Today in History

1513   Pope Julius II dies. He will lay in rest in a huge tomb sculptured by Michelangelo.
1725   New Hampshire militiamen partake in the first recorded scalping of Indians by whites in North America.  
1792   The U.S. Postal Service is created.
1809   The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state in the Union.  
1831   Polish revolutionaries defeat the Russians in the Battle of Growchow.
1864   Confederate troops defeat a Union army sent to bring Florida into the union at the Battle of Olustee, Fla.  
1900   J.F. Pickering patents his airship.  
1906   Russian troops seize large portions of Mongolia.  
1915   President Woodrow Wilson opens the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.  
1918   The Soviet Red Army seizes Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine.
1938   Hitler demands self-determination for Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia.  
1941   The United States sends war planes to the Pacific.  
1942   Lt. Edward O'Hare downs five out of nine Japanese bombers that are attacking the carrier Lexington.  
1943   German troops of the Afrika Korps break through the Kasserine Pass, defeating U.S. forces.  
1954   The Ford Foundation gives a $25 million grant to the Fund for Advancement of Education.  
1959   The FCC applies the equal time rule to TV newscasts of political candidates.  
1962   Mercury astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.  
1963   Moscow offers to allow on-site inspection of nuclear testing.  
1965   Ranger 8 hits the moon and sends back 7,000 photos to the United States.  
1968   North Vietnamese army chief in Hue orders all looters to be shot on sight.  
1971   Young people protest having to cut their long hair in Athens, Greece.  
1982   Carnegie Hall in New York begins $20 million in renovations.