Today in History

904		Arabs capture Thessalonica.
1703		English novelist Daniel Defoe is made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire The Shortest Way With Dissenters.
1760		Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, drives the French army back to the Rhine River.
1790		The U.S. Patent Office opens.
1882		Belle and Sam Starr are charged with horse stealing in the Indian territory.
1875		Former president Andrew Johnson dies at the age of 66.
1891		Great Britain declares territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within their sphere of influence.
1904		The Trans-Siberian railroad connecting the Ural mountains with Russia's Pacific coast, is completed.
1917		The third Battle of Ypres commences as the British attack the German lines.
1932		Adolf Hitler's Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) doubles its strength in legislative elections.
1944		The Soviet army takes Kovno, the capital of Lithuania.
1971		Apollo 15 astronauts take a drive on the moon in their land rover.