Today in History

Exxon pays $1 billion in fines and costs for the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill.

Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union.

The United States plans to send 15 Green Berets to El Salvador as military advisors.

Arab nations decide to end the oil embargo on the United States.

Cambodia orders Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.

China invites Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev to visit Beijing.

The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa on bribery charges.

Israel demands $1.5 billion in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees.

Japanese forces end their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.

The U.S Army K9 Corps is established.

Hitler issues an edict calling for an invasion of the Soviet Union.

Finland capitulates conditionally to Soviet terms, but maintains its independence.

A three-thousand-year-old archive is found in Jerusalem confirming biblical history.

Women are scheduled to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men.

The Germans repel a British Expeditionary Force attack at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France.

George Seferis, Greek poet.

Janet Flanner, writer (“Letter from Paris”).

Albert William Stevens, balloonist and photographer.

Czar Alexander II is assassinated when a bomb is thrown at him near his palace.

The U.S. Senate begins the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.

Jefferson Davis signs a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.

Percival Lowell, astronomer who predicted the discovery of the planet Pluto.

Abigail Powers Fillmore, First Lady and wife of Millard Fillmore

Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin.

Astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, which he names ‘Georgium Sidus,’ in honor of King George III.

Congress orders its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army.

Charles Earl Grey, British Prime Minister

Joseph Priestly, scientist credited with the discovery of oxygen.

A statute is passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.

Innocent XII, Roman Catholic Pope

Hernando Cortez lands in what will become Mexico.

The 12th recorded passage of Halley’s Comet occurs.

St. Felix begins his reign as Catholic Pope.