Today In History...

   In 1840 England introduces its first postage stamp.

   In 1851 Dr. John Farrie receives a patent for a "refrigeration machine."

   In 1860 "The Olympic Club," the first athletic club in U.S., is founded.

   In 1861 Arkansas secedes from the Union.

   In 1882 Congress overrides President Arthur's veto of the Chinese Exclusion

           Act, barring Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for ten years.

   In 1889 The Paris Exposition formally opens featuring the just completed

           Eiffel Tower.

   In 1910 Britain's King Edward VII dies.

   In 1915 Babe Ruth hits his first major league homerun as a player for the

           Boston Red Sox.

   In 1935 The Works Progress Administration begins operating.

   In 1937 The hydrogen-filled German dirigible "Hindenburg" bursts into flames

           and crashes while docking in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 out

           of the 97 on board.

   In 1941 Soviet dictator Josef Stalin assumes the premiership, replacing

           Vyacheslav M. Molotov.

   In 1942 During World War II, some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on

           Corregidor surrender to the Japanese.

   In 1954 Medical student Roger Bannister runs the mile in 3:59:04, setting a

           world record at a track meet in Oxford, England.

   In 1960 Britain's Princess Margaret marries commoner Anthony

           Armstrong-Jones.  (The marriage ends in divorce in 1978.)

   In 1962 In the first test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan

           Allen fires a Polaris missle armed with a nuclear warhead that

           detonates above the Pacific Ocean.

   In 1981 The Reagan administration announces the explusion of all Libyan

           diplomats in Washington.

   In 1981 Yale architecture student Maya Ying Lin is named the winner of a

           competition to design a Vietnam Veterans memorial.

   In 1983 West German government experts announce tests had proven the

           purported Hitler diaries to be "obvious fakes."

   In 1985 The space shuttle Challenger ends a one-week mission in orbit with a

           safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

   In 1986 The Soviets reveal that evacuation from the Chernobyl nuclear

           accident did not begin for 36 hours after the fact.

   In 1987 CIA Director William Casey dies at age 74.

   In 1987 Public Relations man Richard Miller testified that Oliver North had

           been involved in illegal fundraising for the Contras.

   In 1988 In his first comment on the matter, President Reagan said he didn't

           "look kindly upon" former chief of staff Don Regan's memoirs that

           painted an unflattering portrait of first lady Nancy Reagan.

   In 1990 Freed American hostage Frank Reed tells a news conference in

           Arlington, VA, that he had been savagely beaten by his captors in

           Lebanon after two unsuccessful escape attempts.

   In 1991 President Bush returns to work after spending two nights at Bethesda

           Naval Hospital because of an irregular heartbeat.

   In 1992 Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev delivers a speech at

           Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill

           had spoken of the "Iron Curtain."

   In 1992 Actress, Marlene Dietrich dies at her home in Paris at age 90.

   In 1993 For a third time, the Bosnian Serb parliament rejects a UN peace

           plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

   In 1994 U.N. Security Council unanimously approves embargo on almost all

           trade with Haiti to pressure its military rulers to allow the return

           of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

   In 1994 Former Arkansas state worker Paula Corbin Jones files suit against

           President Clinton, alleging he'd sexually harassed her in 1991.

   In 1994 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois

           Mitterrand formally open the Channel Tunnel between their countries.

   In 1996 The body of former CIA director William E. Colby is found washed up

           on a riverbank near his southern Maryland vacation home, eight days

           after he'd disappeared.

   In 1997 Army drill Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson is sentenced to 25 years for

           raping six trainees.

   In 1997 Hemophiliacs who contracted AIDS between 1978 and 1985 from tainted

           blood products, accept a $600 million settlement from four

           health-care companies.

   In 1997 World chess champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer

           play to a draw in game three of their six-game match.

   In 2000 Reformers sweep Iran's run-off elections, winning control of the

           legislature from conservatives for the first time since 1979.

   In 2000 Jack Mazzan, who'd spent 20 years on death row for the murder of

           a judge's son, is released on bail, three months after the Nevada

           Supreme Court reversed his conviction.

   In 2001 During his visit to Syria, John Paul II becomes the first pope to

           enter a mosque.

   In 2001 American businessman Dennis Tito ends the world's first paid space

           vacation as he returned to Earth aboard a Russian capsule.

   In 2003 Kmart emerges from bankruptcy after 15 months in Chapter 11. 

   In 2004 The series finale of the sitcom Friends airs.

   In 2013 Wal-Mart becomes the largest company by revenue on the Fortune 500 

           list.