Today in History

1064   Coimbra, Portugal falls to Ferdinand, king of Castile.  
1534   Jacques Cartier sails into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada.  
1790   Civil war breaks out in Martinique.  
1861   Mary Ann "Mother" Bickerdyke begins working in Union hospitals.  
1863   At the Battle of Brandy Station in Virginia, Union and Confederate cavalries clash in the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War.  
1923   Bulgaria's government is overthrown by the military.  
1931   Robert H. Goddard patents a rocket-fueled aircraft design.  
1942   The Japanese high command announces that "The Midway Occupation operations have been temporarily postponed."  
1945   Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declares that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.  
1951   After several unsuccessful attacks on French colonial troops, North Vietnam's General Vo Nguyen Giap orders Viet Minh to withdraw from the Red River Delta.  
1954   At the Army-McCarthy hearings, attorney Joseph Welch asks Senator Joseph McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency?"  
1959   The first ballistic missile-carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, is launched.  
1972   American advisor John Paul Vann is killed in a helicopter accident in Vietnam.  
1986   NASA publishes a report on the Challenger accident.