Today in History

Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in a U.S. presidential cabinet.

California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.

Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.

Angela Davis, American activist.

The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.

American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.

Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.

Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.

Bessie Coleman, pioneer aviator.

General “Chinese” Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.

Douglas MacArthur, U.S. general in World War I, World War II and Korea.

Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.

President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Louisiana secedes from the Union.

Julia Dent Grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant.

A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia’s national day.

Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country’s empire.

Claude Helvétius, French philosopher.

The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.