Today in History

1766		Britain repeals the Stamp Act.
1776		British forces evacuate the city of Boston after a prolonged siege. Under the orders of General George Washington, Boston was besieged for nearly a year by artillery fire.
1799		Napoleon Bonaparte and his army reach Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d’Acra, only to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town.
1868		The first postage stamp canceling machine patent is issued.
1884		John Joseph Montgomery makes the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.
1886		Twenty African Americans are killed in the Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi.
1891		The British steamer Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar.
1905		Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, marries Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York.
1910		The Camp Fire Girls are founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.
1914		Russia increases the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.
1924		Four Douglas army aircraft leave Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
1930		Mob boss Al Capone is released from jail.
1942		The Nazis begin deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.
1944		The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombs Vienna.
1959		The 14th Dalai Lama flees Tibet and goes to India.
1961		The United States increases military aid and technicians to Laos.
1962		The Soviet Union asks the United States to pull out of South Vietnam.
1966		A U.S. submarine locates a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean.
1970		The Army charges 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.
1972		Nixon asks Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.
1973		Twenty are killed in Cambodia when a bomb goes off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.
1973		First POWs are released from the “Hanoi Hilton” in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
1985		PReagan agrees to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.
1992		White South Africans approve constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks.