Today in History

1468		Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano succeed their father, Piero de Medici, as rulers of Florence, Italy.
1762		France cedes to Spain all lands west of the Mississippi–the territory known as Upper Louisiana.
1818		Illinois is admitted into the Union as the 21st state.
1800		The French defeat the Austrian army at the Battle of Hohenlinden, near Munich.
1847		Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney establish the North Star, an anti-slavery paper.
1862		Confederate raiders attack a Federal forage train on the Hardin Pike near Nashville, Tenn.
1863		Confederate General James Longstreet moves his army east and north toward Greeneville. This withdrawal marks the end of the Fall Campaign in Tennessee.
1864		Major General William Tecumseh Sherman meets with slight resistance from Confederate troops at Thomas Station on his march to the sea.
1906		The U.S. Supreme Court orders Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders extradited to Idaho for trial in the Steunenberg murder case.
1915		The United States expels German attaches on spy charges.
1916		French commander Joseph Joffre is dismissed after his failure at the Somme. General Robert Nivelle is the new French commander-in-chief.
1918		The Allied Conference ends in London where they decide that Germany must pay for the war.
1925		The League of Nations orders Greece to pay an indemnity for the October invasion of Bulgaria.
1926		British reports claim that German soldiers are being trained in the Soviet Union.
1950		The Chinese close in on Pyongyang, Korea, and UN forces withdraw southward.
1965		The National Council of Churches asks the United States to halt the massive bombings in North Vietnam.
1977		The State Department proposes the admission of 10,000 more Vietnamese refugees to the United States.
1979		Eleven are dead and eight injured in a mad rush to see a rock band (The Who) at a concert in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1984		Toxic gas leaks from a Union Carbide plant and results in the deaths of thousands in Bhopal, India.
1989		George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev announce the official end to the Cold War at a meeting in Malta.
1992		A test engineer for Sema Group sends the world’s first text message, using a personal computer and the Vodafone network.
1997		Representatives of 121 nations sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting the manufacture or deployment of antipersonnel landmines; the People’s Republic of China, the US and the USSR do not sign.
2005		The first manned rocket-powered aircraft delivery of US Mail takes place in Mojave, Cal.
2009		A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.