Today In History...

In 1787 The U.S. Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia.
In 1793 Father Stephen Badin becomes the first Roman Catholic priest to be ordained in the U.S., in a ceremony in Baltimore.
In 1810 Argentina begins its revolt against Spain.
In 1844 The first telegraphed news despatch, sent from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, appears in the Baltimore "Patriot."
In 1927 Henry Ford stops producing the Model T and begins production on the Model A.
In 1935 Baseball great Babe Ruth hit the 714th and final home run of his career, for the Boston Braves, in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In 1946 Transjordan (now Jordon) becomes a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, King Abdullah Ibn Ul-Hussein.
In 1961 President Kennedy asks the nation to work toward putting a "Man on the moon" by the end of the decade.
In 1963 The Organization of African Unity is founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In 1968 The Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, is dedicated in a rain-soaked ceremony presided over by Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey.
In 1969 The motion picture "Midnight Cowboy," starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, opens in New York.
In 1973 Skylab II's first mission is launched.
In 1977 George Lucas' "Star Wars" is released.
In 1979 275 people die in America's worst domestic air disaster when an American Airlines DC-10 crashes at Chicago's O'Hare airport.
In 1981 Daredevil Daniel Goodwin, wearing a "Spiderman" costume, scaled the outside of Chicago's Sears Tower in 7 1/2 hours.
In 1983 "Return of the Jedi," the third in the Star Wars trilogy, makes $6.2 million on opening day.
In 1983 Navy Lt. Commander Albert Schaufelberger, a U.S. military attache in San Salvador, is killed by the guerrilla group FMLN.
In 1985 A hurricane and tidal wave kills over 11,000 in Bangladesh.
In 1986 An estimated 7 million Americans participate in "Hands Across America," forming a line across the country to bring attention to and raise money for the nation's hungry and homeless.
In 1987 For the first time in 7 years, the Soviets turn off the powerful transmitters that jam radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.
In 1987 A jury in New York acquits former Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan and 7 other construction executives of fraud and grand larceny.
In 1988 President Reagan departs the White House on a trip to the Soviet Union and a superpower summit with Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
In 1989 The Calgary Flames win their first Stanley Cup by defeating the Montreal Canadiens in game six of their championship series by a score of 4-to-2.
In 1990 A congressional report cast doubts on the U.S. Navy's official finding that a troubled sailor probably caused the blast that killed 47 servicemen aboard the battleship USS Iowa.
In 1992 Career U.S. diplomat Philip Habib, who helped arrange the Camp David summit and led the American delegation at the Vietnam peace talks, dies in France at age 72.
In 1992 Jay Leno makes his debut as permanent host of NBC's "Tonight Show," succeeding Johnny Carson.
In 1993 The White House announces it was putting five fired employees of its travel office on paid leave while it investigated accusations of financial mismanagement.
In 1994 The UN Security Council lifts a 10-year-old ban on weapons exports from South Africa.
In 1995 NATO warplanes strike Bosnian Serb headquarters. The Serbs responded by storming U.N. weapons depots and taking peacekeepers as hostages.
In 1997 A bloody military coup topples Sierra Leone's elected president.
In 1997 Strom Thurmond (R-SC) becomes the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, marking 41 years and 10 months of service.
In 1997 8 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Polish voters adopt a constitution that removes the last traces of communism.
In 1998 Georgia and breakaway province Abkhazia agree to cease-fire after fighting kills hundreds in the former Soviet republic.
In 1998 Indonesia's new president, B.J. Habibie, promises to hold elections.
In 1999 Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr decides against re-prosecuting Whitewater figure Susan McDougal and Julie Hiatt Steele, a witness in the Monica Lewinsky investigation, after both their trials ended with hung juries.
In 2002 A China Airlines jumbo jet flying to Hong Kong crashes in the Taiwan Strait, killing all 225 on board. A passenger train and a freight train collided in southern Mozambique, killing 195 people.
In 2003 In a historic vote cast under intense U.S. pressure, Israel's government conditionally approve by a narrow margin an internationally backed "road map" to peace.

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