Today in History

1499		Pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck is executed.
1778		Indians, led by William Butler, massacre the inhabitants of Cherry Valley, N.Y.
1831		Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.
1889		Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union.
1909		Construction begins on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
1918		German leaders sign the armistice ending World War I.
1919		The first two-minutes’ silence is observed in Britain to commemorate those who died in the Great War.
1921		The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is dedicated.
1922		Canada’s Vernon McKenzie urges his government to fight U.S. propaganda with taxes on U.S. magazines.
1933		The first of the great dust storms of the 1930s hits North Dakota.
1935		Albert Stevens and Orvil Anderson set a new altitude record in South Dakota, when they float to 72,395 feet in a balloon.
1938		Irving Berlin‘s “God Bless America” is performed for the first time by singer Kate Smith.
1940		Britain’s Royal Navy attacks the Italian fleet at Taranto.
1944		Private Eddie Slovik is convicted of desertion and sentenced to death for refusing to join his unit in the European Theater of Operations.
1953		The polio virus is identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1966		The United States launches Gemini 12, a two-man spacecraft, into orbit.
1970		U.S. Army Special Forces raid the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam but find no prisoners.
1973		Israel and Egypt sign a cease-fire.
1973		The Soviet Union is kicked out of World Cup soccer for refusing to play Chile.
1987		An unidentified person buys Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Irises” from the estate of Joan Whitney Payson for $53.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York.
1993		A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
1999		The House of Lords Act reforming Britain’s House of Lords, is given Royal Assent; the act removed the right to hereditary seats (sitting members were permitted to remain).
2001		Journalists Pierre Billaud (France), Johanne Sutton (France) and Voker Handlock (Germany) are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy in which they were traveling.
2004		New Zealand’s Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Museum, Wellington.
2004		The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of its longtime chairman Yasser Arafat; the cause of death has never been conclusively determined.
2006		Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London.
2008		RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2)sets sail on her final voyage, bound for Dubai.