Today in History

The first women enter the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Richard Nixon announces that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam.

The Supreme Court overturns the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] stands before the Supreme Court regarding his refusal of induction into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

14 people are shot during race riots in Buffalo, New York.

Malcolm X founds the Organization for Afro-American Unity to seek independence for blacks in the Western Hemisphere.

French troops begin to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin province.

General Douglas MacArthur arrives in South Korea as Seoul falls to the North.

The last U.S. combat troops are called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.

Mark Helprin, novelist (Winter’s Tale).

General Douglas MacArthur announces the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.

German troops launch an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.

Congress creates the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure construction loans.

More than 1,000 communists are routed during an assault on the British consulate in London.

Mel Brooks, comedian, actor, and director (The Producers, Blazing Saddles).

A coal strike in Britain is settled after three months.

Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles under protest.

Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo, Serbia.

Samuel J. Battle becomes the first African-American policeman in New York City.

Eric Ambler, British mystery writer (The Dark Frontier, Uncommon Danger).

Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Richard Rodgers, American composer.

Esther Forbes, author (Johnny Tremain).

Congress declares Labor Day a legal holiday.

The Freedmen’s Bank, created to assist former slaves in the United States, closes. Customers of the bank lose $3 million.

Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon and biologist.

Luigi Pirandello, Italian playwright (Six Characters in Search of an Author).

General George Meade replaces General Joseph Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg.

Fighting continues between Union and Confederate forces during the Seven Days’ campaign.

Cinque and other Africans are kidnapped and sold into slavery in Cuba.

Mary “Molly Pitcher” Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carries water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth.

Colonists repulse a British sea attack on Charleston, South Carolina.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, French social philosopher (The Social Contract).

Russians defeat the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava.

Frederick William of Brandenburg crushes the Swedes.

The French colony of Guadeloupe is established in the Caribbean.

Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter.

Henry VIII, King of England (1509-1547), founder of the Church of England.