Today in History

1620		The Pilgrims sail from England on the Mayflower.
1668		King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.
1747		The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.
1789		Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L’Ami du Peuple.
1810		A revolution for independence breaks out in Mexico.
1864		Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest leads 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.
1889		Robert Younger, in Minnesota’s Stillwater Penitentiary for life, dies of tuberculosis. Brothers Cole and Bob remain in the prison.
1893		Some 50,000 “Sooners” claim land in the Cherokee Strip during the first day of the Oklahoma land rush.
1908		General Motors files papers of incorporation.
1920		Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York’s Wall Street financial district.
1934		Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage a protest in Munich.
1940		Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which calls for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
1942		The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.
1945		Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.
1950		The U.S. 8th Army breaks out of the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea and begins heading north to meet MacArthur’s troops heading south from Inchon.
1972		South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.
1974		Limited amnesty is offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.
1975		Administrators for Rhodes Scholarships announce the decision to begin offering fellowships to women.
1978		An earthquake estimated to be as strong as 7.9 on the Richter scale kills 25,000 people in Iran.
1991		The trial of Manuel Noriega, deposed dictator of Panama, begins in the United States.
1994		Britain’s government lifts the 1988 broadcasting ban against members of Ireland’s Sinn Fein and Irish paramilitary groups.
2007		Military contractors in the employ of Blackwater Worldwide allegedly kill 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, further straining relations between the US and the people of Iraq.