Today in History

1753   George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivers an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain's claim to the entire Ohio River valley.  
1770   The British soldiers responsible for the "Boston Massacre" are acquitted on murder charges.  
1862   The Union loses its first ship to a torpedo, USS Cairo, in the Yazoo River.  
1863   Orders are given in Richmond, Virginia, that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.  
1901   Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio transmission in St. John's Newfoundland.  
1927   Communists forces seize Canton, China.  
1930   The Spanish Civil War begins as rebels take a border town.  
1930   The last Allied troops withdraw from the Saar region in Germany.  
1931   Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigns as president of the Nanking Government but remains the head of the Nationalist government that holds nominal rule over most of China.
 1943   The German Army launches Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad.  
1943   The exiled Czech government signs a treaty with the Soviet Union for postwar cooperation.  
1956   The United Nations calls for immediate Soviet withdrawal from Hungary.  
1964   Kenya becomes a republic.  
1964   Three Buddhist leaders begin a hunger strike to protest the government in Saigon.  
1967   The United States ends the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.
1979   South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan, acting without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa, alleging that the chief of staff was involved in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.
1985   Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland; among the 256 dead are 236 members of the US Army's 101st Airborne Division.  
1991   The Russian Federation becomes independent from the USSR.
1995   Willie Brown beats incumbent mayor Frank Jordon to become the first African-American mayor of San Francisco.
 2000   The US Supreme Court announces its decision in the shrub v. Gore, effectively ending legal changes to the results of that year's Presidential election.