Today In History...

1777 American forces defeated the British in the Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington, Vermont.
In 1812 Detroit fell to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
In 1829 The original Siamese twin's Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston to be exhibited to the Western world.
In 1858 A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable.
In 1861 President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.
In 1863 The Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
In 1875 A locust swarm, estimated at 12 trillion, passed through Nebraska.
In 1896 Gold was found at Bonanza Creek, Alabama.
In 1920 Baseball's only fatality occurred when Cleveland Indian Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a fastball.
In 1948, Baseball legend Babe Ruth died in New York at 53.
In 1949 American novelist ("Gone With the Wind") Margaret Mitchell was struck and killed by a car in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1954 Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc.
In 1956 Adlai Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
In 1960 Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus.
In 1960 Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a balloon at 31,330m (a record).
In 1965 The AFL awarded its first expansion franchise to the Miami Dolphins.
In 1970 Venera 7 was launched by the USSR for a soft landing on Venus.
In 1978 James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he'd been set up by a mysterious man called Raoul.
In 1984 The Jaycees voted to admit women.
In 1984 A Los Angeles federal jury acquitted automaker John De Lorean in a $24 million cocaine conspiracy trial.
In 1987 A Northwest Airlines jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan, killing all 153 aboard and two on the ground.
In 1988 Vice President George Bush named Indiana Senator Dan Quayle his running mate.
In 1989 A rare prime-time lunar eclipse occurred over most of the United States.
In 1990 President Bush met with Jordan's King Hussein in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he urged him to close Iraq's access to the sea through the port of Aqaba.
In 1991 Pope John Paul II began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
In 1992 On the eve of the Republican National Convention in Houston, President Bush denied a New York Times report that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein was being motivated by political concerns.
In 1993 New York police rescued business executive Harvey Weinstein from a covered 14-foot-deep pit, where he'd been held for nearly two weeks for ransom.
1993 Actor Stewart Granger died in Santa Monica, California, at age 80.
In 1997 Cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin, just back from Mir, rejected criticism that they were to blame for troubles aboard the aging, problem-plagued space station.
In 1999 Vladimir Putin was confirmed as Russia's prime minister, the fifth since early 1998.
In 1999 The prime-time game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" began a limited 2-week run on ABC-TV.
In 2000 Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, she formally nominated Al Gore for president.
In 2002 Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal was reportedly shot to death in Baghdad, Iraq. He was 65.
In 2003 Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda, died in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia; he was believed to have been 80.

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