Today in History

1484		Pope Innocent VIII issues a bull deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.
1776		Phi Beta Kappa is organized as the first American college Greek-letter fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.
1791		Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna.
1861		In the U.S. Congress, petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery are introduced.
1862		Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s cavalry receives a setback in an engagement on the Mississippi Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.
1864		Confederate General John Bell Hood sends Nathan Bedford Forrest‘s cavalry and a division of infantry toward Murfreesboro, TN.
1904		The Japanese destroy a Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.
1909		George Taylor makes the first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed himself.
1912		Italy, Austria and Germany renew the Triple Alliance for six years.
1916		David Lloyd George replaces Herbert Asquith as the British prime minister.
1921		The British empire reaches an accord with the Irish revolutionary group Sinn Fein; Ireland is to become a free state.
1933		The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States, which had begun 13 years earlier.
1934		Italian and Ethiopian troops clash at the Ual-ual on the disputed Somali-Ethiopian border.
1936		The New Constitution in the Soviet Union promises universal suffrage, but the Communist Party remains the only legal political party.
1937		The Lindberghs arrive in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.
1945		Four TBM Avenger bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida.
1950		Pyongyang in Korea falls to the invading Chinese army.
1953		Italy and Yugoslavia agree to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.
1955		A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama.
1966		Comedian and political activist Dick Gregory heads for Hanoi, North Vietnam, despite federal warnings against it.
1978		The Soviet Union signs a 20-year friendship pact with Afghanistan.
1983		A military junta dissolves in Argentina.
2006		Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.
2007		A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle kills 8 people at Westroads Mall, Omaha, NE., before taking his own life.