Today in History

1002 - English king Ethelred II launches massacre of Danish settlers
1775 - American Revolutionary forces capture Montreal
1789 - Ben Franklin writes "Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes"
1841 - James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnosis.
1843 - Mt Rainier in Washington State erupts
1851 - Telegraph connection between London-Paris linked
1865 - PT Barnum's New American museum opens in Bridgeport
1865 - US issues 1st gold certificates
1875 - Harvard-Yale game is 1st college football contest with uniforms
1895 - 1st shipment of canned pineapple from Hawaii
1907 - French cyclist Paul Cornu flies 1st helicopter (twin rotor)
1913 - 1st modern elastic brassiere patented by Mary Phelps Jacob
1916 - British offensive at Ancre Belgium
1920 - Hudson River frozen at Albany
1921 - "Sheik," silent film starring Rudolph Valentino, is released
1931 - Hattie Caraway (D-AK) appointed 1st US woman senator
1940 - Walt Disney's "Fantasia" released
1946 - 1st artificial snow produced from a natural cloud, Mt Greylock, MA
1952 - False fingernails 1st sold
1977 - Final Al Capp comic strip of "Li'l Abner" (1934-77)