Today In History...

   

In 1638 The first earthquake recorded in the U.S. shakes Plymouth, MA.

   

In 1792 Kentucky becomes the 15th U.S. state.

   

In 1796 Tennessee becomes the 16th U.S. state.

   

In 1813 U.S. Navy gains its motto when the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, Captain John Lawrence utters "Don't give up the ship."

   

In 1845 A homing pigeon completes an 11,000 km trip from Namibia to London in 55 days.

   

In 1868 James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. president, dies near Lancaster, PA.

   

In 1877 U.S. troops are authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico.

   

In 1888 California receives its first seismographs as three of the devices are installed at the Lick Observatory.

   

In 1925 Lou Gehrig starts in the first of 2130 consecutive games.

   

In 1938 The first "Superman" comic is issued.

   

In 1939 The first TV heavyweight boxing match - Max Baer vs Lou Nova.

   

In 1943 Actor Leslie Howard is killed when his civilian flight to London is shot down by the Germans during World War II.

   

In 1944 The British Broadcasting Corporation airs a coded message intended to warn the French resistance that the D-Day invasion was imminent.

   

In 1949 Newsweek becomes the first magazine on microfilm offered to readers.

   

In 1957 Don Bowden is the first U.S. runner to break the 4 minute mile.

   

In 1958 Charles de Gaulle becomes premier of France.

   

In 1967 2 Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giants complete the first nonstop transatlantic helicopter flight.

   

In 1968 Blind and deaf author/lecturer Helen Keller dies in Westport, CT.

   

In 1970 Soyuz 9 is launched into earth orbit for 18 days.

   

In 1971 The final "Ed Sullivan Show" airs on CBS.

   

In 1975 Frank Perkins climbs atop a flag pole and stays for 399 days, the

           flagpole-sitting world record.

   

In 1977 The Soviet Union formally charges Jewish human rights activist

           Anatoly Shcharansky with treason. (Shcharansky was imprisoned, then

           finally released in 1986.)

   

In 1979 The nation of Zimbabwe (formally Rhodesia) is formed.

   

In 1980 CNN signs on as the first all-news national TV service.

   

In 1983 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a speech to the Knesset, gave assurances his country would not attack Syrian forces in Lebanon.

   

In 1984 President Reagan arrives in Ireland, the land of his ancestors.

   

In 1987 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Maine's law requiring severance pay for laid off plant workers.

   

In 1987 Vice President George Bush addresses the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington.

   

In 1988 President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev conclude their Moscow summit.

   

In 1989 Former Sunday school teacher John E. List, sought for 18 years in the slayings of his mother, wife and three children in Westfield, New Jersey, was arrested in Richmond, Virginia.

   

In 1990 President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev sign more than a dozen bilateral accords in the second day of their Washington summit.

   

In 1992 The Pittsburgh Penguins win hockey's Stanley Cup for the second straight year.

   

In 1992 The U.S. Treasury Department, responding to UN sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia, freezes an estimated $200 million in assets of the Serb-led Yugoslav government.

   

In 1993 A mortar attack on a holiday soccer game in a suburb of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, kills at least 15 people.

   

In 1993 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a criminal conviction must be overturned if the jury was given a constitutionally flawed definition of "beyond reasonable doubt."

   

In 1994 President Clinton begins an European trip that included commemorating the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

   

In 1996 An estimated 200,000 participants, most of them schoolchildren,gather at the Lincoln Memorial for rally to protest government cuts for social and educational programs.

   

In 1997 Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, is fatally burned in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson in her Yonkers, NY, apartment.

   

In 1998 The FDA approves a urine-only test for AIDS virus.

   

In 1998 Black workers, alleging discrimination at Goodyear Tire & Rubber,sue for more than $124 million.

   

In 1998 Refugees from Serbia's Kosovo province stream into Albania.

   

In 2002 President Bush tells West Point graduates the U.S. would strike preemptively against suspected terrorists to deter attacks.

   

In 2003 Leaders of the world's seven wealthiest nations and Russia pledge billions of dollars to fight AIDS and hunger. 

   

In 2016 All Saint's Day (Eastern Orthodox)