Today in History

1349   Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.  
1613   Mikhail Romanov is elected czar of Russia.  
1732   George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia.  
1797   The last invasion of Britain takes place when some 1,400 Frenchmen land at Fishguard in Wales.  
1819   Spain signs a treaty with the United States ceding eastern Florida.  
1825   Russia and Britain establish the Alaska/Canada boundary.  
1862   Jefferson Davis is inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the second time.  
1864   Nathan Bedford Forrest's brother, Jeffrey, is killed at Okolona, Mississippi.  
1865   Federal troops capture Wilmington, N.C.
1879   Frank Winfield Woolworth's 'nothing over five cents' shop opens at Utica, New York. It is the first chain store.  
1902   A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.  
1909   The Great White Fleet returns to Norfolk, Virginia, from an around-the-world show of naval power.  
1911   Canadian Parliament votes to preserve the union with the British Empire.  
1920   The American Relief Administration appeals to the public to pressure Congress to aid starving European cities.  
1924   Columbia University declares radio education a success.
1926   Pope Pius rejects Mussolini's offer of aid to the Vatican.  
1932   Adolf Hitler is the Nazi Party candidate for the presidential elections in Germany.
1935   All plane flights over the White House are barred because they are disturbing President Roosevelt's sleep.  
1942   President Franklin Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave the Philippines.  
1951   The Atomic Energy Commission discloses information about the first atom-powered airplane.  
1952   French forces evacuate Hoa Binh in Indochina.  
1954   U.S. is to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.  
1962   A Soviet bid for new Geneva arms talks is turned down by the U.S.
1963   Moscow warns the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.  
1967   Operation Junction City becomes the largest U.S. operation in Vietnam.  
1984   Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf following an Iranian offensive against Iraq.