Today in History

991		Danes under Olaf Tryggvason kill Ealdorman Byrhtnoth and defeat the Saxons at Maldon.
1492		Rodrigo Borgia is elected to the papacy as Pope Alexander VI.
1792		A revolutionary commune is formed in Paris, France.
1856		A band of rampaging settlers in California kill four Yokut Indians. The settlers had heard unproven rumors of Yokut atrocities.
1862		Lincoln appoints Union General Henry Halleck to the position of general in chief of the Union Army.
1904		German General Lothar von Trotha defeats the Hereros tribe near Waterberg, South Africa.
1906		In France, Eugene Lauste receives the first patent for a talking film.
1908		Britain’s King Edward VII meets with Kaiser Wilhelm II to protest the growth of the German navy.
1912		Moroccan Sultan Mulai Hafid abdicates his throne in the face of internal dissent.
1916		The Russia army takes Stanislau, Poland, from the Germans.
1929		Babe Ruth hits his 500th major league home run against the Cleveland Indians.
1941		Soviet bombers raid Berlin but cause little damage.
1942		The German submarine U-73 attacks a Malta-bound British convoy and sinks HMS Eagle, one of the world’s first aircraft carriers.
1944		German troops abandon Florence, Italy, as Allied troops close in on the historic city.
1965		A small clash between the California Highway Patrol and two black youths sets off six days of rioting in the Watts area of Los Angeles.
1972		The last U.S. ground forces withdraw from Vietnam.
1975		US vetoes admission of North and South Vietnam to UN.
1978		Funeral of Pope Paul VI.
1984		Carl Lewis wins four Olympic gold medals, tying the record Jesse Owens set in 1936.
1988		Al Qaeda formed at a meeting in Peshawar, Pakistan.
1989		Voyager 2 discovers two partial rings around Neptune.
1990		Troops from Egypt and Morocco arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of the international operation to prevent Iraq from invading.
1999		A tornado in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, kills one person.
2003		Temperatures rise to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius); over 140 people die in the heat wave.
2003		NATO assumes command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, its first major operation outside Europe.