Today in History

1399		Richard II is deposed.
1568		Eric XIV, king of Sweden, is deposed after showing signs of madness.
1630		John Billington, one of the original pilgrims who sailed to the New World on the Mayflower, becomes the first man executed in the English colonies. He is hanged for having shot another man during a quarrel
1703		The French, at Hochstadt in the War of the Spanish Succession, suffer only 1,000 casualties to the 11,000 of their opponents, the Austrians of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I.
1791		Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute is performed for the first time in Vienna
1846		The first anesthetized tooth extraction is performed by Dr. William Morton in Charleston, Massachusetts.
1864		Confederate troops fail to retake Fort Harrison from the Union forces during the siege of Petersburg.
1911		Italy declares war on Turkey over control of Tripoli.
1918		Bulgaria pulls out of World War I.
1927		Babe Ruth hits his 60th homerun of the season off Tom Zachary in Yankee Stadium, New York City.
1935		George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess opens at the Colonial Theatre in Boston.
1938		Under German threats of war, Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign an accord permitting Germany to take control of Sudetenland–a region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a German-speaking minority.
1939		The French Army is called back into France from its invasion of Germany. The attack, code named Operation Saar, only penetrated five miles.
1943		The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps becomes the Women’s Army Corps, a regular contingent of the U.S. Army with the same status as other army service corps.
1949		The Berlin Airlift is officially halted after 277,264 flights.
1950		U.N. forces cross the 38th parallel separating North and South Korea as they pursue the retreating North Korean Army.
1954		The first atomic-powered submarine, the Nautilus, is commissioned in Groton, Connecticut.
1954		NATO nations agree to arm and admit West Germany.
1955		Actor and teen idol James Dean is killed in a car crash while driving his Porsche on his way to enter it into a race in Salinas, California.
1960		Fifteen African nations are admitted to the United Nations.
1962		U.S. Marshals escort James H. Meredith into the University of Mississippi; two die in the mob violence that follows.
1965		President Lyndon Johnson signs legislation that establishes the National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities.
1965		The 30 September Movement unsuccessfully attempts coup against Indonesian government; an anti-communist purge in the aftermath results in over 500,000 deaths.
1966		Bechuanaland ceases to be a British protectorate and becomes the independent Republic of Botswana.
1972		Pro baseball great Roberto Clemente hits his 3,000th—and final—hit of his career.
1975		The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter makes its first flight.
1994		Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground transit system closes after 88 years.
1999		Japan’s second-worst nuclear accident occurs at a uranium processing facility in Tokai-mura, killing two technicians.
2009		Earthquakes in Sumatra kill more than 1,115 people.