Today in History

Today in History

1615 – French King Louis XIII married Ann of Austria. They were both 14 years old.

1859 – Charles Darwin, a British naturalist, published 'On the Origin of Species.' It was the paper in which he explained his theory of evolution through the process of natural selection.

1863 – During the Civil War, the battle for Lookout Mountain began in Tennessee.

1871 – The National Rifle Association was incorporated in the U.S.

1874 – Joseph F. Glidden was granted a patent for a barbed fencing material.

1903 – Clyde J. Coleman received the patent for an electric self-starter for an automobile.

1940 – Nazis closed off the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. Over the next three years the population dropped from 350,000 to 70,000 due to starvation, disease and deportations to concentration camps.

1944 – During World War II, the first raid against the Japanese capital of Tokyo was made by land-based U.S. bombers.

1947 – John Steinbeck's novel 'The Pearl' was published for the first time.

1963 – Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television.

1969 – Apollo 12 landed safely in the Pacific Ocean bringing an end to the second manned mission to the moon.

1971 – Hijacker Dan Cooper, known as D.B. Cooper, parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with $200,000 in ransom.

1983 – The Palestine Liberation Organization released

History