Today in History

1774		Britain passes the Coercive Act against rebellious Massachusetts.
1854		The Crimean War erupts as Britain and France declare war on Russia.
1864		A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.
1885		The Salvation Army is officially organized in the United States.
1908		Automobile owners lobby Congress in support of a bill that calls for vehicle licensing and federal registration.
1910		The first seaplane takes off from water at Martiniques, France.
1917		The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britain’s first official service women.
1921		President Warren Harding names William Howard Taft as chief justice of the United States.
1930		Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.
1933		Nazis order a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.
1939		The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to Francisco Franco.
1941		The Italian fleet is routed by the British at the Battle of Battle of Cape Matapan
1941		English novelist Virginia Woolf throws herself into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Her body will not be found until April 18.
1942		A British ship, the HMS Campbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.
1945		Germany launches the last of its V-2 rockets against England.
1946		Juan Peron is elected President of Argentina. He will hold the office for six years.
1962		The U.S. Air Force announces research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.
1969		Dwight D. Eisenhower dies at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.
1979		A major accident occurs at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant
1986		The U.S. Senate passes $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras.
1990		Jesse Owens receives the Congressional Gold Medal from President George Bush.
1999		An American Stealth F117 Nighthawk is shot down over northern Yugoslavia during NATO air strikes.