Today In History...

   In 1492 After a dangerous voyage across "shoreless seas," Christopher
           Columbus arrives on the Bahamian Island of Guanahani, which he
           renamed El Salvador and claimed in the name of the Spanish crown.
   In 1681 A London woman is publicly flogged for involving herself in
           politics.
   In 1861 The Confederate ironclad Manassas attacks the northern ship Richmond
           on the Mississippi River.
   In 1870 Confederate General Robert E. Lee dies in Lexington, VA, at age 63.
   In 1871 President Grant orders the largest-ever roundup of KKK members.
   In 1892 The original version of the Pledge of Allegiance is first recited in
           public schools to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus'
           landing.
   In 1915 English nurse Edith Cavell is executed by the Germans in occupied
           Belgium during World War I.
   In 1915 In a speech in New York, former President Theodore Roosevelt
           criticized U.S. citizens who identified themselves by dual
           nationalities.
   In 1933 Bank robber John Dillinger escapes from a jail in Allen County,
           Ohio, with the help of his gang, who killed the sheriff.
   In 1942 In one of his so-called radio "fireside chats," President Franklin
           Roosevelt recommended the drafting of 18- and 19-year old men.
   In 1942 U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle announces in New York that
           Italian nationals living in the U.S. would no longer be considered
           enemy aliens.
   In 1949 Eugenie Anderson becomes first woman ambassador nominated in U.S.
   In 1960 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at UN General
           Assembly session.
   In 1963 Archaeological digs begin at Masada, Israel.
   In 1964 The USSR launches the first 3-man crew into space.
   In 1969 Soyuz 7 is launched.
   In 1972 Black and caucasian saliors are injured in a racial fight that
           breaks out on the Kitty Hawk while the aircraft carrier is
           stationed off North Vietnam.
   In 1972 Mariner IX takes pictures of the Martian north pole.
   In 1973 Gerald R. Ford is named as Spiro Agnew's successor to the vice
           presidency in the Nixon administration.
   In 1983 The former prime minister of Japan is convicted of taking more than
           $2 million in bribes from Lockheed.
   In 1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher escapes a terrorist's bomb
           when five people are killed at her hotel in Brighton.
   In 1985 A Lebanese newspaper publishes a photograph of what was purported to
           be the lifeless body of American hostage William Buckley.
   In 1985 The International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War receives
           the Nobel Prize.
   In 1987 Vice President George Bush formerly launches his quest for the
           Republican presidential nomination.
   In 1987 Former Kansas Governor Alfred "Alf" M. Landon, who ran for president
           against Franklin Roosevelt, dies at his Topeka home at age 100.
   In 1988 Sundstrand Corp. pleads guilty to fraud charges and agrees to pay a
           $115 million settlement for overbilling the Pentagon for airplane
           parts over five years.
   In 1989 The U.S. House of Representatives approves a statutory federal ban
           on desecration of the American flag. (However, the Senate defeated
           the measure a week later.)
   In 1990 The UN Security Council condemns Israel's security forces for
           killing 17 Palestinian demonstrators on the Temple Mount.
   In 1992 Several hundred people are killed when an earthquake struck Cairo,
           Egypt.
   In 1993 The Toronto Blue Jays win their second straight American League
           pennant, defeating the Chicago White Sox in six games.
   In 1994 The Magellan space probe ends its four-year mapping mission of Venus
           and plunges into the planet's atmosphere.
   In 1994 Panama grants political asylum to ousted Haitian military leader
           Raoul Cedras.
   In 1996 President Clinton signs into law the Water Resources Development
           Act, which authorized federal water projects across the country.
   In 1996 Thousands of Hispanic Americans march in Washington to push for
           simplified citizenship procedures and a 7 dollar minimum wage.
   In 1997 Three earthquakes in central Italy damage famed St. Francis Basilica
           and 15th-century bell tower above Foligno city hall.
   In 1997 President Clinton opens his first trip to South America as he
           arrived in Venezuela.
   In 1998 Matthew Shepard, lured from a University of Wyoming hangout for
           gays, dies; two men are charged with murder in hate crime.
   In 1999 Pakistan's military overthrew the democratically elected government
           of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
           NBA Hall of Famer Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain dies at age 63.
   In 2000 17 sailors are killed in a terrorist bomb attack on the USS Cole
           in Yemen.
   In 2002 A bomb blamed on Islamic militants destroys a nightclub on the
           Indonesian island of Bali, killing 202 people.
   In 2003 Doctors in Dallas succeed in separating two-year-old Egyptian
           conjoined twins.
   In 2003 Philanthropist Joan B. Kroc dies in Rancho Santa Fe, CA, at age 75.

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