TODAY IN HISTORY

On This Day in:

1302 – The weaver Peter de Coningk led a massacre of the Flemish oligarchs.

1642 – Montreal, Canada, was founded.

1643 – Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, was granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king’s will.

1652 – In Rhode Island, a law was passed that made slavery illegal in North America. It was the rst law of its kind.

1792 – Russian troops invaded Poland. 1798 – The rst Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.

1802 – Great Britain declared war on Napoleon’s France.

1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor by the French Senate.