Today in History

1521		Cortes captures the city of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, and sets it on fire.
1630		Emperor Ferdinand II dismisses Albert Eusebius van Wallenstein, his most capable general.
1680		War starts when the Spanish are expelled from Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Indians under Chief Pope.
1704		The Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Austria defeat the French Army at the Battle of Blenheim.
1787		The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
1862		Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats a Union army under Thomas Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1881		The first African-American nursing school opens at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.
1889		The first coin-operated telephone is patented by William Gray.
1892		The first issue of the Afro American newspaper is published in Baltimore, Maryland.
1898		Manila, the capital of the Philippines, falls to the U.S. Army.
1910		British nurse Florence Nightingale, famous for her care of British soldiers during the Crimean War, dies.
1932		Adolf Hitler refuses to serve as Franz Von Papen's vice chancellor.
1948		During the Berlin Airlift, the weather over Berlin becomes so stormy that American planes have their most difficult day landing supplies. They deem it 'Black Friday.'
1961		Construction begins on Berlin Wall during the night.
1963		A 17 year-old Buddhist monk burns himself to death in Saigon, South Vietnam.
1978		Bomb attack in Beirut during Second Lebanese Civil War kills more than 150 people.
1989		The wreckage of a plane that carried U.S. congressman Mickey Leland and others on a humanitarian mission is found on a mountain side in Ethiopia; there are no survivors.
1993		US Court of Appeals rules Congress must save all emails.