Today in History

1155   German-born Frederick I, Barbarossa, is crowned emperor of Rome.  
1667   The Dutch fleet sails up the Thames River and threatens London.  
1778   British troops evacuate Philadelphia.  
1812   The War of 1812 begins when the United States declares war against Great Britain.  
1815   At the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon is defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington.  
1863   After repeated acts of insubordination, General Ulysses S. Grant relieves General John McClernand during the siege of Vicksburg.  
1864   At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realizes the town can no longer be taken by assault and settles into a siege.  
1873   Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote for president.
1918   Allied forces on the Western Front begin their largest counter-attack yet against the German army. 1928   Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane.  
1936   Mobster Charles 'Lucky' Luciano is found guilty on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution.  
1942   The U.S. Navy commissions its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.  
1944   The U.S. First Army breaks through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cuts off the German-held port of Cherbourg.  
1945   Organized Japanese resistance ends on the island of Mindanao.  
1951   General Vo Nguyen Giap ends his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina.
1953   South Korean President Syngman Rhee releases Korean non-repatriate POWs against the will of the United Nations.  
1959   A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration.  
1966   Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission.  
1979   President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the Salt II pact to limit nuclear arms.  
1983   Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.