Today in History

Thomas Creighton dies after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period.

The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.

Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people.

The Nixon administration discloses the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos.

Australia announces that it will triple the number of troops in Vietnam.

More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.

Max Conrad circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in Piper Aztec.

France and Vietnam open talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.

Phyllis Mae Daley receives a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She will become the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.

Japanese forces attack American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle will last five days.

Japanese troops capture Rangoon, Burma.

Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.

John McPhee, writer (Oranges, A Sense of Where You Are).

French troops occupy Dusseldorf.

Baroness de Laroche becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license in France.

Pope Pius X lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.

The House of Commons, London, turns down the women’s suffrage bill.

The Bundestag in Germany lifts the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.

Louise Beavers, film actress.

President Rutherford B. Hayes declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the Isthmus of Panama.

Otto Hahn, co-discoverer of nuclear fission

The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched.

Kenneth Grahame, Scottish author (The Wind in the Willows).

The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.

The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington, D.C.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Alvan Clark, telescope manufacturer

Simon Cameron, political boss.

George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.

Hannah Hoes Van Buren, wife of Martin Van Buren

Queen Anne becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III.

Johannes Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion.