Today in History

841		Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeat Lothar at Fontenay.
1658		Aurangzeb proclaims himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.
1767		Mexican Indians riot as Jesuit priests are ordered home.
1857		Gustave Flaubert goes on trial for public immorality regarding his novel, Madame Bovary.
1862		The first day of the Seven Days' campaign begins with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia.
1864		Union troops surrounding Petersburg, Virginia, begin building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.
1868		The U.S. Congress enacts legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the federal government.
1876		General George A. Custer and over 260 men of the Seventh Cavalry are wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana.
1903		Marie Curie announces her discovery of radium.
1920		The Greeks take 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.
1921		Samuel Gompers is elected head of the American Federation of Labor for the 40th time.
1941		Finland declares war on the Soviet Union.
1946		Ho Chi Minh travels to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.
1948		The Soviet Union tightens its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.
1950		North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War.
1959		The Cuban government seizes 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.
1962		The U.S. Supreme Court bans official prayers in public schools.
1964		President Lyndon Johnson orders 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.
1973		White House Counsel John Dean admits President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.
1986		Congress approves $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.