Today in History

1146		Zangi of the Near East is murdered. The Sultan Nur ad-Din, his son, pursues the conquest of Edessa.
1321		Dante Alighieri dies of malaria just hours after finishing writing Paradiso.
1544		Henry VIII's forces take Boulogne, France.
1773		Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov successfully storm a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
1791		Louis XVI swears his allegiance to the French constitution.
1812		Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.
1814		Francis Scott Key writes the words to the "Star Spangled Banner" as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
1847		U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close.
1853		The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.
1862		At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton's Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground.
1901		Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.
1911		Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.
1943		German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy..
1960		Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.
1966		Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.
1975		Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.