Today in History

451		Roman and barbarian warriors halt Attila’s army at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France.
1397		The Union of Kalmar unites Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch.
1756		Nearly 150 British soldiers are imprisoned in the ‘Black Hole’ cell of Calcutta. Most die.
1793		Eli Whitney applies for a cotton gin patent.
1819		The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic.
1837		18-year-old Victoria is crowned Queen of England.
1863		President Abraham Lincoln admits West Virginia into the Union as the 35th state.
1898		On the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the U.S. Navy seizes the island of Guam.
1901		Charlotte M. Manye of South Africa becomes the first native African to graduate from an American University.
1910		Mexican President Porfirio Diaz proclaims martial law and arrests hundreds.
1920		Race riots in Chicago, Illinois leave two dead and many wounded.
1923		France announces it will seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying her war debts.
1941		The U.S. Army Air Force is established, replacing the Army Air Corps.
1955		The AFL and CIO agree to combine names for a merged group.
1963		The United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow.
1964		General William Westmoreland succeeds General Paul Harkins as head of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
1967		Boxing champion Muhammad Ali is convicted of refusing induction into the American armed services.
1972		President Richard Nixon names General Creigton Abrams as Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
1999		NATO declares an official end to its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.