Today in History

1618		Johannes Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion.
1702		Queen Anne becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III.
1790		George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.
1853		The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington, D.C.
1855		The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.
1862		On the second day of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Confederate forces, including some Indian troops, under General Earl Van Dorn surprise Union troops, but the Union troops win the battle.
1862		The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched.
1880		President Rutherford B. Hayes declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the Isthmus of Panama.
1904		The Bundestag in Germany lifts the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.
1908		The House of Commons, London, turns down the women’s suffrage bill.
1909		Pope Pius X lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.
1910		Baroness de Laroche becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license in France.
1921		Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato is assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.
1921		French troops occupy Dusseldorf.
1941		Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
1942		Japanese troops capture Rangoon, Burma.
1943		Japanese forces attack American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle will last five days.
1945		Phyllis Mae Daley receives a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She will become the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.
1948		The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.
1954		France and Vietnam open talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.
1961		Max Conrad circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in Piper Aztec.
1965		More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.
1966		Australia announces that it will triple the number of troops in Vietnam.
1970		The Nixon junta discloses the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos.
1973		Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people.
1982		The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.
1985		Thomas Creighton dies after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period.