Today in History

1588		The Spanish Armada, which attempted to invade England, is destroyed by a British fleet.
1776		The British occupy Manhattan.
1788		An alliance between Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands is ratified at the Hague.
1858		The Butterfield Overland Mail Company begins delivering mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. The company’s motto is: “Remember, boys, nothing on God’s earth must stop the United States mail!”
1862		Confederates capture Harpers Ferry, securing the rear of Robert E. Lee‘s forces in Maryland.
1891		The Dalton gang holds up a train and takes $2,500 at Wagoner, Oklahoma.
1914		President Woodrow Wilson orders the Punitive Expedition out of Mexico. The Expedition, headed by General John Pershing, had been searching for Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary.
1916		Armored tanks are introduced by the British during the Battle of the Somme.
1928		Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers, by accident, that the mold penicillin has an antibiotic effect.
1935		In Berlin, the Reich under Adolf Hitler adopts the swastika as the national flag.
1937		Prime Minister of England Neville Chamberlain flies to Germany to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia with Adolf Hitler.
1939		The Polish submarine Orzel arrives in Tallinn, Estonia, after escaping the German invasion of Poland.
1940		The desperate Battle of Britain reaches its climax after the Luftwaffe is decisively repulsed by the RAF, suffering severe losses. While German bombing raids on British cities continues well into May the following year, Britain remains firmly in control of its skies and Adolf Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion, the proposed invasion of the United Kingdom, indefinitely.
1950		U.N. Forces, lead by the U.S. Marine Corps, invade occupied Korea at the port of Inchon. Considered the greatest amphibious attack in history, it is the zenith of General Douglas MacArthur‘s career.
1959		Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the US.
1961		Hurricane Carla comes ashore in Texas, the second-most powerful storm ever to make landfall in that state.
1963		Four young African-American girls are killed by the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama.
1966		US President Lyndon Johnson urges Congress to adopt gun control legislation in the wake of Charles Whitman’s sniper attack from the University of Texas’s Texas Tower; in all, Whitman shot and killed 15 people before being shot dead himself by an Austin police officer.
1968		The USSR launches Zond 5, which becomes the first spaceship to orbit the moon and reenter Earth’s atmosphere.
1971		The environmental group Greenpeace is founded.
1981		Sandra Day O’Connor is unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee to become the first female justice on the US Supreme Court.
1983		Menachem Begin resigns as premier of Israel.
1990		France announces it will send 4,000 troops to join those of other nations assembling in the Persian Gulf to protect Saudi Arabia and force Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein to withdraw troops from occupied Kuwait.
1998		MCI WorldCom begins operations after a landmark merger between World Com and MCI Communications.
2004		National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman announces a lockout of the players’ union.
2008		The largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in US history is filed by Lehman Brothers financial services firm.