Today in History

1327   King Edward II of England is deposed.  
1558   The French, under the Duke of Guise, finally take the port of Calais from the English.  
1785   Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American Dr. John Jeffries make the first crossing of the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon.  
1807   Responding to Napoleon Bonaparte's attempted blockade of the British Isles, the British blockade Continental Europe.
1865   Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.
1901   New York stock exchange trading exceeds two million shares for the first time in history.  
1902   Imperial Court of China returns to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumes her reign.  
1918   The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.  
1934   Six thousand pastors in Berlin defy the Nazis insisting that they will not be silenced.  
1944   The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet.  
1945   U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. is killed in the Pacific.  
1952   French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.  
1955   Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House.  
1975   Vietnamese troops take Phuoc Binh in new full-scale offensive.
1979   Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge are overthrown when Vietnamese troops seize the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.  
1980   US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation providing $1.5 billion in loans to salvage Chrysler Corporation.  
1985   Vietnam seizes the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai border.
1985   Japan launches its first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, the first deep space probe launched by any nation other than the US or the USSR.  
1989   Prince Akihito sworn in as Emperor of Japan, following the death of his father, Hirohito.  
1990   Safety concerns over structural problems force the Leaning Tower of Pisa to be closed to the public.  1993   The Bosnian Army carries out a surprise attack on the village of Kravica in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.  
1999   The impeachment trial of US President Bill Clinton opens in the US Senate.