Today In History...

In 1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrive in Louisiana, with some of them
settling in present-day New Orleans.

In 1822 William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, dies at age 85.

In 1825 Uruguay declares independence from Brazil.

In 1830 Belgium begins a revolt against the Netherlands.

In 1835 The New York Sun publishes a moon hoax story about John Herschel.

In 1835 Ann Ruthledge, said by some to be the early true love of Abraham
Lincoln, dies in Illinois at age 22.

In 1875 Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the
English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France,
in 22 hours.

In 1900 Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche dies in Weimar, Germany.

In 1908 The first $50,000 trotting race in the United States, the American
Trotting Derby, is won by Allen Winter.

In 1916 The National Park Service is established within the U.S. Department
of the Interior.

In 1919 The first scheduled passenger service by airplane (Paris-London).

In 1921 The U.S. signs a peace treaty with Germany.

In 1943 U.S. forces overun New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World
War II.

In 1944 Romania declares war on Germany.

In 1944 Allied forces liberate Paris from 4 years of German occupation
during World War II.

In 1950 President Truman orders the Army to seize control of the nation's
railroads to avert a strike.

In 1981 Voyager II's approach to Saturn discovers thousands of rings.

In 1983 The U.S. and the Soviet Union sign a $10 billion grain pact
requiring the Soviets to purchase at least 9 million metric tons of
American grain each year for five years.

In 1984 The French ship Mont Louis carrying 4 tons of radioactive materials
collides with a Ferry and sinks off the Belgium coast.

In 1984 Truman Capote, author of "In Cold Blood," is found dead in
Los Angeles at the age of 59.

In 1985 19-year-old Dwight Gooden is the youngest pitcher to ever win 20
games in one season.

In 1985 Samantha Smith, the schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri Andropov
resulted in her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union, is killed
with her father in an airliner crash in Maine.

In 1986 The reported death toll continues to climb in the central African
nation of Cameroon, where toxic gas from a volcanic lake killed more
1,700 people.

In 1987 The Dow Jones average of industrial stocks reaches a record 2722.42.

In 1987 Saudi Arabia denounces Iran's government as a "group of terrorists,"
and said its forces would deal firmly with any Iranian attempts to
attack the Saudis' Muslim holy places or vast oil fields.

In 1989 Congressman Barney Frank, D-MA, acknowledges hiring a male
prostitute as a personal employee, then firing him after suspecting
the aide was selling sex from Frank's apartment.

In 1991 Thousands of abortion foes rally at a stadium in Wichita, KS, where
six weeks of anti-abortion protests led by Operation Rescue resulted
in more than 2,600 arrests.

In 1992 Hurricane Andrew slams in the Louisiana coast.

In 1993 Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach, California, is
slain by a mob in South Africa.

In 1993 The U.S. issues limited sanctions against China and Pakistan after
the Chinese had sold missile technology to the Pakistanis.

In 1994 The Senate passes a $30 billion crime bill by a 61-38 vote.

In 1995 Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu, safely back on U.S.
soil after two months in Chinese detention, said the spying case
against him was "all lies."

In 1996 President Clinton begins a whistlestop train trip in Huntington, WV,
that takes him to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In 1997 Egon Krenz, the East German communist leader who opened the Berlin
Wall 8 years previous, is convicted in the deaths of citizens trying
to flee to the West during Cold War.

In 1997 The Dow Corning Corp. offers $2.4 billion to settle claims from more
than 200,000 women with ills related to silicone breast implants.

In 1997 Chang Sung Gil, North Korea's ambassador to Egypt, defects to U.S.,
the first top diplomat to abandon the communist state.

In 1997 The tobacco industry agrees to an $11.3 billion settlement with the
state of Florida.

In 1998 7 Cuban-Americans are indicted by a federal grand jury in Puerto
Rico on charges of conspiracy to murder Fidel Castro.

In 1998 Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell dies at age 90.

In 2001 Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a single mother and former waitress,
marries Norway's Crown Prince Haakon in Oslo.

In 2002 Former Swedish diplomat Per Anger, who'd worked with Raoul
Wallenberg in shielding thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi death
camps, dies in Stockholm, Sweden, at age 88.

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