Today in History

1400 Owain Glyndŵr is declared Prince of Wales by his followers.  
1575 King Johan Casimir of Palts promises military aid to the Hugenots
1597 French troops chase away Albrecht of Austria  
1630 Massachusetts village of Shawmut changes its name to Boston
1652 Spanish troops occupy Dunkirk
1654 Russian troops occupy Smolensk on Poland  
1666 "Messiah" Sjabtai Tswi becomes Islamiet  
1668 King John II Casimir of Poland resigns, flees to France  
1701 James Francis Edward Stuart, sometimes called the "Old Pretender", becomes the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland.  
1702 Emperor Leopold I declares war on France, Cologne & Bavaria
1729 Willem KH Friso installed as viceroy of Groningen  
1747 French troops occupy Bergen on Zoom  
1782 Great Seal of US used for 1st time  
1795 British capture Capetown, South Africa from the Dutch  
1810 Mexico issues Grito de Dolores, calling for the end of Spanish rule (Mexican Independence Day)  
1830 Oliver Wendell Holmes writes "Old Ironsides"  
1858 1st overland mail for California  
1862 Gen Bragg's army surrounds 4,000 federals at Munfordville, KY  
1863 Robert College of Istanbul-Turkey, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.  
1864 Battle of Coggin's Point, Virginia (Hampton-Rosser Cattle Raid)
1867 Ottawa Rough Riders & Senators play Canadian Football game  
1873 German troops leave France  
1893 Cherokee Strip, Oklahoma opens white settlement homesteaders  
1906 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen discovers the Magnetic South Pole  
1908 Carriage-maker, William Durant, founds General Motors in Flint, Michigan
1913 1000s of women demonstrate for Dutch female suffrage
1915 US takes control of customs & finances of Haiti for 10 years  
1919 American Legion incorporated by an act of Congress  
1920 Bomb explosion in Wall Street, kills 30  
1922 Turkish troops chase Greeks out of Asia
1926  Hurricane in Florida & Alabama, kills 372
1926 Italian-Romanian peace treaty signed  
1928 Hurricane hits West Palm Beach-Lake Okeechobee Florida; 3,000 die  
1929 Police shoot at strikers at Maastricht, 2 killed
1931 Blimp is moored to Empire State Building (NYC)  
1940 Luftwaffe attacks center of London  
1941 German armor troops surround Kiev Ukraine  
1941 Jews of Vilna Poland confined to Ghetto  
1942 Japanese attack on Port Moresby repelled  
1943 Montgomery's 8th army contacts invasion - arm forces at Salerno
1943 Soviet army under general Vatutin reconquer Romny
1945 Barometric pressure at 856 mb (25.55") off Okinawa (record low)  
1947 Typhoon Kathleen hit Saitama, Tokyo and Tone River area, at least 1,930 killed.  
1950 Cleveland Browns (formerly AAFC) play 1st NFL game, beat Philadelphia 35-10) 
1950 Viet Minh-offensive against French bases in Vietnam  
1957 Coup in Thailand (Premier Songgram deposed)
1961 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR  
1962 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR  
1965 Sobibor trial opens in Hagen, West Germany  
1967 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1970 King Hussein of Jordan forms military government
1971 6 Ku Klux Klansmen arrested in connection with bombing of 10 school buses  
1971 A number of Unionists resign over the proposed tripartite talks involving Northern Ireland, Britain, and the Republic of Ireland  
1975 Papua New Guinea gains independence from Australia (National Day)  
1976 Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from the trolleybus that had fallen into Erevan reservoir. 1978 25,000 die in 7.7 earthquake in Tabar, Iran  
1978 Grateful Dead perform in Cairo, Egypt  
1979 Coup in Afghanistan under Hafizullah Amin
1979 USSR performs nuclear test  
1979 The families of Peter Strelzyk and Gunter Wetzel arrive in West Germany from Communist East Germany in a hot air balloon  
1982 Massacre of 1000+ Palestinian refugees at Chatila and Sabra begins  
1986 Fire in Kinross gold mine, Transvaal South Africa, 177 killed
1987 New York City's WNET-TV channel 13 begins round clock broadcasting  
1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR  
1992 900 die in flood in Pakistan
1992 FCC votes to allow competition for local phone service  
1994 Fire Dept puts out smokey electrical fire in White House
1996 Space Shuttle STS 79 (Atlantis 17), launches into space  
1999 1st ever season of "Big Brother" reality show begins on the Veronica channel in The Netherlands
2005 Camorra boss Paolo Di Lauro is arrested in Naples.  
2007 One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 carrying 128 crew and passengers crashes in Thailand killing 89 people.
2012 8 female civilians are killed by a NATO airstrike in Laghman, Afghanistan  
2012 8 police officers are killed by a roadside bombing by Kurdistan Workers' Party militants in Turkey
2012 14 people are killed and 7 wounded by a roadside bomb Jandol, Turkey
2012 Anti-Japanese protesters set fire to Panasonic plant in Qingdao, China
2013 21 people are killed by Hurricane Ingrid in Mexico
2013 12 people are killed after a gunman opens fire at a naval yard in Washington, D.C.  
2013 Paul Kagame wins the Rwandan presidency in a landslide
2015 700 million Maleria cases prevented in Africa since 2000 in report by University of Oxford in "Nature" journal  
2015 Report 3 million people die each year of air pollution, more than Maleria and HIV/Aids combined published in "Nature" journal
2015 8.3 magnitude quake hits off coast of Illapel, Chile killing 11 and prompting evacuation of 1 million  
2015 Oil tanker explosion kills 170 in Maridi, South Sudan  
2015 Military coup in Burkina Faso, President Michel Kafando and other officials seized by presidential guards