Today In History...

In 1649 The Maryland Toleration Act, which provides for the freedom of worship for all Christians, is passed by the Maryland assembly.
In 1789 John Adams is sworn in as the first U.S. vice president.
In 1836 Texas becomes an independent nation when Sam Houston defeats Santa Ana in the Battle of San Jacinto near present day Houston.
In 1862 Congress establishes a U.S. Mint in Denver, Colorado.
In 1910 Author Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) dies in Redding, CT.
In 1918 German air ace Manfred Von Richthofen (The Red Baron) is shot out of the sky by Canadian pilot Roy Brown during World War I.
In 1940 The quiz show that asked the "$64 question," "Take It Or Leave It," premieres on CBS Radio.
In 1960 Brazil inaugurates its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro.
In 1962 The World's Fair in Seattle opens.
In 1966 The first artificial heart implant is achieved by Texas surgeon Michael De Bakey.
In 1967 Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, arrives in New York.
In 1972 Apollo XVI astronauts John Young and Charles Duke explore the moon.
In 1975 South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigns after ten years in office.
In 1976 Full-scale testing of the swine flu vaccine begins in Washington DC.
In 1977 The musical play "Annie," based on the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" opens on Broadway.
In 1980 Rosie Ruiz is the first woman to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon; she is later exposed as a fraud.
In 1983 Soyuz T-8 is launched.
In 1983 Former first lady Betty Ford, undergoing treatment at Long Beach Memorial Naval Hospital in California, discloses in a statement that she was addicted to alcohol as well as a drug she had been taking for arthritis.
In 1986 The U.S., Britain and France veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning the U.S. air raid on Libya.
In 1986 A vault in Chicago's Lexington Hotel that was linked to Al Capone is opened during a live TV special hosted by Geraldo Rivera; aside from a few bottles and a sign, the vault was empty.
In 1987 Application of the death penalty is broadened by the U.S. Supreme Court to include accomplices in murder cases.
In 1988 Senator Al Gore pulls out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 1990 Pope John Paul II visits Czechoslovakia to help celebrate the nation's peaceful overthrow of communism.
In 1991 U.S. Marines in northern Iraq begin building the first safe-haven settlement for Kurdish refugees.
In 1992 California executes Robert Alton Harris in the gas chamber, the state's first execution in 25 years.
In 1995 Timothy McVeigh, 26, a former soldier, is arrested by the FBI at a small-town Oklahoma jail where he had spent two days on minor traffic and weapons charges. He is charged with blowing up the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City two days earlier.
In 1997 The ashes of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry are shot into orbit.
In 1997 Police in Franklin, NJ, arrest two teen-agers they say lured two pizza deliverymen to an abandoned house before opening fire, killing both men.
In 2001 Western hemisphere leaders meeting in Quebec ratify a plan barring undemocratic nations from a massive free trade zone they hoped would expand prosperity across their 34 nations.
In 2001 The Los Angeles Xtreme beat the San Francisco Demons, 38-6, in the first (and last) XFL championship game.
In 2003 Military officials in Iraq announce the arrest of Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, a key figure in the bloody suppression of the Shiite Muslim uprising of 1991.

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