Today in History

1739		Russia signs a treaty with the Turks, ending a three-year conflict between the two countries.
1776		Congress borrows five million dollars to halt the rapid depreciation of paper money in the colonies.
1862		At the Battle of Corinth, in Mississippi, a Union army defeats the Confederates.
1906		The first conference on wireless telegraphy in Berlin adopts SOS as a warning signal.
1929		The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes officially changes its name to Yugoslavia.
1940		The U.S. Army adopts airborne, or parachute, soldiers. Airborne troops are later used in World War II for landing troops in combat and infiltrating agents into enemy territory.
1942		The German Wehrmacht successfully launches a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It will become the first manmade object to reach space. The Germans have developed the missile, which features a liquid-propellant rocket engine, as a “vengeance weapon” assigned to attack Allied cities in retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities in World War II.
1944		German troops evacuate Athens, Greece.
1952		The UK successfully develops a nuclear weapon, becoming the world’s third nuclear power.
1963		A violent coup in Honduras ends a period of political reform and ushers in two decades of military rule.
1985		The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.
1990		After 40 years of division, East and West Germany are reunited as one nation.
1993		The Battle of Mogadishu takes place, in which 18 US soldiers and some 1,000 Somalis are killed during an attempt to capture officials of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s organization.