Today in History

1350		While besieging Gibraltar, Alfonso XI of Castile dies of the black death.
1512		Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights Florida.
1794		The U.S. government establishes a permanent navy with the authorization to build six frigates.
1802		The Treaty of Amiens is signed, ending the French Revolutionary War.
1814		U.S. troops under Gen. Andrew Jackson inflict a crushing defeat on the Creek Indians at Horshoe Bend in Northern Alabama.
1836		The Mexican army massacres Texan rebels at Goliad.
1866		President Andrew Johnson vetoes the civil rights bill, which later becomes the 14th amendment.
1884		The first long-distance telephone call is made from Boston to New York.
1899		The Italian inventor G. Marconi achieves the first international radio transmission between England and France.
1900		The London Parliament passes the War Loan Act, which gives 35 million pounds to the Boer War cause.
1912		The first cherry blossom trees, a gift from Japan, are planted in Washington, D.C.
1933		Some 55,000 people stage a protest against Hitler in New York.
1941		Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Oahu, Hawaii, to begin spying for Japan on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.
1942		The British raid the Nazi submarine base at St. Nazaire, France.
1944		One thousand Jews leave Drancy, France for the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1944		Thousands of Jews are murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Gestapo shoots forty Jewish policemen in the Riga, Latvia ghetto.
1945		General Dwight Eisenhower declares that the German defenses on the Western Front have been broken.
1952		Elements of the U.S. Eighth Army reach the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.
1958		The United States announces a plan to explore space near the moon.
1976		Washington, D.C. opens its subway system.
1977		In aviation’s worst disaster yet, 582 die when a KLM Pan Am 747 crashes.