Today In History...

In 1607 The English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, is settled.
In 1846 The U.S. declares war on Mexico.
In 1884 The Institute for Electrical & Electronics Engineers is founded.
In 1917 Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.
In 1918 The first U.S. Air Mail stamps are issued.
In 1930 A giant hailstone kills a man near Lubbock, Texas.
In 1940 Igor Sikorsky flies the first helicopter.
In 1940 In his first speech as prime minister of England, Winston Churchill tells the House of Commons, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
In 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower signs into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.
In 1954 The musical play "The Pajama Game," opens on Broadway.
In 1958 Vice President Richard Nixon's limo is battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.
In 1978 Italian officials hold a state memorial service for former prime minister Aldo Moro, who had been kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades.
In 1981 Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.
In 1982 Soyuz T-5 is launched.
In 1985 Philadelphia police firebomb MOVE headquarters killing 11 and leaving 200 homeless when 60 houses catch fire.
In 1987 President Reagan says his personal diary confirmed that he'd talked with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd about Saudi help for the Nicaraguan Contras, but did not solicit secret contributions.
In 1988 Guglielmo Marconi, Benny Goodman, Edward R. Murrow, Orson Welles, Alan Freed and Groucho Marx are among the first inductees to the Radio Hall of Fame.
In 1988 The U.S. Senate votes, 83-6, to approve a plan allowing the U.S. Navy to stop drug boats on the high seas and make arrests.
In 1990 Two U.S. airmen are shot to death in the Philippines on the eve of talks concerning the future of U.S. military bases.
In 1991 South African black activist Winnie Mandela and two co-defendants are convicted of abducting four young black men and keeping them at her Soweto home. (After appeal, Mandela was ordered to pay a fine.)
In 1992 Three astronauts from the space shuttle Endeavour capture a wayward Intelsat-6 communications satellite during the first-ever 3-person spacewalk.
In 1992 President Bush announces a $600 million loan package to help rebuild riot-scarred Los Angeles.
In 1993 In suburban Paris, a masked man armed with dynamite takes a roomful of nursery school children hostage, demanding $18.5 million. (The man was shot to death by police two days later).
In 1994 President Clinton nominates Judge Stephen G. Breyer to second U.S. Supreme Court vacancy of his administration to replace retiring Justice Harry A. Blackmun.
In 1996 Recovery workers in the Florida Everglades retrieve the flight data recorder from ValuJet Flight 592.
In 1996 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously strikes down Rhode Island's ban on ads that list or refer to liquor prices, saying the law violated free-speech rights. A tornado kills more than 600 people in Bangladesh.
In 1997 At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors show jurors the key to the Ryder truck used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, alleging Timothy McVeigh left it behind in the same alley he picked to stash his getaway car.
In 2000 Explosions at a fireworks warehouse in the Netherlands kill at least 20 people and injure 600 others.
In 2001 Basque nationalists win a key election in Spain, setting the stage for the return to power of media magnate Silvio Berlusconi.
In 2001 Actor/playwright Jason Miller dies in Scranton, PA, at age 62.
In 2002 President Bush announces that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin would sign a treaty to shrink their countries' nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
In 2003 A judge rules that Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols should stand trial in state court on 160 counts of 1st degree murder.
In 2013 TV Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers dies after a long illness.

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