Today in History

1477		Swiss troops defeat the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
1815		Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, draw up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.
1861		The merchant vessel Star of the West sets sail from New York to Fort Sumter, in response to rebel attack, carrying supplies and 250 troops.
1904		American Marines arrive in Seoul, Korea, to guard the U.S. legation there.
1914		Henry Ford astounds the world as he announces that he will pay a minimum wage of $5 a day and will share with employees $10 million in the previous year’s profits.
1917		Bulgarian and German troops occupy the Port of Braila.
1919		British ships shell the Bolshevik headquarters in Riga.
1920		GOP women demand equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
1921		Wagner’s “Die Walkyrie” opens in Paris. This is the first German opera performed in Paris since the beginning of World War I.
1923		The U.S. Senate debates the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian.
1925		Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States.
1936		Daggha Bur, Ethiopia, is bombed by the Italians.
1942		U.S. and Filipino troops complete their withdrawal to a new defensive line along the base of the Bataan peninsula.
1947		Great Britain nationalizes its coal mines.
1951		Inchon, South Korea, the site of General Douglas MacArthur’s amphibious flanking maneuver, is abandoned by United Nations force to the advancing Chinese Army.
1952		Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington to confer with President Harry S. Truman.
1968		U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine base at Khe Sanh.
1969		Nixon appoints Henry Cabot Lodge as negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks.
1971		Nixon names Robert Dole as chairman of the Wingnut National Cabal.
1982		A Federal judge voids a state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.
1991		The South Ossetia War (1991-92) begins as Georgian forces enter Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia, Georgia.
2005		Eris, largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System is discovered in images taken Oct. 21, 2003, at Palomar Observatory.