Today In History...

In 1314 The forces of Scotland's King Robert I defeat the English in the Battle of Bannockburn.
In 1497 The first recorded sighting of North America by a European takes place as explorer John Cabot claims eastern Canada for England.
In 1509 Henry VIII is crowned King of England.
In 1647 Margaret Brent, a niece of Lord Baltimore, is ejected from the Maryland Assembly after demanding to vote in the governing body.
In 1793 The first republican constitution in France is adopted.
In 1901 The Jewish National Fund is started.
In 1908 Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th U.S. president, dies at age 71.
In 1915 More than 800 die when the excursion steamer Eastland capsizes at Chicago's Clark Street dock.
In 1916 The first million-dollar movie contract is awarded to Mary Pickford for 2 years.
In 1930 The first radar detection of planes is used in Anacostia, DC.
In 1940 France signs an armistice with Italy during World War II.
In 1947 Pilot Ken Arnold reports flying saucers over Mt. Rainer, WA.
In 1948 Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the U.S. to airlift supplies into the city's western sector to counter the blockade.
In 1948 The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia nominates New York governor Thomas E. Dewey for president.
In 1949 U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board licenses the first cargo airline.
In 1949 "Hopalong Cassidy" becomes the first network TV western.
In 1963 The home video recorder is demonstrated for the first time at the BBC Studios in London, England.
In 1966 In San Francisco, comic Lenny Bruce performs for the last time.
In 1968 "Resurrection City," a campsite constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington, DC, is closed by authorities.
In 1975 113 people are killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashes while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at JFK International Airport in New York.
In 1977 The IRS reveals that President Carter paid no taxes in 1976.
In 1981 Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan announces his country had developed the capacity to produce an atomic bomb.
In 1982 The Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution goes down to defeat.
In 1982 Soyuz T-6 is launched.
In 1983 The space space Challenger, carrying America's first woman into space, Sally K. Ride, lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base.
In 1985 The space shuttle Discovery returns to Earth.
In 1986 Congress votes to begin Daylight Savings time on the first Sunday in April.
In 1988 Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Austria, condemned Nazism during a stopover at the Mauthausen death camp where 110,000 World War II prisoners died.
In 1990 South African black nationalist Nelson Mandella arrives in Washington, DC.
In 1991 The U.S. Supreme Court rules the First Amendment did not shield news organizations from being sued when they publish the names of sources who had been promised confidentiality.
In 1992 The U.S. Supreme Court votes, 5-4, to strengthen its 30-year ban on officially sponsored worship in public schools, prohibiting prayer as a part of graduation ceremonies.
In 1993 Eight Muslim fundamentalists are arrested in New York, accused of plotting a day of bombings of the United Nations, a federal building and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels.
In 1993 Yale University computer expert David Gelernter is injured in his office by a bomb sent by Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
In 1996 A jury orders Philadelphia to pay $1.5 million in damages for the 1985 MOVE bombing that killed 11.
In 1997 In Freehold, NJ, 18-year-old Melissa Drexler, who gave birth during her prom, is charged with murder in the death of her baby.
In 1997 The Air Force releases a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
In 1997 ctor Brian Keith ("Family Affair"), 75, is found dead in his Malibu, CA, home of an apparent suicide.
In 1998 U.S. hospitals agree to eliminate highly toxic mercury from their waste streams over the next seven years.
In 1998 12,000 farmers lose $80 million in crops in the worst Florida wildfires in half century.
In 2000 President Clinton proposes using $58 billion from the growing budget surplus to help senior citizens pay for prescription drugs in 2002.
In 2001 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives in the U.S. for talks with President George W. Bush.
In 2002 President Bush urges the Palestinians to replace Yasser Arafat.
In 2002 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that juries, not judges, must decide whether a convicted killer lives or dies.
In 2003 President Vladimir Puti arrives in London on the first state visit to Britain by a Russian leader since the 19th century.

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