Today In History...

In 1212 The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa ends Moslem power in Spain.
In 1439 The British government tries to stop an epidemic by passing a law against kissing.
In 1769 Father Serra founds Mission San Diego, the first mission in California.
In 1790 Congress establishes the District of Columbia as the seat of the U.S. government.
In 1861 The first major battle of the Civil War, Bull Run, is fought.
In 1862 David Farragut becomes the first rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
In 1894 Black miners in Alabama are killed by striking white miners.
In 1918 Russia's Czar Nicholas II, his empress and their five children are executed by the Bolsheviks.
In 1927 Augusto Sandino declares war against U.S. occupation of Nicaragua.
In 1935 The first automatic parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, OK.
In 1945 The U.S. explodes its first atomic bomb in the desert of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
In 1951 J.D. Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye" is published.
In 1956 The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus perform its last show under canvas.
In 1957 Marine Major John Glenn sets a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes.
In 1964 In accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
In 1969 Apollo XI, the first manned ship to land on the moon, is launched.
In 1971 Jeanne Holm becomes the first female Air Force general. Newspaper stories describe her as a "pert blonde."
In 1973 During the Senate Watergate hearings, former White House aide Alexandar Butterfield reveals the existence of President Nixon's secret taping system.
In 1979 Saddam Hussein becomes the president of Iraq succeeding Ahmed Hassan al Bakr.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan wins the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Detroit.
In 1981 President Reagan issues a policy statement expressing determination to stem the spread of nuclear weaponry around the world.
In 1986 Lawrence B. Mulloy, director of the space shuttle's solid rocket booster program at the time of the Challenger disaster, announces he was retiring from NASA.
In 1987 Former White House political director Lyn Nofziger is charged with violating federal ethics laws in a 6-count indictment.
In 1988 The Rev. Jesse Jackson arrives in Atlanta for the Democratic national convention, telling supporters he was seeking "shared responsibility" with nominee-apparent Michael Dukakis.
In 1990 "Into The Night starring Rick Dees" premieres on ABC-TV.
In 1990 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announce that Moscow had agreed to drop its objection to a united Germany's membership in NATO.
In 1991 Leaders of the Group of Seven nations holding their economic summit in London issue a communique calling for a "new spirit of cooperation" in the international community.
In 1992 Bill Clinton delivered his acceptance speech a day after winning the Democratic presidential nomination in New York.
In 1993 The Mississippi River overruns a levee at West Quincy, MO, closing the Bayview Bridge, the only bridge across the river to Illinois for more than 200 miles.
In 1994 The first of 21 pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 7 collide with Jupiter.
In 1995 William Barloon and David Daliberti, the two Americans who were jailed in Iraq for crossing the border from Kuwait, are set free.
In 1995 William Barloon and David Daliberti, the two Americans who were imprisoned in Iraq for crossing the border from Kuwait four months earlier, are released.
In 1996 President Clinton tells the National Governors Association he was granting states new powers to deny benefits to recipients who refuse to move from welfare to work.
In 1996 Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets a day late with Vice President Al Gore, easing some of the concerns about his fragile health.
In 1997 Green Beret commander Henry Shelton is named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In 1998 Researchers map the genetic pattern of syphilis bacterium which could ultimately lead to a vaccine and eradication.
In 1999 Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut" starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, makes its debut.
In 2000 Families and friends of the victims of the TWA Flight 800 explosion break ground for a new memorial on the Long Island shore not far from where the plane went down, killing all 230 onboard.
In 2001 During a landmark 3-day summit, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan fail to reach an accord on their 50-year dispute over Kashmir.
In 2002 The Irish Republican Army issues an unprecedented apology for hundreds of civilian deaths over 30 years.

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