Today In History...

   In 1513 Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon claims Florida for Spain.

   In 1766 The first patent is granted for a fire escape -- a wicker basket on

           a pully and a chain designed by a London watchmaker.

   In 1879 Milk is sold in glass bottles for the first time.

   In 1913 The 17th Amendment is ratified requiring direct election of U.S.

           Senators. (They had been elected by each state's legislature.)

   In 1914 The U.S. and Columbia sign a treaty concerning the Panama Canal

           Zone.

   In 1935 The Works Progress Administration is approved by the U.S. Congress.

   In 1946 The League of Nations assembles for the last time in Geneva.

   In 1947 The largest recorded sunspot is observed.

   In 1949 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus of San Marino, CA, falls into an abandoned

           well pipe, 14 inches wide and 120 feet deep. Her body was recovered

           after 2 days of intense rescue efforts.

   In 1950 Ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky dies in London.

   In 1952 President Harry Truman seizes the steel industry to avoid a strike.

   In 1953 The first 3-D movie, "Man in the Dark," is released.

   In 1958 President Eisenhower proposes an atomic test ban, but the Soviets

           would not agree to mutual inspection.

   In 1964 Unmanned Gemini I is launched.

   In 1966 Time Magazine proposes the question, "Is God Dead?"

   In 1970 The U.S. Senate rejects President Nixon's nomination of G. Harold

           Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court.

   In 1973 Pablo Picasso dies near Mougins, France, at age 91.

   In 1974 Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th career homerun,

           breaking the record set by Babe Ruth in 1935.

   In 1975 Frank Robinson, major league baseball's first black manager, won his

           first game as the Cleveland Indians defeat the Yankees, 5-3.

   In 1976 "All The President's Men" opens in movie theaters.

   In 1981 General Omar Bradley, the last 5-star general, dies at age 88.

   In 1985 India files suit against Union Carbide over the Bhopal gas leak.

   In 1986 Clint Eastwood is elected mayor of Carmel, CA, defeating incumbent

           Charlotte Townsend in a landslide. Eastwood served as mayor until

           1988.

   In 1987 Al Campanis, vice president of player personnel for the Los Angeles

           Dodgers, resigned after saying on ABC's "Nightline" that blacks may

           lack some of the "necessities" for becoming baseball managers.

   In 1988 The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart is defrocked as a minister of the Assemblies

           of God after he rejected an order from the church's national leaders

           to stop preaching for a year.

   In 1990 Ryan White, the teen-age AIDS patient whose battle for acceptance

           gained national attention, dies in Indianapolis at age 18.

   In 1991 Actor Michael Landon announces he has inoperable cancer of the

           pancreas. (Landon died the following July.)

   In 1991 Jockey Willie Shoemaker is left paralyzed after an automobile

           accident.

   In 1992 Tennis star Arthur Ashe announces at a New York news conference that

           he had AIDS, saying that he was forced to go public because of

           newspaper inquiries into his health. (Ashe died the following

           February of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49.)

   In 1992 After 151 years Britain's "Punch Magazine" publishes its final

           issue.

   In 1993 The UN General Assembly admits the former Yugoslav republic of

           Macedonia as its 181st member.

   In 1994 Smoking is banned in the Pentagon and all U.S. military bases.

   In 1995 Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, in an interview to

           promote his memoirs, called America's Vietnam War policy "terribly

           wrong."

   In 1996 Shelling and gunfire continued in Monrovia, Liberia, sending at

           least 15,000 civilians fleeing to U.S. Embassy compound.

   In 1996 Stock prices plunge on Wall Street amid concerns over stronger than

           expected employment data.

   In 1997 The space shuttle Columbia returns to Earth, ending a mission cut

           short by a defective generator.

   In 1997 The Vatican chooses Archbishop Francis George of Portland, OR, to

           head the Archdiocese of Chicago, succeeding the late Cardinal Joseph

           Bernardin.

   In 1998 The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. presents new evidence in appeal

           for a new federal investigation of King's assassination.

   In 1998 Four of the U.S.'s major cigarette manufacturers say they will fight

           anti-tobacco legislation in Congress.

   In 2001 Tiger Woods wins the Masters for his fourth straight major title in

           a span of 294 days.

   In 2002 Suzan-Lori Parks becomes the first black woman to win a Pulitzer 

           for drama for her play "Topdog/Underdog."

   In 2003 Two journalists are killed when U.S. forces fire on their hotel in 

           Baghdad.