Today in History

452   Attila the Hun invades Italy.  
632   Mohammed, the founder of Islam and unifier of Arabia, dies.  
793   The Vikings raid the Northumbrian coast of England.  
1861   Tennessee votes to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.  
1862   The Army of the Potomac defeats Confederate forces at Battle of Cross Keys, Virginia.  
1863   Residents of Vicksburg flee into caves as General Ulysses S. Grant's army begins shelling the town. 1866   Prussia annexes the region of Holstein.  
1904   U.S. Marines land in Tangiers, Morocco, to protect U.S. citizen.  
1908   King Edward VII of England visits Czar Nicholas II of Russia in an effort to improve relations between the two countries.  
1915   William Jennings Bryan quits as Secretary of State under President Wilson.  
1953   The Supreme Court forbids segregated lunch counters in Washington, D.C.  
1965   President Johnson authorizes commanders in Vietnam to commit U.S. ground forces to combat. 1966   Gemini astronaut Gene Cernan attempts to become the first man to orbit the Earth untethered to a space capsule, but is unable to when he exhausts himself fitting into his rocket pack.  
1967   Israel airplanes attack the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship, in the Mediterranean, killing 34 Navy crewmen.
1968   James Earl Ray, the alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., is captured at the London Airport. 1969   President Richard Nixon meets with President Thieu of South Vietnam to tell him 25,000 U.S. troops will pull out by August.  
1995  U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.