Today In History...

In 1000 Leif Ericson discovers "Vinland" (possibly New England).
In 1635 Religious dissident Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1642 Harvard holds their first commencement exercise.
In 1701 Collegiate School of Connecticut (Yale) is chartered in New Haven.
In 1776 A group of Spanish missionaries settles in what is today is known as San Francisco.
In 1781 George Washington fires the first shot in the siege of Yorktown during the Revolutionary War.
In 1806 American astronomer Benjamin Banneker, called "First Black Man of Science," dies.
In 1855 Joshua C. Stoddard of Worcester, MA, receives a patent for the first calliope.
In 1876 The first 2-way telephone conversation takes place.
In 1888 The Washington Monument first opens to the public.
In 1919 The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, 5-3, in a best of nine contest, defeating the Chicago White Sox. (The victory produces the "Black Sox" scandal.)
In 1930 Laura Ingalls becomes the first woman to fly across the U.S. as she completed a 9-stop journey from Roosevelt Field, New York, to Glendale, California.
In 1936 The Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles.
In 1946 The Eugene O'Neill drama "The Iceman Cometh" opens in New York.
In 1958 Pope Pius XII dies, 19 years after he was elevated to the papacy.
In 1962 Uganda gains its independence from Britain (National Day).
In 1967 Latin American guerrilla leader Che Guevara is executed while attempting to incite revolution in Bolivia.
In 1974 Czech-born German businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving about 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, dies in Frankfurt, West Germany. At his request, he was buried in Jerusalem.
In 1975 Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1977 Soyuz 25 is launched to Saluyt 5, but returns after failing to dock.
In 1983 A bomb explosion in Rangoon, Burma, blamed on North Korean agents kills 17 visiting South Koreans, including 4 cabinet ministers.
In 1985 The hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise liner surrender after the ship docks in Port Said, Egypt.
In 1986 Joan Rivers kicks off the Fox network with "The Late Show."
In 1986 The Senate convicts U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne making him the 5th federal official removed from office through impeachment.
In 1987 Author, politician and diplomat Clare Boothe Luce dies at age 84.
In 1987 U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork, his rejection by the Senate a virtual certainty, angrily tells reporters he would not ask that his nomination be withdrawn.
In 1989 The official Soviet news agency Tass reports that an unidentified flying object, complete with a trio of tall aliens, had visited a park in the city of Voronezh.
In 1991 President Bush declares "total confidence" in his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by former aide Anita Hill.
In 1992 The UN Security Council votes to ban all military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In 1994 The U.S. dispatches 36,000 troops to Kuwait to counter an Iraqi advance.
In 1995 An Amtrak train carrying 268 people derails in the Arizona desert, killing one and injuring 100. A note at the scene refers to the government sieges at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
In 1995 An 7.6 earthquake shook the west coast of Mexico, killing 51 people.
In 1996 Al Gore and Jack Kemp clash in the vice presidential debates in St. Petersburg, Florida.
In 1997 Hurricane Pauline strikes Acapulco, Mexico, killing at least 118.
In 1999 In boxing's first sanctioned battle of the sexes, Margaret MacGregor defeats Loi Chow by winning all four rounds on all three judges' cards in a promotion held in Seattle.
In 2000 Arvid Carlsson of Sweden and Americans Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel win the Nobel Prize in medicine.
In 2001 Letters postmarked in Trenton, NJ -- which later tested positive for anthrax -- are sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.
In 2004 A tour bus from the Chicago area flips in Arkansas, killing 15 people headed to a Mississippi casino.

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