Today In History...

In 1040 According to legend, Lady Godiva rides naked on horseback through Coventry as part of a bargain to get her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to ease taxes on the people of Coventry.
In 1832 President Andrew Jackson vetoes legislation to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
In 1850 Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes President following Zachary Taylor's death.
In 1890 Wyoming becomes the 44th U.S. state.
In 1896 The Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominates William Jennings Bryan for president on the fifth ballot.
In 1910 Johann Galle, discoverer of Neptune with the telescope, dies.
In 1919 President Wilson delivers the Treaty of Versailles to Senate and urged its ratification.
In 1925 Jury selection takes place in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of schoolteacher John Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin's Theory Of Evolution.
In 1925 The USSR's official news agency TASS is established.
In 1933 The first police radio system is operated at Eastchester Twp, NY.
In 1940 During World War II, the 114-day Battle of Britain begins as Nazi forces began attacking southern England from the air.
In 1943 The U.S. and Britain invade Sicily during World War II.
In 1949 The first practical rectangular TV tube is announced in Toledo, OH.
In 1951 Armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean conflict begin at Kaesong.
In 1962 Telstar, the first communications satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to relay TV and telephone signals between the U.S. and Europe.
In 1966 Orbiter I is launched to the moon.
In 1973 The Bahamas become independent after 3 centuries of British rule.
In 1978 Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky goes on trial in Moscow, charged with espionage.
In 1980 Ayatollah Khomeini releases Iran hostage Richard I. Queen.
In 1981 Israeli jets blast Palestinian military camps and rocket-launching bases in Southern Lebanon.
In 1982 Pope John Paul II names Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Cincinnati to succeed the late Cardinal John Cody as head of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In 1982 Miguel Vasquez makes the first quadruple somersault on the trapeze.
In 1984 The jump-rope record of 418 turns in one minute is set by Tyrone Krohn in Middletown, New York.
In 1984 The National League beats the American League, 3-1, in the All-Star Game, played in San Francisco, in which pitchers Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden struck out six batters in a row to break a 50-year-old record.
In 1985 Coca-Cola announces it will resume selling the old formula Coke as "Classic Coke."
In 1985 French agents sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.
In 1986 The Federal Reserve Board cut its discount rate from 6.5% to 6%, the lowest level since early 1978.
In 1988 Opposition party activists in Mexico block a bridge linking their country to the U.S., charging that Mexico's recent presidential election was marked by widespread fraud.
In 1989 Thousands of miners go on strike in the Soviet Union shutting off coal shipments from the Ukraine and Siberia.
In 1989 Mel Blanc, voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and many other Warner Brothers cartoon characters dies of a heart attack at age 81.
In 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev is re-elected as President of the Soviet Communist Party.
In 1991 Boris Yeltsin takes the oath of office as the first popularly elected president in the one-thousand-year history of the Republic of Russia.
In 1991 President Bush lifts economic sanctions against South Africa, citing its "profound transformation" toward racial equality.
In 1991 President Bush appoints Alan Greenspan to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman.
In 1992 A federal judge in Miami sentences former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, convicted of drug and racketeering charges, to 40 years in prison.
In 1992 A New York jury found Pan Am responsible for allowing a terrorist bomb to destroy Flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people.
In 1993 President Clinton travels to South Korea, where in a speech to the National Assembly, he denounced communist North Korea for raising the specter of "nuclear annihilation."
In 1994 In the first meeting of its kind, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin joins leaders of the Group of Seven nations for political talks following their annual economic summit in Naples, Italy.
In 1995 Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from her six-year-long house arrest in Rangoon, Burma.
In 1995 Lawyers in the O.J. Simpson murder trial begin his defense.
In 1996 In a speech to Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demands that Syria and the Palestinians stop terrorists from attacking Israel.
In 1996 Ross Perot says he would make a second run for president if nominated by the Reform Party.
In 1997 President Clinton visits Warsaw, Poland.
In 1998 The World Bank approves $700 million in loans to Thailand.
In 1999 The U.S. women's soccer team wins the World Cup, beating China, 5-4, on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless play at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.
In 2000 Israeli President Ezer Weizman resigns from office.
In 2001 A New York jury rejects the death penalty and opts for life in prison without parole for one of the men convicted in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

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