Today in History

1642   York, Maine becomes the first incorporated American city.  
1692   Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are arrested for the supposed practice of witchcraft in Salem, Mass.  
1776   French minister Charles Gravier advises his Spanish counterpart to support the American rebels against the English.
1780   Pennsylvania becomes the first U.S. state to abolish slavery.  
1803   Ohio becomes the 17th state to join the Union.  
1808   In France, Napoleon creates an imperial nobility.  
1815   Napoleon lands at Cannes, France, returning from exile on Elba, with a force of 1,500 men and marches on Paris.  
1871   German troops enter Paris, France, during the Franco-Prussian War.  
1875   Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which is invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883.  
1912   Albert Berry completes the first in-flight parachute jump, from a Benoist plane over Kinlock Field in St. Louis, Missouri.  
1915   The Allies announce their aim to cut off all German supplies and assure the safety of the neutrals.  
1919   The Korean coalition proclaims their independence from Japan.  
1921   The Allies reject a $7.5 billion reparations offer in London. German delegations decides to quit all talks.  
1932   The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped from the Lindbergh home near Princeton, New Jersey.  
1935   Germany officially establishes the Luftwaffe.  
1941   Bulgaria joins the Axis as the Nazis occupy Sofia.  
1942   Japanese troops land on Java in the Pacific.  
1943   The British RAF conducts strategic bombing raids on all European railway lines.  
1960   1,000 Black students pray and sing the national anthem on the steps of the old Confederate Capitol in Montgomery, Ala.  
1968   Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is replaced by Clark Clifford.  
1969   Mickey Mantle announces his retirement from baseball.  
1974   A grand jury indicts seven of President Nixon's aides for the conspiracy on Watergate.
1985   The Pentagon accepts the theory that an atomic war would block the sun, causing a "nuclear winter."
1992  Bosnian Serbs begin sniping in Sarajevo, after Croats and Moslems vote for Bosnian independence.