Today in History

Largest steel strike in American history, in progress since August, ends.

U.S. Jewish leaders bar a meeting with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat.

The Winter Olympics begin in Sapporo, Japan.

The U.S. Senate approves 23rd Amendment calling for a ban on the poll tax.

Arlington and Norfolk, Va., peacefully desegregate public schools.

The United States and Italy sign a pact of friendship, commerce and navigation.

Some 1,200 Royal Air Force planes blast Wiesbaden and Karlsruhe.

The Germans stop an Allied attack at Anzio, Italy.

Last of the German strongholds at Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army.

Hungary breaks relations with the Soviet Union.

Alfred Rosenberg is made philosophical chief of the Nazi Party.

Airmail service opens between New York and San Francisco. Airmail’s First Day.

U.S. Senate votes independence for Philippines, effective in 1921.

Mexican government troops are badly beaten by Yaqui Indians.

Six cities, Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis agree to form baseball‘s American League.

George Halas, National Football League co-founder.

Charles Correl, radio performer.

James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet (Ulysses, Portrait of a Young Man).

The National Baseball League is founded with eight teams.

The press agencies Havas, Reuter and Wolff sign an agreement whereby between them they can cover the whole world.

Confederate raider William Quantrill and his bushwackers rob citizens, burn a railroad depot and steal horses from Midway, Kentucky.

The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo formally ends the Mexican War.

Charles Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord, minister of foreign affairs for Napoleon I, who represented France brilliantly at the Congress of Vienna.

Charles I is crowned King of England. Fierce internal struggles between the monarchy and Parliament characterized 17th century English politics.

All eight members of a Jesuit mission in Virginia are murdered by Indians who pretended to be their friends.

Columbus begins the practice of using Indians as slaves.

Conrad II claims the throne of France.

Otto I invades Italy and is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.