Today in History

1492		Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.
1576		Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximilian II, as Holy Roman Emperor.
1609		The song “Three Blind Mice” is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song.
1702		Admiral Sir George Rooke defeats the French fleet off Vigo.
1722		Shah Sultan Husayn surrenders the Persian capital of Isfahan to Afghan rebels after a seven month siege.
1809		Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, dies under mysterious circumstances in Tennessee.
1899		The Anglo-Boer War begins.
1872		Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in Arizona Territory.
1915		Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.
1933		Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison.
1943		The U.S. Fifth Army begins an assault crossing of the Volturno River in Italy.
1949		Eugenie Anderson becomes the first woman U.S. ambassador.
1960		Inejiro Asanuma, leaders of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.
1964		1964 USSR launches Voskhod I, first spacecraft with multi-person crew; it is also the first mission in which the crew does not wear space suits.
1970		Nixon announces the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in Vietnam by Xmas.
1971		The House of Representatives passes the Equal Rights Amendment 354-23.
1984		The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates at bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; 5 others are killed and 31 wounded.
1994		NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus.
1999		Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf seizes power in Pakistan through a bloodless military coup.
2000		Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members are killed and over 35 are wounded.
2002		Terrorist bombers kill over 200 and wound over 300 more at the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali