Today in History

1753		George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivers an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain’s claim to the entire Ohio River valley.
1770		The British soldiers responsible for the “Boston Massacre” are acquitted on murder charges.
1862		USS Cairo, one of the first ironclad warships built for the Union Navy at the beginning of the Civil War, sinks on the Yazoo River in Mississippi, becoming the first armored ship to be sunk by a controlled mine.
1863		Orders are given in Richmond, Virginia, that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.
1901		Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio transmission in St. John’s Newfoundland.
1927		Communists forces seize Canton, China.
1930		The Spanish Civil War begins as rebels take a border town.
1930		The last Allied troops withdraw from the Saar region in Germany.
1931		Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigns as president of the Nanking Government but remains the head of the Nationalist government that holds nominal rule over most of China.
1943		The German Army launches Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad.
1943		The exiled Czech government signs a treaty with the Soviet Union for postwar cooperation.
1956		The United Nations calls for immediate Soviet withdrawal from Hungary.
1964		Kenya becomes a republic.
1964		Three Buddhist leaders begin a hunger strike to protest the government in Saigon.
1967		The United States ends the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.
1979		South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan, acting without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa, alleging that the chief of staff was involved in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee.
1985		Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashes after takeoff at Gander, Newfoundland; among the 256 dead are 236 members of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
1991		The Russian Federation becomes independent from the USSR.
1995		Willie Brown beats incumbent mayor Frank Jordon to become the first African-American mayor of San Francisco.
2000		The US Supreme Court announces its decision in Bush v. Gore, effectively ending legal challenges to the results of that year’s presidential election.