Today in History

Terrorists seize the Iranian Embassy in London.

North Vietnamese troops enter the Independence Palace of South Vietnam in Saigon ending the Vietnam War.

President Richard Nixon announces the resignation of Harry Robbins Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and other top aides.

The North Vietnamese launch an invasion of the South.

U.S. troops invade Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas.

U.S. Marines attack a division of North Vietnamese troops in the village of Dai Do.

Jane Campion, New Zealand film director (The Piano, A Portrait of a Lady).

Annie Dillard, writer (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek).

The British submarine HMS Seraph drops ‘the man who never was,’ a dead man the British planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.

Willie Nelson, country singer.

The George Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opens.

The Soviet Union proposes a military alliance with France and Great Britain.

Eve Arden (Eunice Quedens), actress.

Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands.

Franz Lehár, Hungarian composer (The Merry Widow, The Land of Smiles).

Work begins on the Dams along the Red River, which will allow Union General Nathaniel Banks‘ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.

Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, First Lady to President Benjamin Harrison .

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian patriot and guerrilla leader, repulses a French attack on Rome.

Louisiana is admitted into the Union as a state.

The United States doubles in size through the Louisiana Purchase, which was sold by France for $15 million.

George Washington is inaugurated as the first U.S. president.

Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician.

Spain withdraws from the Quadruple Alliance.

All Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI.

Henry VIII of England and King Francis of France sign the Treaty of Westminster.

King Louis IX of France is ransomed.

Licinius unifies the whole of the eastern Roman Empire under his own rule.