Today In History...

In 752 Pope Stephen II dies, only 2 days after his election.
In 1634 Maryland is founded by English colonists sent by the second Lord Baltimore.
In 1634 The first Catholic mass in the U.S. is celebrated in the territory of Maryland.
In 1655 Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.
In 1755 George Washington plants pecan trees given to him by Thomas Jefferson.
In 1776 The Continental Congress authorizes a medal for George Washington.
In 1807 British Parliament abolishes slave trade.
In 1813 The first U.S. flag is flown in battle on the Pacific on the frigate Essex.
In 1821 Greece gains it's independence from Turkey.
In 1857 Frederick Laggenheim takes the first photograph of a solar eclipse.
In 1863 The first Army Medal of Honor is awarded.
In 1865 During the Civil War, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman in Virginia.
In 1894 Jacob S. Coxey leads an "army" of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, DC, to demand help from the federal government.
In 1911 146 immigrant workers are killed when a fire breaks out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York.
In 1913 The home of vaudeville, the Palace theatre opens in New York City.
In 1947 A coal mine explosion in Centralia, IL, claims 111 lives.
In 1954 RCA begins manufacturing the first color television sets. (The sets, with 12 1/2-inch picture tubes, were expected to cost $1,000 each.)
In 1955 East Germany is granted full sovereignty by the Soviet Union, the occupying power.
In 1957 The Treaty of Rome establishes the European Economic Community, also known as the Common Market.
In 1960 The first guided missile is launched from the nuclear powered submarine Halibut.
In 1964 Britain sets aside an acre of land at Runnymede (where the Magna Carta was signed) as a memorial to the late President John Kennedy.
In 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
In 1975 King Faisal of Saudia Arabia is shot death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. (The nephew was beheaded the following June.)
In 1983 The Reagan administration announces the resignations of five senior officials of the Environmental Protection Agency.
In 1985 British journalist Alec Collect is kidnapped in Lebanon; his captors later claimed to have killed him.
In 1985 "Amadeus" is named Best Picture of 1984 at the 57th annual Academy Awards. The Best Actor award went to F. Murray Abraham, while Sally Field was named Best Actress.
In 1986 The U.S. Supreme Court rules the Air Force could ban the wearing of yarmulkes by Jewish military personnel in uniform.
In 1987 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that it is legal for an affirmative action program to accelerate promotions of women over men.
In 1988 In New York City's so-called "preppie murder case," Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin.
In 1990 A fire in an illegal New York City social club kills 87 people.
In 1991 "Dances With Wolves" wins seven Oscars, including Best Picture of 1990 at the 63rd Academy Awards.
In 1991 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a rebellious conservative in the Roman Catholic Church, dies in Martigny, Switzerland, at age 85.
In 1992 Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who'd spent ten months aboard the orbiting "Mir" space station, thereby missing the upheaval in his homeland, finally returns to Earth.
In 1992 Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi backs away from an offer to turn over two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
In 1994 American troops complete their withdrawal from Somalia.
In 1995 Boxer Mike Tyson is released from the Indiana Youth Center after serving three years for a 1992 rape conviction.
In 1995 Two Americans who had strayed across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq are sentenced to 8 years in prison (however, David Daliberti and William Barloon were released by Iraq the following July).
In 1996 First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, visits U.S. troops in Bosnia.
In 1996 "Braveheart" wins Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director Mel Gibson. Nicolas Cage wins Best Actor for "Leaving Las Vegas" and Susan Sarandon Best Actress for "Dead Man Walking."
In 1996 The redesigned $100 bill goes into circulation.
In 1997 Georgia's governor signs a law banning controversial form of late-term abortion.
In 1997 Former President George Bush, 73, parachutes from a plane over the Arizona desert.
In 1998 A cancer patient becomes the first known to die under Oregon's pioneering doctor-assisted suicide law.
In 2000 President Clinton makes a brief visit to Pakistan and meets with new military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.
In 2001 Russell Crowe wins the Best Actor Oscar for "Gladiator," Julia Roberts wins Best Actress for "Erin Brockovich" and "Gladiator" takes Best Picture.
In 2002 A powerful earthquake rocks Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, killing almost 1000 people.
In 2003 Former Waterbury, CT, Mayor Philip Giordano is convicted by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of two preteen girls by sexually abusing them, and later gets 37 years in federal prison.
In 2013 Golfer Tiger Woods returns to the world number one ranking.

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