Today in History

Today in History

1530 – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, former adviser to England's King Henry VIII, died.

1864 – The Sand Creek Massacre occurred in Colorado when a militia led by Colonel John Chivington, killed at least 400 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who had surrendered and had been given permission to camp.

1890 – Navy defeated Army by a score of 24-0 in the first Army-Navy football game. The game was played at West Point, NY.

1892 – A patent was issued to Almon Brown Strowger for the rotary dial.

1929 – The first airplane flight over the South Pole was made by U.S. Navy Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd.

1939 – The USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Finland prior to a Soviet attack.

1945 – The monarchy was abolished in Yugoslavia and a republic proclaimed.

1947 – The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution that called for the division of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

1961 – The Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft was launched by the U.S. with Enos the chimp on board. The craft orbited the earth twice before landing off Puerto Rico.

1963 – ATrans-Canada Airlines DC-8F with 111 passengers and 7 crew members crashed in woods north of Montreal 4 minutes after takeoff from Dorval Airport. All aboard were killed. The crash was the worst in Canada's history.

1963 – U.S. President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

1967 – U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.

1971 – The Professional Golf Championship was held at Walt Disney World for the first time.

Disney movies, music and books

1974 – In Britain, a bill that outlawed the Irish Republican Army became effective.

1975 – Bill Gates adopted the name Microsoft for the company he and Paul Allen had formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair.

1981 – Actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, CA, at the age 43.

1982 – The U.N. General Assembly voted that the Soviet Union should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

History