Today In History...

   In 1506 Christopher Columbus dies in poverty in Spain.

   In 1639 The city council of Dorchester, MA, establishes the first school

           funded by community taxes.

   In 1830 The first railroad timetable is published, in the newspaper the

           Baltimore American.

   In 1861 North Carolina votes to secede from the Union.

   In 1861 The capital of the Confederacy is moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to

           Richmond, Virginia.

   In 1862 President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, which opened

           millions of acres of free land to settlers in the West.

   In 1874 Levi Strauss markets his blue jeans with copper rivets, priced at

           $13.50 a dozen.

   In 1875 The International Bureau of Weights & Measures is established by

           treaty.

   In 1892 George Sampson patents the clothes dryer.

   In 1902 The United States ends its occupation of Cuba.

   In 1926 Thomas Edison boldly predicts that Americans would always like

           silent movies better that talking pictures.

   In 1927 At 7:40am, Charles Lindbergh takes off in the "Spirit of St. Louis"

           from Long Island, New York, on his historic solo flight across

           Atlantic to France.

   In 1932 Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the

           first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

   In 1939 Regular transatlantic air service begins as a Pan American Airways

           plane, the "Yankee Clipper," takes off from Port Washington, NY,

           bound for Europe.

   In 1961 A white mob attacks a busload of "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery, AL,

           prompting the federal government to send in U.S. Marshals.

   In 1963 The U.S. Supreme Court sets aside the convictions of 31 students

           arrested for staging sit-in civil-rights protests at lunch counters

           in four southern states.

   In 1969 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces capture Apbia Mountain, referred to

           as "Hamburger Hill" by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest

           battles of the Vietnam War.

   In 1970 100,000 people demonstrate in New York's Wall Street district in

           support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.

   In 1974 Soyuz 14 returns to Earth.

   In 1977 A color TV trade restraint agreement is made between the U.S. and

           Japan.

   In 1981 Radio personality Gary Owens is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk

           of Fame.

   In 1984 Former Argentine President Isabel Peron, ousted from office by a

           military coup in 1976, returns to her homeland.

   In 1985 The U.S.'s Radio Marti begins broadcasting to Cuba.

   In 1985 The FBI arrests John A. Walker Jr., who was later convicted for

           spying for the Soviet Union.

   In 1985 Israel releases more than 1,100 Arab prisoners in exchange for three

           Israeli soldiers.

   In 1986 President Reagan urges the Senate to adopt, without changes, a major

           tax-overhaul bill reducing the top individual rate to 27 percent.

   In 1988 30-year-old Laurie Dann walks into a Winnetka, IL, elementary school

           classroom, where she shot to death an 8-year-old student and wounded

           several others. After wounding a young man at his home, Dann takes

           her own life.

   In 1990 An Israeli opens fire on a group of Palestinian laborers south of

           Tel Aviv and kills seven of them.

   In 1990 The Hubble Space Telescope sends back its first photographs.

   In 1991 Lawmakers in the Soviet Union voted to liberalize foreign travel and

           emigration.

   In 1991 The American Red Cross announces measures aimed at screening blood

           more carefully for the AIDS virus.

   In 1992 Claiming innocence to the end, Roger Keith Coleman is executed in

           Virginia's electric chair for the 1981 rape-murder of his

           sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy.

   In 1993 An estimated 93 million people tune in for the final first-run

           episode of "Cheers" on NBC-TV.

   In 1995 President Clinton announces that the two-block stretch of

           Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is permanently

           closed to motor vehicles.

   In 1996 The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down, 6-3, a Colorado measure banning

           laws that protect homosexuals from discrimination.

   In 1997 The U.S. Senate approves legislation to ban certain late-term

           abortions, but fell three votes shy of the total needed to override

           President Clinton's threatened veto.

   In 2000 The five nuclear powers on the UN Security Council agree to

           eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals, as part of a new

           disarmament agenda approved by 187 countries.

   In 2002 President Bush refuses to budge toward easing restrictions on trade 

           and travel with Cuba until Fidel Castro's government took steps to 

           hold free and fair elections.

   In 2003 The U.S. bans all beef imports from Canada after a lone case of mad 

           cow disease was discovered in the heart of Canada's cattle country. 

   In 2013 Yahoo! purchases Tumblr for $1.1 billion.