Today in History

1219		The port of Damietta falls to the Crusaders after a siege.
1556		The Emperor Akbar defeats the Hindus at Panipat and secures control of the Mogul Empire.
1605		Guy Fawkes is betrayed and arrested in an attempt to blow up the British Parliament in the "Gunpowder Plot." Ever since, England has celebrated Guy Fawkes Day.
1653		The Iroquois League signs a peace treaty with the French, vowing not to wage war with other tribes under French protection.
1757		Frederick II of Prussia defeats the French at Rosbach in the Seven Years War.
1768		William Johnson, the northern Indian Commissioner, signs a treaty with the Iroquois Indians to acquire much of the land between the Tennessee and Ohio rivers for future settlement.
1814		Having decided to abandon the Niagara frontier, the American army blows up Fort Erie.
1840		Afghanistan surrenders to the British army.
1854		British and French defeat the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.
1862		President Abraham Lincoln relieves General George McClellan of command of the Union armies and names Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1872		Susan B. Anthony is arrested for trying to vote.
1911		Calbraith P. Rodgers ends first transcontinental flight–49 days from New York to Pasadena, Calif.
1912		Woodrow Wilson is elected 28th president of the United States.
1914		France and Great Britain declare war on Turkey.
1917		General John Pershing leads U.S. troops into the first American action against German forces.
1930		Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Babbit.
1935		Parker Brothers company launches "Monopoly," a game of real estate and capitalism.
1940		President Franklin D. Roosevelt is re-elected for third term.
1968		Richard Nixon is elected 37th president of the United States.
1968		Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first elected African American woman to serve in the House of Representatives.
1995		Andre Dallaire's attempt to assassinate Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is foiled when the minister's wife locks the door.
2003		Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, pleads guilty to 48 counts of murder.
2006		Former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, along with Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, is sentenced to death for the massacre of 148 Shi'a Muslims in 1982.
2007		Chang'e 1, China's first lunar satellite, begins its orbit of the moon.
2009		The deadliest mass shooting at a US military installation occurs at Fort Hood, Texas, when US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 29.