Today in History

375   Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian, the Emperor of the West, dies of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe.  
1558   Queen Elizabeth ascends to the throne of England.  
1558   The cult of England is re-established.  
1636   Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.  
1796   Napoleon Bonaparte defeats an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy.  
1800   The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convenes for the first time in Washington, D.C.  
1842   A grim abolitionist meeting is held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts.
 1862   Union General Ambrose Burnside marches north out of Washington, D.C., to begin the Fredericksburg campaign.  
1869   The Suez Canal is formally opened.  
1877   Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.  
1885   The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.  
1903   Vladimir Lenin's efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits the party into two factions, the Bolsheviks, who support Lenin, and the Mensheviks.  
1913   The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  
1918   Influenza deaths reported in the United States have far exceeded World War I casualties.  
1918   German troops evacuate Brussels.  
1931   Charles Lindbergh inaugurates Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in the Sikorsky flying boat American Clipper.  
1941   German Luftwaffe general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet commits suicide. The Nazi government tells the public that he died in a flying accident.  
1951   Britain reports development of the world's first nuclear-powered heating system.  
1965   The NVA ambushes American troops of the 7th Cavalry at Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley, almost wiping them out.
1967   The American Surveyor 6 makes a six-second flight on the moon, the first liftoff on the lunar surface. 1970   Soviet unmanned Luna 17 touches down on the moon.  
1980   WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station.  
1986   Renault President Georges Besse is shot to death by leftists of the Direct Action Group in Paris.
1989   Student demonstration in Prague put down by riot police, leading to an uprising (the Velvet Revolution) that will topple the communist government on Dec. 29.  
1993   US House of Representatives passes resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement.  
1993   Gen. Sani Abacha leads a military coup in Nigeria that overthrows the government of Ernest Shonekan.  
2000   Controversial President of Peru Alberto Fujimori removed from office.