Today in History

1306		King Wenceslas of Poland is murdered.
1570		Charles IX of France signs the Treaty of St. Germain, ending the third war of religion and giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.
1636		The invading armies of Spain, Austria and Bavaria are stopped at the village of St.-Jean-de-Losne, only 50 miles from France.
1648		Ibrahim, the sultan of Istanbul, is thrown into prison, then assassinated.
1786		Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard become the first men to climb Mont Blanc in France.
1844		Brigham Young is chosen to head the Mormon Church, succeeding Joseph Smith.
1863		Confederate President Jefferson Davis refuses General Robert E. Lee‘s resignation.
1876		Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph.
1899		The first household refrigerating machine is patented.
1925		The first national congress of the Ku Klux Klan opens.
1937		The Japanese Army occupies Beijing.
1940		The German Luftwaffe attacks Great Britain for the first time, beginning the Battle of Britain.
1942		U.S. Marines capture the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.
1944		U.S. forces complete the capture of the Marianas Islands.
1945		The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
1950		U.S. troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the Battle of Naktong Bulge, which continued for 10 days.
1963		England’s “Great Train Robbery;” 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen
1974		Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal.
1978		Pioneer-Venus 2 is launched to probe the atmosphere of Venus.
1979		Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein executes 22 political opponents.
1983		Brigadier General Efrain Rios Montt is deposed as president of Guatemala in the country’s second military coup in 17 months.
1988		Angola, Cuba and South Africa sign a cease-fire treaty in the border war that began in 1966.
1989		NASA Space Shuttle Columbia begins its eighth flight, NASA’s 30th shuttle mission.
1990		Iraq annexes the state of Kuwait as its 19th province, six days after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait.
2000		The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to surface, 136 years after it sank following its successful attack on USS Housatonic in the outer harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
2007		An EF2 tornado hits Brooklyn, New York, the first in that borough since 1889.
2008		Georgia invades South Ossetia, touching off a five-day war between Georgia and Russia.