Today in History

1486		Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York.
1701		Frederick III, the elector of Brandenburg, becomes king of Prussia.
1778		Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, naming them the ‘Sandwich Islands’ after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.
1836		Jim Bowie arrives at the Alamo to assist its Texas defenders.
1862		John Tyler, former president of the U.S., is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
1902		The Isthmus Canal Commission in Washington shifts its support from Nicaragua to Panama as a favored canal site.
1910		Aviator Eugene Ely performs his first successful take off and landing from a ship in San Francisco.
1916		The Russians force the Turkish 3rd Army back to Erzurum.
1942		General MacArthur repels the Japanese in Bataan. The United States takes the lead in the Far East war criminal trials.
1945		The German Army launches its second attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest from the advancing Red Army.
1948		Gandhi breaks a 121-hour fast after halting Muslim-Hindu riots.
1962		The United States begins spraying foliage with herbicides in South Vietnam, in order to reveal the whereabouts of Vietcong guerrillas.
1964		Plans are disclosed for the World Trade Center in New York.
1978		The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) isolate the cause of Legionnaire’s disease.
1991		Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israeli cities.