Today in History

1540		Henry VIII of England marries Catherine Howard; Thomas Cromwell is beheaded on Tower Hill in England.
1615		French explorer Samuel de Champlain discovers Lake Huron on his seventh voyage to the New World.
1794		Robespierre is beheaded in France.
1808		Sultan Mustapha of the Ottoman Empire is deposed and his cousin Mahmud II gains the throne.
1835		King Louis-Philippe of France survives an assassination attempt.
1863		Confederate General John Mosby begins a series of attacks against General Meade’s Army of the Potomac.
1868		The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the United States, is adopted.
1898		Spain, through the offices of the French embassy in Washington, D.C., requests peace terms in its war with the United States.
1914		Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, beginning World War I.
1920		Pancho Villa surrenders to the Mexican government.
1932		The Bonus Army of impoverished World War I veterans is violently pushed out of Washington, D.C.
1941		A Japanese army lands on the coast of Cochin, China (modern day Vietnam).
1945		A B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building in New York City, killing 13 people.
1965		President Lyndon Johnson sends an additional 50,000 troops to South Vietnam.
1988		Israeli diplomats arrive in Moscow for the first time in 21 years.
1990		A fire at an electrical substation causes a blackout in Chicago. Some 40,000 people were without power for up to three days.
1996		Discovery of remains of a prehistoric man near Kennewick, Washington, casts doubts on accepted beliefs of when, how and where the Americas were populated.
2005		Irish Republican Army (IRA) announces an end to its 30-year armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
2005		Britain experiences its most costly tornado to date, causing 40 million Sterling Pounds of damage to Birmingham in just four minutes. There were no fatalities.