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.