Today in History

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.

Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.

Gustav Heinemann is elected West German President.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.

Leslie Marmon Silko, writer (Ceremony).

In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that “an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe].”

In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.

Lynn Margulis, biologist.

Hitler and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.

Hitler‘s National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.

The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.

The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.

Rex Harrison, actor.

Russians begin to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria, China.

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazillian composer.

Frank Norris, novelist (McTeague, The Octopus).

Howard Pyle, writer and illustrator (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood).

James Merritt Ives, lithographer for Currier and Ives.

James Monroe becomes the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.

Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.

Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.

Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.

William Oughtred, mathematician and inventor of the slide rule.

Louis I (the Great), King of Hungary.

Henry II, King of England (1133-1189).