Today in History

1657		France and England form an alliance against Spain.
1743		Handel’s Messiah is performed for the first time in London.
1775		American revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, while addressing the House of Burgesses, declares “give me liberty, or give me death!”
1791		Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman’s rights, sets up a group of women’s clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.
1848		Hungary proclaims its independence of Austria.
1857		Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.
1858		Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables.
1862		Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson faces his only defeat at the Battle of Kernstown, Va
1880		John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 percent.
1901		A group of U.S. Army soldiers, led by Brigadier General Frederick Funston, capture Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.
1903		The Wright brothers obtain an airplane patent.
1909		British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole.
1909		Theodore Roosevelt begins an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
1917		Austrian Emperor Charles I makes a peace proposal to French President Poincare.
1920		Great Britain denounces the United States because of its delay in joining the League of Nations.
1921		Arthur G. Hamilton sets a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
1927		Captain Hawthorne Gray sets a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
1933		The Reichstag gives Adolf Hitler the power to rule by decree.
1942		The Japanese occupy the Anadaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
1951		U.S. paratroopers descend from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea.
1956		Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, although it is still within the British Commonwealth.
1967		Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement.
1970		Mafia boss Carlo Gambino is arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.
1972		The United States calls a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.
1981		U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.