Today in History

1497		John Cabot returns to England after his first successful journey to the Labrador coast.
1863		The CSS Alabama captures the USS Sea Bride near the Cape of Good Hope.
1888		Martha Turner is murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in London, England.
1890		William Kemmler becomes the first man to be executed by the electric chair.
1904		The Japanese army in Korea surrounds a Russian army retreating to Manchuria.
1914		Ellen Louise Wilson, the first wife of the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, dies of Bright’s disease.
1927		A Massachusetts high court hears the final plea from Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italians convicted of murder.
1942		The Soviet city of Voronezh falls to the German army.
1945		Paul Tibbets, the commander of Enola Gay, drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It was the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, that induced the Japanese to surrender.
1962		Jamaica becomes independent, after 300 years of British rule.
1965		President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South.
1972		Atlanta Braves’ right fielder Hank Aaron hits his 660th and 661st home runs, setting the Major League record for most home runs by a player for a single franchise.
1973		Singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder is in an automobile accident and goes into a four-day coma.
1979		Twelve-year-old Marcus Hooper becomes the youngest person to swim the English Channel.
1981		Argentina’s ex-resident Isabel Peron freed from house arrest.
1988		A melee that became known as the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City leads to NYPD reforms.
1991		Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first-ever website, Info.cern.ch.
1993		John Paul II publishes “Veritatis splendor encyclical,” regarding fundamentals of the catholic cult’s role in immoral teachings.
1997		Microsoft announces it will invest $150 million in troubled rival Apple Computer, Inc.
2012		New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro erupts for the first time since 1897.