Today In History...

Today In History...

   In 1644 Massachusetts establishes the first two-chamber legislature in the

           colonies.

   In 1778 Captain James Cook first sighted the Oregon coast at Yaquina Bay.

   In 1801 Massachusetts enacts the first state voter registration law.

   In 1850 In a 3-hour speech before the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster endorses

           the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union.

   In 1854 Charles Miller patents the first U.S. sewing machine to stitch

           buttonholes.

   In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone.

   In 1897 Dr. John Kellogg serves the world's first corn flakes to his

           patients at a mental hospital in Battle Creek, MI.

   In 1911 Coin-operated storage lockers are patented.

   In 1911 The U.S. sends 20,000 troops to the Mexican border as a precaution

           in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.

   In 1912 Roald Amundsen announces the discovery of the South Pole.

   In 1926 The first successful trans-Atlantic radio telephone conversation

           takes place, between New York and London.

   In 1932 Four are killed when 3000 workers strike against Ford Motor Co.

   In 1933 The board game of "Monopoly" is introduced.

   In 1936 Adolf Hitler orders his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby

           breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.

   In 1945 During World War II, U.S. forces cross the Rhine River south of

           Cologne, Germany.

   In 1955 Mary Martin as "Peter Pan" is televised for the first time.

   In 1962 The U.S. Orbiting Solar Observatory is launched.

   In 1965 A march by civil rights demonstrators is broken up in Selma,

           Alabama, by state troopers and a sheriff's posse.

   In 1973 Comet (Lubos) Kohoutek is discovered at Hamburg Observatory.

   In 1975 The U.S. Senate revises it's filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators

           to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required

           two-thirds of senators present.

   In 1977 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin meets with President Carter.

   In 1981 The anti-government guerrillas in Columbia execute kidnapped

           American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accused

           of being a CIA agent.

   In 1983 During a visit to Guatemala, Pope John Paul II appeals to the

           country's military leader, Efrain Rios Montt, to protect human life

           and due process of law.

   In 1984 Three Israelis are killed when a bomb explodes on a bus in the port

           city of Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv.

   In 1985 President Reagan meets at the White House with Soviet official

           Vladimir Shcherbitsky in a session that focused on Reagan's

           Strategic Defense Initiative and the MX missile.

   In 1986 TWA flight attendants strike over wages and ground planes.

   In 1986 Former Senator Jacob K. Javits dies in Palm Beach, FL, at age 81.

   In 1986 South Africa lifts a state of emergency imposed the previous July.

   In 1988 Three Israelis are killed when three Arab gunmen hijack a commuter

           bus in the Negev Desert.

   In 1989 The Salman Rushdie affair causes Iran to break diplomatic relations

           with Britain over his book "The Satanic Verses."

   In 1990 Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan proposes a more

           informative food-labeling system requiring the disclosure of the

           fat, fiber and cholesterol content of nearly all packaged foods.

   In 1994 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that parodies that poke fun at an

           original work can be considered "fair use" that doesn't require

           permission from the copyright holder.

   In 1994 The U.S. Navy issues its first permanent orders assigning women to

           regular duty on a combat ship (the USS Eisenhower).

   In 1995 Governor George Pataki signs the death penalty bill into law, to

           make New York the 38th state with capital punishment.

   In 1996 Three U.S. servicemen are convicted in the rape of a 12-year-old

           Okinawan girl and sentenced by a Japanese court to up to seven years

           in prison.

   In 1998 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking in Rome, says the

           U.S. wouldn't no loger tolerate violence in Kosovo.

   In 1999 Director Stanley Kubrick, whose films included "Dr. Strangelove," "A

           Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," dies at age 70.

   In 2000 The Nasdaq composite index hits 5,000 for the first time.

   In 2001 Ariel Sharon is sworn in as Israel's prime minister.