Today in History

37		The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius’ will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
1692		William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.
1863		Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1865		The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
1874		Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
1881		Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.
1911		Theodore Roosevelt opens the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the United States to date.
1913		Greek King George I is killed by an assassin. Constantine I is to succeed.
1916		On the Eastern Front, the Russians counter the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lose 100,000 men and the Germans lose 20,000.
1917		The Germans sink the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.
1921		The second Peace of Riga ending the Polish-Soviet War. In the aftermath of the war, the Poles gained land previously held by the Soviets. Prior to the outbreak of WWII, the Soviets refused to enter into an alliance with Britain and France without guaranteed passage through Poland to access to mainland Europe, in the event of a war. The Poles, due to anxiety about a Soviet presence in their territory, denied the USSR access. This denial helped to foil any alliance between the three nations. The treaty became null after the Soviet’s invaded Poland on September 18, 1939.
1922		Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India.
1939		Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.
1942		The third military draft begins in the United States.
1943		Adolf Hitler calls off the offensive in the Caucasus.
1943		American forces take Gafsa in Tunisia.
1944		The Russians reach the Romanian border.
1950		Nationalist troops land on the mainland of China and capture Communist-held Sungmen.
1953		The Braves baseball team announces that they are moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
1965		Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to spacewalk when he exits his Voskhod 2 space capsule while in orbit around the Earth.
1969		Nixon authorizes Operation Menue, the ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia.
1970		The U.S. Postal Service is paralyzed by the first postal strike.
1971		U.S. helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
1975		South Vietnam abandons most of the Central Highlands to North Vietnamese forces.
1977		Congo President Marien Ngouabi is killed by a suicide commando.
1981		The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.
1986		Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.