Today in History

1775		George Washington takes command of the Continental Army.
1790		In Paris, the Marquis of Condorcet proposes granting civil rights to women.
1844		American ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiates a commercial treaty with China.
1863		Confederate forces attack the center of the Union line at Gettysburg, but fail to break it.
1878		John Wise flies the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
1901		The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, commits its last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.
1903		The first cable across the Pacific Ocean is spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.
1916		The Battle of the Somme begins. More than 100,000 men are killed in the first day.
1944		The U.S. First Army opens a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.
1945		U.S. troops land at Balikpapan and take Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
1950		U.S. carrier-based planes attack airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.
1954		Food rationing ends in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
1962		Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
1967		North Vietnamese soldiers attack South Vietnam's only producing coal mine at Nong Son.