Today in History

Albania offers a multi-party election for the first time in 50 years.

President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry.

U.S. forces in Vietnam down a MIG-21, the first since September 1968.

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution.

An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.

The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans.

The siege of Dien Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, begins after the Viet Minh realize it cannot be taken by direct assault.

Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe.

Al Gore, Vice President to President William J. Clinton (1993-2001).

The United States and Britain bar a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco.

Germany begins a counter offensive in North Africa.

La Guardia airport in New York officially opens to the public.

Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade.

Marge Piercy, poet and novelist.

To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps .

John Fowles, English novelist (The Collector, The French Lieutenant’s Woman).

Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike.

Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time.

The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million.

General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa‘s army in Mexico.

Henry Morgan, comedian, radio performer.

Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris officially opens on the Left Bank as part of the Exhibition of 1889.

The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana.

Jack Johnson, first Africa-American boxer to become the world heavyweight champion.

Skirmishing between Rebels and Union forces takes place at Island 10 on the Mississippi River.

Sir Dugald Clerk, inventor of the two-stroke motorcycle engine.

The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London.

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner.

Nikolai V. Gogol, Russian writer (The Inspector General, Dead Souls).

In Paris, France, Maximilien Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club.

Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea.

Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are “determined to foment a rebellion” if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights.

Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer.

John Harrison, Englishman who invented the chronometer.

Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician.

René Descartes, French philosopher and scientist.

In France, Francis–king since 1515–dies and is succeeded by his son Henry II.

The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end.