Today in History

1760   Major Roger Rogers takes possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain.  
1787   Louis XVI promulgates an edict of tolerance, granting civil status to Protestants.  
1812   The last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armee retreats across the Beresina River in Russia.  
1863   The Battle of Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ends with a Confederate withdrawal.
1864   Colonel John M. Chivington's 3rd Colorado Volunteers massacre Black Kettles' camp of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek, Colo.
1903   An Inquiry into the U.S. Postal Service demonstrates the government has lost millions in fraud.  
1923   An international commission headed by American banker Charles Dawes is set up to investigate the German economy.  
1929   Commander Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole.  
1931   The Spanish government seizes large estates for land redistribution.
1939   Soviet planes bomb an airfield at Helsinki, Finland.  
1948   The Metropolitan Opera is televised for the first time as the season opens with "Othello."
1948   The popular children's television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres.  
1949   The United States announces it will conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.  
1961   NASA launches a chimpanzee named Enos into Earth orbit.  
1962   Algeria bans the Communist Party.
1963   President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Chief Justice Earl Warren head of a commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  
1967   US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.  
1972   Atari announces the release of Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
2007   Armed forces of the Philippines besiege The Peninsula Manila in response to a mutiny led by Senator Antonio Trillanes.