Today in History

A bomb rocks the World Trade Center in New York City. Five people are killed and hundreds suffer from smoke inhalation.

Daniel Ortega, communist president of Nicaragua, suffers a shocking election defeat at the hands of Violeta Chamorro.

A publisher and 10 reporters are subpoenaed to testify on Watergate.

Soviets recover Luna 20 with a cargo of moon rocks.

Five Marines are arrested on charges of murdering 11 South Vietnamese women and children.

Thirty-two African nations agree to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa.

Norman Butler is arrested for the murder of Malcom X.

Lyndon B. Johnson signs a tax bill with $11.5 billion in cuts.

The 22nd Amendment is added to the Constitution limiting the Presidency to two terms.

Syria declares war on Germany and Japan.

U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators pound German docks and U-boat lairs at Wilhelmshaven.

British take the Somali capital in East Africa.

Japanese military troops march into Tokyo to conduct a coup and assassinate political leaders.

Ground is broken for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Antoine “Fats” Domino, American singer.

U.S. steel industry finds claims an eight-hour day increases efficiency and employee relations.

President Wilson publicly asks congress for the power to arm merchant ships.

General Henri Philippe Petain takes command of the French forces at Verdun.

Russian aviator Igor Sikorsky carries 17 passengers in a twin engine plane in St. Petersburg.

Boxer Rebellion leaders Chi-Hsin and Hsu-Cheng-Yu are publicly executed in Peking.

I(vor) A(rmstrong) Richards, writer, critic and teacher.

Mabel Dodge Luhan, American biographer.

Rudolph Dirks, cartoonist, creator of the “Katzenjammer Kids.”

France and Prussia sign a preliminary peace treaty at Versailles.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels publish The Communist Manifesto in London.

William Frederick Cody, aka “Buffalo Bill”.

John George Nicolay, private secretary to Abraham Lincoln

Levi Strauss, creator of blue jeans.

Napoleon and 1,200 of his men leave Elba to start the 100-day re-conquest of France.

Victor Hugo, French novelist and poet (Les Misérables).

As a result of the Revolution, France is divided into 83 departments.

William the Bad succeeds his father, Roger the II, in Sicily.

On the death of Jovian, a conference at Nicaea chooses Valentinan, an army officer who was born in the central European region of Pannania, to succeed him in Asia Minor.