Today in History

1190   Frederick Barbarossa drowns in a river while leading an army of the Third Crusade.  
1692   Bridget Bishop is hanged in Salem, Mass., for witchcraft.  
1776   The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.  
1801   Tripoli declares war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute.  
1854   The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, holds its first graduation.  
1861   Dorothea Dix is appointed superintendent of female nurses for the Union army.  
1864   At the Battle of Brice's Crossroads in Mississippi, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats the numerically superior Union troops.  
1898   U.S. Marines land in Cuba.  
1905   Japan and Russia agree to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.  
1909   An SOS signal is transmitted for the first time in an emergency when the Cunard liner SS Slavonia is wrecked off the Azores.  
1916   Mecca, under control of the Turks, falls to the Arabs during the Great Arab Revolt.  
1920   The Republican convention in Chicago endorses woman suffrage.  
1924   The Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is kidnapped and assassinated by Fascists in Rome. 1925   Tennessee adopts a new biology text book denying the theory of evolution.  
1940   The Norwegian army capitulates to the Germans.  
1942   Germany razes the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and kills more than 1,300 citizens in retribution of the murder of Reinhard Heydrich.  
1943   The Allies begin bombing Germany around the clock.  
1944   The U.S. VII and V corps, advancing from Normandy's beaches, link up and begin moving inland. 1948   The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager, piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. 1963   Buddhist monk Ngo Quang Duc dies by self immolation in Saigon to protest persecution by the Diem government.
1970   A 15-man group of special forces troops begin training for Operation Kingpin, a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam. 1985   The Israeli army pulls out of Lebanon after 1,099 days of occupation. 1999  Serb forces begin their withdrawl from Kosovo after signing an agreement with the NATO powers.