Today in History

97		To placate the Praetorians of Germany, Nerva of Rome adopts Trajan, the Spanish-born governor of lower Germany.
1553		Michael Servetus, who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, is burned for heresy in Switzerland.
1612		A Polish army that invaded Russia capitulates to Prince Dimitri Pojarski and his Cossacks.
1806		Emperor Napoleon enters Berlin.
1809		President James Madison orders the annexation of the western part of West Florida. Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority.
1862		A Confederate force is routed at the Battle of Georgia Landing, near Bayou Lafourche in Louisiana.
1870		The French fortress of Metz surrenders to the Prussian Army.
1873		Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of barbed wire.
1891		D. B. Downing, inventor, is awarded a patent for the street letter (mail) box.
1904		The New York subway officially opens running from the Brooklyn Bridge uptown to Broadway at 145th Street.
1907		The first trial in the Eulenberg Affair ends in Germany.
1917		20,000 women march in a suffrage parade in New York. As the largest state and the first on the East Coast to do so, New York has an important effect on the movement to grant all women the vote in all elections.
1922		In Italy, liberal Luigi Facta's cabinet resigns after threats from Mussolini that "either the government will be given to us or we will seize it by marching on Rome." Mussolini calls for a general mobilization of all Fascists.
1927		Fox Movie-tone news, the first sound news film, is released.
1941		In a broadcast to the nation on Navy Day, President Franklin Roosevelt declares: "America has been attacked, the shooting has started." He does not ask for full-scale war yet, realizing that many Americans are not yet ready for such a step.
1962		Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev offers to remove Soviet missile bases in Cuba if the U.S. removes its missile bases in Turkey.