up to six more justices

           to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Senate defeated the proposal the

           following July.)

   In 1942 "Woman of the Year," the first movie starring Spencer Tracy and

           Katharine Hepburn together is released.

   In 1953 Walt Disney's animated feature "Peter Pan" is released.

   In 1958 Gamel Abdel Nasser is formally nominated as the first president of

           the new United Arab Republic.

   In 1962 French President Charles De Gaulle calls for Algeria's independence.

   In 1963 Marten Schmidt discovers enormous red shifts in quasars.

   In 1971 U.S. Apollo XIV, the third manned expedition to moon, lands.

   In 1973 Funeral services are held at Arlington National Cemetary for Lt.

           Colonel William B. Nolde, the last American solider killed before

           the Vietnam cease-fire.

   In 1974 Mariner X returns the first photos of Venus's cloud structure.

   In 1979 President Carter asks Americans to voluntarily conserve energy

           because of Iran cutting off oil shipments.

   In 1979 According to Census Bureau, U.S. U.S.ulation reaches 200 million.

   In 1979 3000 farmers on tractors demonstrate in Washington, DC.

   In 1981 President Reagan makes his first televised speech from the Oval

           Office, saying Congress should pass big tax cuts.

   In 1983 Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie, expelled from Boliva, is

           brought to Lyon, France, to stand trial for alleged war crimes. (He

           was convicted and sentenced to life in prison -- he died in 1991.)

   In 1985 The Senate Judiciary Committee votes, 12-6, to approve the

           nomination of Edwin Meese III to be attorney general.

   In 1986 After several days of rioting in Haiti, President Jean-Claude

           "Baby Doc" Duvalier runs out of options and asks for asylum.

   In 1986 President Reagan announces that he had directed Surgeon General C.

           Everett Koop to prepare "a major report to the American people" on

           the deadly disease AIDS.

   In 1987 The Dow Jones industrial average ends the day above the 2,200 level

           for the first time, closing at 2,201.49.

   In 1988 Deposed Panamian leader Manuel Noriega is indicted in Florida and

           accused of taking drug money.

   In 1988 The Arizona House impeaches Governor Evan Mecham, setting the stage

           for his trial and conviction in the State Senate.

   In 1988 Indictments aere unsealed in Florida, accusing Panama's military

           leader, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, of bribery and drug

           trafficking.

   In 1989 The Soviets remove their last troops from Kabul, Afghanistan.

   In 1990 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tells the Communist Party it has to

           give up its unchalleged right to rule and earn that right instead.

   In 1991 President Bush sends Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin

           L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Gulf War zone to

           assess how the U.S.-led offensive was progressing.

   In 1992 The House of Representatives authorizes an investigation into

           whether the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign conspired with Iran to delay

           release of the American hostages. (No credible evidence was found.)

   In 1993 Federal judge Kimba Wood, President Clinton's expected choice for

           attorney general, withdraws from consideration, saying her

           babysitter had been an illegal alien for seven years.

   In 1994 White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of murder and

           sentenced to life in prison for 1963 slaying of civil rights leader

           Medgar Evers.

   In 1994 Sixty-eight people were killed when a mortar shell exploded in a

           marketplace in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

   In 1996 Elizabeth Taylor files for divorce from construction worker Larry

           Fortensky, her seventh husband.

   In 1996 John C. Salvi III goes on trial in Dedham, MA, in the shooting

           deaths of two receptionists at abortion clinics. (Salvi was

           convicted and sentenced to two life terms; he committed suicide

           while in prison the following November.)

   In 1997 Switzerland's "Big Three" banks announce a $71 million fund for

           Holocaust victims and their families.

   In 1997 U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman dies in Paris at age 76.

   In 1998 Charles Keating, a symbol of 1980s savings and loan crisis, wins

           federal court reversal of state conviction for defrauding investors

           through American Continental Corp.

   In 2002 A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts John Walker

           Lindh on 10 charges, alleging he was trained by Osama bin Laden's

           network and then conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans.

   In 2016 National Weatherman's Day.