Today in History

1504		Michelangelo’s 13-foot marble statue of David is unveiled in Florence, Italy.
1529		The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman re-enters Buda and establishes John Zapolyai as the puppet king of Hungary.
1565		Spanish explorers found St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States.
1628		John Endecott arrives with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he will become the governor.
1644		The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British fleet that sails into its harbor. Five years later, the British change the name to New York.
1755		British forces under William Johnson defeat the French and the Indians at the Battle of Lake George.
1760		The French surrender the city of Montreal to the British.
1845		A French column surrenders at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.
1863		Confederate Lieutenant Dick Dowling thwarts a Union naval landing at Sabine Pass, northeast of Galveston, Texas.
1903		Between 30,000 and 50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children are massacred in Monastir by Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.
1906		Robert Turner invents the automatic typewriter return carriage.
1915		Germany begins a new offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.
1921		Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., is named the first Miss America.
1925		Germany is admitted into the League of Nations.
1935		Senator Huey Long of Louisiana is shot to death in the state capitol, allegedly by Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, Jr.
1944		Germany’s V-2 offensive against England begins.
1945		Korea is partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States.
1951		Japanese representatives sign a peace treaty in San Francisco.
1955		The United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand sign the mutual defense treaty that established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
1960		Penguin Books in Britain is charged with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
1960		Eisenhower dedicates NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
1971		The Kennedy Center opens in Washington, DC with a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
1974		Gerald Ford pardons former Richard M. Nixon for any crimes arising from the Watergate scandal he may have committed while in office.
1988		Wildfires in Yellowstone National Park in the US, the world’s first national park, force evacuation of the historic Old Faithful Inn; visitors and employees evacuated but the inn is saved.
1991		Macedonian Independence Day; voters overwhelmingly approve referendum to form the Republic of Macedonia, independent of Yugoslavia.
1994		USAir Flight 427 crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 people aboard; subsequent investigation leads to changes in manufacturing practices and pilot training.