Today In History

79		Mount Vesuvius erupts destroying Pompeii, Stabiae, Herculaneum and other smaller settlements.
410		German barbarians sack Rome.
1542		In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.
1572		Some 50,000 people are put to death in the 'Massacre of St. Bartholomew' as Charles IX of France attempts to rid the country of Huguenots.
1780		King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
1814		British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada.
1847		Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sends a manuscript of Jane Eyre to her publisher in London.
1869		Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York, patents the waffle iron.
1891		Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera.
1894		Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year.
1896		Thomas Brooks is shot and killed by an unknown assailant begining a six year feud with the McFarland family.
1912		By an act of Congress, Alaska is given a territorial legislature of two houses.
1942		In the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war, U.S. naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.
1948		Edith Mae Irby becomes the first African-American student to attend the University of Arkansas.
1954		Congress outlaws the Communist Party in the United States.