Today In History...

In 1542 Spanish explorer Hernando do Soto dies while searching for gold along the Mississippi River.
In 1832 The first democratic convention begins in Baltimore. (They nominate President Andrew Jackson for a second term.)
In 1840 New Zealand is declared a British colony.
In 1881 The American Red Cross is founded by Clarissa "Clara" Barton.
In 1908 The first horror film, "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde," is premieres in Chicago.
In 1919 A proposed federal amendment to give women the right to vote passes the House of Representatives, 304-89.
In 1924 14-year-old Bobby Franks is murdered in a "thrill-killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two students at the University of Chicago.
In 1927 Charles Lindburgh lands his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, France, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic.
In 1941 A German U-boat sinks the American freighter S.S. "Robin Moore" in the South Atlantic.
In 1945 Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart are married.
In 1948 President Truman proposes statehood for Alaska.
In 1956 The U.S. detonates the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
In 1968 The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion with 99 men aboard is last heard from. (The sub was later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.)
In 1979 Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White is convicted in the shooting deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
In 1980 Ensign Jean Marie Butler is the first woman to graduate from a U.S. service academy as she accepted her degree and commission from the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT.
In 1980 "The Empire Strikes Back," the second in the "Star Wars" trilogy, opens in movie theaters.
In 1980 Talk show host Phil Donahue and actress Marlo Thomas are married.
In 1981 Francois Mitterand assumes the Presidency of France.
In 1982 Britain announces a "firm bridgehead" against Argentine troops in the Falklands War.
In 1983 British art historian Kenneth Clark dies at age 79.
In 1983 Waterfront philosopher Eric Hoffer dies at age 80.
In 1985 Patty Frusaci of Riverside, CA, who was expecting septuplets, gives birth to six live babies, but only 3 survive.
In 1986 President Reagan vetos a Congressional resolution blocking a scaled-down sale of advanced U.S. missiles to Saudi Arabia.
In 1989 Yulia Sukhanova is selected as the first-ever Miss USSR.
In 1990 Israeli soldiers shoot and kill 3 Palestinians in violence sparked by the massacre of 7 Palestinians by an Israeli civilian the day before.
In 1991 Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated during a re-election campaign in India.
In 1991 Ethiopia's Marxist president, Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigns and fled into exile as rebels continued to advance.
In 1992 The U.S. Coast Guard said that high-seas interdiction of Haitian refugees would be drastically scaled back because refugee camps at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, were filled.
In 1993 President Clinton meets at the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev.
In 1994 Israeli commandos sweep into Lebanon's eastern mountains and abduct Mustafa Dirani, a Shiite Muslim guerrilla leader.
In 1995 Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin dies at a Washington, DC, hospital after suffering a massive stroke; he was 56.
In 1996 Some 500 passengers, many of them teen-agers, drown in Tanzania when a ferry hit a rock and capsized in Lake Victoria.
In 1997 Prosecutors at the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh rest their case.
In 1997 The space shuttle Atlantis undocks from the Russian Mir space station.
In 1998 Succumbing to protests, Indonesia's President Suharto says he will

step down after 32 years of authoritarian rule.
In 1998 A student suspended from a Springfield, OR, school opens fire in the cafeteria killing one and wounding 23 others.
In 1999 Presidential friend and fund-raiser Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie plead guilty to campaign finance violations.
In 1999 Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy Award for best actress. It was her 19th try.
In 2000 19 people are killed when a charter plane crashes in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.
In 2000 Death claims actor Sir John Gielgud, 96, and author Dame Barbara Cartland, 98.
In 2001 The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a radio host cannot be sued for airing a phone conversation taped illegally by a third party.
In 2013 Microsoft announces the release of Xbox One.

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