Today In History...

   In 1792 France declares war on Austria, marking the start of the French

           Revolutionary Wars.

   In 1812 George Clinton, the fourth U.S. vice president, dies in Washington,

           DC, at age 73, the first vice president to die in office.

   In 1836 The Territory of Wisconsin established by Congress.

   In 1861 Thaddeus Lowe begins a 900 mile hot-air balloon flight across

           America.

   In 1894 Some 136,000 coal miners go on strike in Columbus, Ohio.

   In 1902 The atomic element radium is isolated by Pierre Curie and his wife

           Marie, who coin the term "radioactive."

   In 1912 Boston's Fenway Parks opens.

   In 1937 "Family Affair," the first of 17 Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey

           Rooney, opens.

   In 1940 RCA publicly demonstrates its new and powerful electron microscope.

   In 1945 Nuremberg, Germany, is captured by the U.S. 7th Army during World

           War II.

   In 1948 United Auto Workers president Walter P. Reuther is shot and wounded

           at his home in Detroit.

   In 1968 Pierre Elliott Trudeau is sworn in as prime minister of Canada.

   In 1971 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the use of busing to achieve racial

           desegregation in schools.

   In 1972 The manned lunar module from Apollo XVI lands on the moon.

   In 1977 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that people do not have to display

           state mottos on their car license plates.

   In 1978 A Korean Air Lines Boeing 707 crash-lands in northwestern Russia

           after being fired on by a Soviet interceptor after entering Soviet

           airspace. Two passengers were killed.

   In 1980 The first Cubans to arrive in the United States as part of the

           massive Mariel boatlift reach Florida.

   In 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and playwright Archibald MacLeish dies

           in Boston at age 89.

   In 1983 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that states may ban nuclear power

           plants.

   In 1983 President Reagan signs a $165 billion Social Security rescue plan

           designed to prevent bankruptcy of the trust fund for the elderly.

   In 1984 Britain announces it will give up its lease on Hong Hong in 1997.

   In 1986 A survey indicates 13 out of every 100 Americans is illiterate.

   In 1986 More than 500 die when a Bangladesh ferry sinks.

   In 1987 The North Pole is reached by motorcycle.

   In 1987 The U.S. deports Karl Linnas to the Soviet Union, where he had been

           convicted in absentia of Nazi war crimes and faced a death sentence.

           (Linnas died of heart disease in Leningrad the following July.)

   In 1988 Gunmen who'd hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet are allowed safe

           passage out of Algeria under an agreement that freed the remaining

           31 hostages and ended a 15-day siege in which two passengers were

           slain.

   In 1989 The case of Oliver North goes to the jury in his Iran-Contra trial.

   In 1989 Ramon Salcido, a California winery worker later convicted of killing

           6 relatives and a co-worker, is deported from Mexico to the U.S.

   In 1990 Former junk bond financier Michael Milken agrees to plead guilty to

           six felonies and pay $600 million in penalties to settle the largest

           securities fraud case in history.

   In 1991 U.S. Marines land in northern Iraq to begin building the first

           center for Kurdish refugees on Iraqi territory.

   In 1992 The Russian congress adopts a resolution affirming Russia's

           membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

   In 1992 Defending champion Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya becomes the sixth

           three-time winner of the Boston Marathon.

   In 1993 Famed Mexican comedian Cantinflas dies in Mexico City at age 81.

   In 1993 President Clinton accepted responsibility for the decision to try to

           end the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, but

           laid "ultimate responsibility" on cult leader David Koresh.

   In 1994 Israeli and PLO negotiators wrap up an agreement transferring

           civilian government powers to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and

           Jericho.

   In 1995 In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI announces it

           was looking for two men suspected of renting the truck used to carry

           the explosive.

   In 1996 Russia and the leaders of the world's seven richest democracies

           agree in Moscow to end nuclear tests by the fall.

   In 1997 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escapes indictment in an

           influence-peddling scandal, with prosecutors saying they lacked

           evidence.

   In 1997 Hwang Jang Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean to defect, arrives

           in South Korea, ending a 67-day odyssey that began in China.

   In 1998 Applying a racketeering law, a federal jury in Chicago rules that

           anti-abortion organizers used threats and violence amounting to

           extortion to shut down clinics.

   In 1998 An Air France Boeing 727 crashes in Bogota, Colombia, killing all 53

           people aboard.

   In 1999 Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shoot and kill 12 classmates

           and one teacher before taking their own lives at Columbine High

           School in Littleton, CO.

   In 2002 Representatives of the Group of Seven countries, meeting in 

           Washington, agreed to intensify efforts to combat terrorist 

           financing.

   In 2004 A judge orders Multnomah County, Oregon, to stop issuing gay 

           marriage licenses - but also ordered the state to recognize the 

           3000 licenses already granted.