Today in History

1660		The first Shakespearian actress to appear on an English stage (she is believed to be a Ms. Norris) makes her debut as Desdemona.
1861		CSS Sumter captures the whaler Eben Dodge in the Atlantic. The American Civil War is now affecting the Northern whaling industry.
1863		Union General William Averell's cavalry destroys railroads in the southwestern part of West Virginia.
1914		The German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig are sunk by a British force in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
1920		President Woodrow Wilson declines to send a representative to the League of Nations in Geneva.
1932		Japan tells the League of Nations that it has no control over her designs in China.
1941		Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita begins his attack against the British army at Singapore.
1943		U.S. carrier-based planes sink two cruisers and down 72 planes in the Marshall Islands.
1944		The United States conducts the longest, most effective air raid on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima.
1948		The United Nations approves the recognition of South Korea.
1967		In the biggest battle yet in the Mekong Delta, 365 Viet Cong are killed.
1968		South Vietnam's Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky arrives in Paris for peace talks.
1980		John Lennon is shot to death outside his Manhattan apartment building.
1982		The Washington, D.C., police shoot and kill a man threatening to blow up the Washington Monument.
1987		The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed.
1987		An Israeli army tank transporter kills 4 Palestinian refugees and injures 7 others during a traffic accident at the Erez Crossing on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, leading to the First Intifada.
1991		The leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine sign an agreement that dissolves the Soviet Union and establishes the Commonwealth of Independent States.
2004		The Cuzco Declaration signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.
2010		SpaceX becomes the first privately held company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft.
2010		The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus.