Today in History

1397   John of Gaunt marries Katherine Rouet.  
1846   President James Polk dispatches General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico looms.  
1862   Lincoln names Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.  
1900   To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decrees German the official language of the Imperial Army.  
1919   California votes to ratify the prohibition amendment.  
1923   Hitler denounces the Weimar Republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrate in Germany.
1927   A woman takes a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.  
1931   The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey is named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.  
1937   The United States bars Americans from serving in the Civil War in Spain.  
1943   General Leclerc's Free French forces merge with the British under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery in Libya.  
1944   Plants are destroyed and 64 U.S. aircraft are lost in an air attack in Germany.
1945   The Red Army opens an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.  
1947   British troops replace striking truck drivers.  
1955   Chase National and the Bank of Manhattan agree to merge resulting in the second largest U.S. bank.  1965   Two U.S. planes are shot down in Laos while on a combat mission.  
1968   U.S. reports shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.  
1976   Argentina ousts a British envoy in dispute over the Falkland Islands.  
1980   The United States offers Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan.  
1982   Air Florida Flight 90 Boeing 737 jet crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge shortly after takeoff, then plunges into the Potomac River; 78 people, including 4 motorists, are killed.  
1990   In Virginia, Douglas Wilder, the first African American elected governor of a US state, takes office.