Today in History

49 BC		Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.
1843		Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," dies in Baltimore.
1861		Alabama secedes from the Union.
1862		Lincoln accepts Simon Cameron's resignation as Secretary of War.
1887		At Fort Smith, Arkansas, hangman George Maledon dispatches four victims in a multiple hanging.
1904		British troops massacre 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
1916		Russian General Yudenich launches a WWI winter offensive and advances west.
1923		The French enter the town of Essen in the Ruhr valley, to extract Germany's resources as war payment.
1934		The German police raid the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.
1941		Adolf Hitler orders forces to be prepared to enter North Africa to assist the Italian effort, marking the establishment of the Afrika Korps.
1940		Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., becomes the U.S. Army's first black general, his son would later become a general as well.
1942		Japan invades the Dutch East Indies at Borneo.
1943		The Soviet Red Army encircles Stalingrad.
1948		President Harry S. Truman proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.
1949		Negotiations in China between the Nationalists and Communists open as Tientsin is virtually lost to the Communists.
1964		A collection of previously unexhibited paintings by Pablo Picasso are displayed for the first time in Toronto.
1980		Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the United States–in Ohio.
1994		The Irish Government announces an end to a 15-year ban on broadcasting by the IRA and its political branch, Sinn Fein.
2003		Illinois Gov. George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on the state's death row in the wake of allegations that Chicago police detective and commander Jon Burge tortured confessions from some 200 suspects over a 19 year period.