Today in History

1791   Congress passes a resolution authorizing the U.S. Mint; legislation creating the mint will be passed on Apr. 2, 1792.  
1803   The first impeachment trial of a U.S. Judge, John Pickering, begins.  
1817   The first commercial steamboat route from Louisville to New Orleans is opened.  
1845   Florida becomes the 27th U.S. state.
1857   Under pretexts, Britain and France declare war on China.  
1861   The serfs of Russia are emancipated by Alexander II as part of a program of westernization.  
1863   President Abraham Lincoln signs the conscription act compelling U.S. citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.00.  
1877   Rutherford B. Hays, the republican governor of Ohio is elected president, his election confirmed by an electoral commission after disputed election the previous November.
1878   Russia and the Ottomans sign the treaty of Stenafano, granting independence to Serbia.  
1905   The Russian Czar agrees to create an elected assembly.
1918   The Soviets and Germany sign a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk depriving the Soviets of White Russia.   
1919   Boeing flies the first U.S. international airmail from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington.
1923   The first issue of Time magazine is published. It's editor, Henry R. Luce, is just out of Yale.  
1931   President Herbert Hoover signs a bill that makes Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem.  
1939   In Bombay, Gandhi begins a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.  
1940   A Nazi air raid kills 108 on a British liner in the English Channel.  
1941   Moscow denounces the Axis rule in Bulgaria.  
1942   The RAF raids the industrial suburbs of Paris.
1945   Finland declares war on the Axis.  
1952   The U.S. Supreme Court upholds New York's Feinberg Law banning Communist teachers in the United States.  
1969   Sirhan Sirhan testifies in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.  
1973   Japan discloses its first defense plan since World War II.  
1999   Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky appears on national television to explain her affair with President Bill Clinton.