Today in History

NASA publishes a report on the Challenger accident.

American advisor John Paul Vann is killed in a helicopter accident in Vietnam.

The first ballistic missile-carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, is launched.

At the Army-McCarthy hearings, attorney Joseph Welch asks Senator Joseph McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency?”

After several unsuccessful attacks on French colonial troops, North Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap orders Viet Minh to withdraw from the Red River Delta.

Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declares that Japan will fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.

The Japanese high command announces that “The Midway Occupation operations have been temporarily postponed.”

Robert H. Goddard patents a rocket-fueled aircraft design.

Bulgaria’s government is overthrown by the military.

Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Les Paul, American guitarist and electric guitar innovator.

King Edward VII of England becomes first British monarch to visit Russia, meeting with Czar Nicholas II in an effort to improve relations between the two countries.

George Price, cartoonist.

Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist.

Meta Vaux Warrick, sculptor.

Carl Nielsen, Danish composer.

At the Battle of Brandy Station in Virginia, Union and Confederate cavalries clash in the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War.

Mary Ann “Mother” Bickerdyke begins working in Union hospitals.

John Howard Payne, American playwright and actor.

Civil war breaks out in Martinique.

George Stephenson, English engineer, built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives.

Peter I, Russian Czar (1682-1725).

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Jacques Cartier sails into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

Coimbra, Portugal falls to Ferdinand, king of Castile.