Today in History

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.

Stalin is secretly disavowed by Khrushchev at a party congress for promoting the “cult of the individual.”

French colonial forces evacuate Hoa Binh in Indochina.

U.S. forces destroy 135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam.

U.S. troops retake the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, where they had been defeated five days before.

Bell Labs introduces a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.

Poland demands a permanent seat on the League of Nations council.

Oregon introduces the first state tax on gasoline at one cent per gallon, to be used for road construction.

Anthony Burgess, English writer (A Clockwork Orange).

The 16th Amendment to the constitution is adopted, setting the legal basis for the income tax.

The 13th Dalai Lama flees from the Chinese and takes refuge in India.

Adele Davis, nutritionist.

J.M. Synge’s play Riders to the Sea opens in Dublin.

Rudolf von Eschwege, German fighter ace in World War I.

Meher Baba, spiritual leader.

John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State to President Eisenhower.

Enrico Caruso, Italian opera tenor.

General Joseph E. Johnston replaces John Bell Hood as Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Confederate troops abandon Nashville, Tennessee, in the face of Grant‘s advance. The ironclad Monitor is commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Charles Lang Freer, U.S. art collector.

Pierre Auguste Renoir, French painter and founder of the French Impressionist movement.

Samuel Colt patents the first revolving cylinder multi-shot firearm.

The Polish army halts the Russian advance into their country at the Battle of Grochow.

Napoleon leaves his exile on the island of Elba, returning to France.

Thomas Jefferson is nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.

President George Washington signs a bill creating the Bank of the United States.

American General Nathaniel Greene crosses the Dan River on his way to attack Cornwallis.

The British surrender the Illinois country to George Rogers Clark at Vincennes.

Dutch settlers slaughter lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherland, North America, who sought refuge from Mohawk attackers.

Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex and former favorite of Elizabeth I, is beheaded in the Tower of London for high treason.

Pope Pius V issues the bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicates Queen Elizabeth of England.