Today in History

331BC		Alexander the Great decisively shatters King Darius III's Persian army at Gaugamela (Arbela), in a tactical masterstroke that leaves him master of the Persian Empire.
1273		Rudolf of Hapsburg is elected emperor in Germany.
1588		The feeble Sultan Mohammed Shah of Persia, hands over power to his 17-year old son Abbas.
1791		In Paris, the National Legislative Assembly holds its first meeting.
1839		The British government decides to send a punitive naval expedition to China.
1847		Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, discovers a comet and is elected the same day to the American Academy of Arts—the first woman to be so honored. The King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal for her discovery.
1856		The first installment of Gustav Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary appears in the Revue de Paris after the publisher refuses to print a passage in which the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage.
1864		The Condor, a British blockade-runner, is grounded near Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
1878		General Lew Wallace is sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and write Ben-Hur. His Civil War heroics earned him the moniker Savior of Cincinnati.
1890		Yosemite National Park is dedicated in California.
1908		The Ford Model T, the first car for millions of Americans, hits the market. Over 15 million Model Ts are eventually sold, all of them black.
1942		The German Army grinds to a complete halt within the city of Stalingrad.
1943		British troops in Italy enter Naples and occupy Foggia airfield.
1944		The U.S. First Army begins the siege Aachen, Germany.
1946		Eleven Nazi war criminals are sentenced to be hanged at Nuremberg trials—Hermann Goring, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachin von Ribbentrop, Fritz Saukel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg.
1974		Five Nixon aides–Kenneth Parkinson, Robert Mardian, Nixon's Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell–go on trial for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation.