1454 – Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, Italy. Matthias Ringmann, a German mapmaker, named the American continent in his honor.

1617 – The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.

1734 – The Russians took Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.

1745 – The first carillon was shipped from England to Boston, MA.

1793 – Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first balloon flight in North America. The event was witnessed by U.S. President George Washington.

1796 – Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais were married. They were divorced in 1809.

1799 – The U.S. Congress contracted with Simeon North, of Berlin, CT, for 500 horse pistols at the price of $6.50 each.

1812 – Swedish Pomerania was seized by Napoleon.

1820 – The U.S. Congress passed the Land Act that paved the way for westward expansion of North America.

1822 – Charles M. Graham received the first patent for artificial teeth.

1832 – Abraham Lincoln announced that he would run for a political office for the first time. He was unsuccessful in his run for a seat in the Illinois state legislature.

1839 – The French Academy of Science announced the Daguerreotype photo process.

1858 – Albert Potts was awarded a patent for the letter box.

1859 – The National Association of Baseball Players adopted the rule that limited the size of bats to no more than 2-1/2 inches in diameter.

1860 – The first Japanese ambassador to the U.S. was appointed.

1862 – During the U.S. Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (built from the remnants of the USS Merrimack fought to a draw in a five-hour battle at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

1863 – General Ulysses Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.

1897 – A patent was issued to William Spinks and William Hoskins for cue chalk.

1900 – In Germany, women petition Reichstag for the right to take university entrance exams.

1905 – In Egypt, U.S. archeologist Davies discovered the royal tombs of Tua and Yua.

1905 – In Manchuria, Japanese troops surrounded 200,000 Russian troops that were retreating from Mudken.

1905 – In Congo, Belgian Vice Gov. Costermans committed suicide following an investigation of colonial policy.

1906 – In the Philippines, fifteen Americans and 600 Moros were killed in the last two days of fighting.

1909 – The French National Assembly passed an income tax bill.

1910 – Union men urged for a national sympathy strike for miners in Pennsylvania.

1911 – The funding for five new battleships was added to the British military defense budget.

1916 – Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico. 17 people were killed by the 1,500 horsemen.

1929 – Eric Krenz became the first athlete to toss the discus over 160 feet.

1932 – Eamon De Valera was elected president of the Irish Free State and pledged to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown.

1933 – The U.S. Congress began its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation.

1936 – The German press warned that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections would be arrested.

1945 – “Those Websters” debuted on CBS radio.

1945 – During World War II, U.S. B-29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Japan.

1946 – The A.F.L. accused Juan Peron of using the army to establish a dictatorship over Argentine labor.

1949 – The first all-electric dining car was placed in service on the Illinois Central Railroad.

1954 – WNBT-TV (now WNBC-TV), in New York, broadcast the first local color television commercials. The ad was Castro Decorators of New York City. (New York)

1956 – British authorities arrested and deported Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He was accused of supporting terrorists.

1957 – Egyptian leader Nasser barred U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.

1959 – Mattel introduced Barbie at the annual Toy Fair in New York.

1964 – Production began on the first Ford Mustang.

1965 – The first U.S. combat troops arrived in South Vietnam.

1967 – Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin’s daughter defected to the United States.

1969 – “The Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour” was canceled by CBS-TV.

1975 – Work began on the Alaskan oil pipeline.

1975 – Iraq launched an offensive against the rebel Kurds.

1977 – About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington, DC. They killed one person and took more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later.

1983 – The official Soviet news agency TASS says that U.S. President Reagan is full of “bellicose lunatic anti-communism.”

1985 – “Gone With The Wind” went on sale in video stores across the U.S. for the first time.

1986 – U.S. Navy divers found the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.

1987 – Chrysler Corporation offered to buy American Motors Corporation.

1989 – The U.S. Senate rejected John Tower as a choice for a cabinet member. It was the first rejection in 30 years.

1989 – In Maylasia, 30 Asian nations conferred on the issue of “boat people.”

1989 – In the U.S., a strike forced Eastern Airlines into bankruptcy.

1989 – In the U.S., President George H.W. Bush urged for a mandatory death penalty in drug-related killings.

1990 – Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as the first female and Hispanic surgeon general.

1993 – Rodney King testified at the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of violating his civil rights. (California)

1995 – The Canadian Navy arrested a Spanish trawler for illegally fishing off of Newfoundland.

2000 – In Norway, the coalition government of Kjell Magne Bondevik resigned as a result of an environmental dispute.

2011 – Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation that abolished the death penalty in his state.

on-this-day.com

1618 – Johann Kepler discovered the third Law of Planetary Motion.

1702 – England’s Queen Anne took the throne upon the death of King William III.

1782 – The Gnadenhutten massacre took place. About 90 Indians were killed by militiamen in Ohio in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.

1853 – The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington, DC.

1855 – A train passed over the first railway suspension bridge at Niagara Falls, NY.

1862 – The Confederate ironclad “Merrimack” was launched.

1880 – U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.

1887 – The telescopic fishing rod was patented by Everett Horton.

1894 – A dog license law was enacted in the state of New York. It was the first animal control law in the U.S.

1904 – The Bundestag in Germany lifted the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.

1905 – In Russia, it was reported that the peasant revolt was spreading to Georgia.

1907 – The British House of Commons turned down a women’s suffrage bill.

1909 – Pope Pius X lifted the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.

1910 – In France, Baroness de Laroche became the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license.

1910 – The King of Spain authorized women to attend universities.

1911 – In Europe, International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time.

1911 – British Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Gray declared that Britain would not support France in the event of a military conflict.

1917 – Russia’s “February Revolution” began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg. The revolution was called the “February Revolution” due to Russia’s use of the Old Style calendar.

1917 – The U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.

1921 – Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato was assassinated while leaving the Parliament in Madrid.

1921 – French troops occupied Dusseldorf.

1933 – Self-liquidating scrip money was issued for the first time at Franklin, IN.

1941 – Martial law was proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.

1942 – During World War II, Japanese forces captured Rangoon, Burma.

1943 – Japanese forces attacked American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle lasted five days.

1945 – Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She later became the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.

1946 – In New York City, the “Journal American” became the first commercial business to receive a helicopter license.

1946 – The French naval fleet arrived at Haiphong, Vietnam.

1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction in public schools was unconstitutional.

1953 – A census bureau report indicated that 239,000 farmers had quit farming over the last 2 years.

1954 – France and Vietnam opened talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.

1954 – Herb McKenley set a world record for the quarter mile when he ran the distance in 46.8 seconds.

1957 – The International Boxing Club was ruled a monopoly putting it in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.

1959 – Groucho, Chico and Harpo made their final TV appearance together.

1961 – Max Conrad circled the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in the Piper Aztec.

1965 – The U.S. landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam. They were the first U.S. combat troops to land in Vietnam.

1966 – Australia announced that it would triple the number of troops in Vietnam.

1973 – Two bombs exploded near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain. 234 people were injured.

1982 – The U.S. accused the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.

1985 – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported that 407,700 Americans were millionaires. That was more than double the total from just five years before.

1986 – Four French television crew members were abducted in west Beirut. All four were eventually released.

1988 – In Fort Campbell, KY, 17 U.S. soldiers were killed when two Army helicopters collided in midair.

1989 – In Lhasa, Tibet, martial law was declared after three days of protest against Chinese rule.

1999 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

1999 – The White House, under President Bill Clinton, directed the firing of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The firing was a result of alleged security violations.

2001 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted for an across-the-board tax cut of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

2005 – In norther Chechnya, Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed during a raid by Russian forces.