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.

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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.

The Surprising History of International Women’s Day

Though International Women’s Day may be more widely celebrated abroad than in the United States, its roots are planted firmly in American soil.SARAH PRUITT

Activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman addressing a crowd, c. 1916. (Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)

ontroversy clouds the history of International Women’s Day. According to a common version of the holiday’s origins, it was established in 1907, to mark the 50th anniversary of a brutally repressed protest by New York City’s female garment and textile workers. But there’s a problem with that story: Neither the 1857 protest nor the 50th anniversary tribute may have actually taken place. In fact, research that emerged in the 1980s suggested that origin myth was invented in the 1950s, as part of a Cold War-era effort to separate International Women’s Day from its socialist roots.

The historian Temma Kaplan revisited the first official National Woman’s Day, held in New York City on February 28, 1909. (The organizers, members of the Socialist Party of America, wanted it to be on a Sunday so that working women could participate.) Thousands of people showed up to various events uniting the suffragist and socialist causes, whose goals had often been at odds. Labor organizer Leonora O’Reilly and others addressed the crowd at the main meeting in the Murray Hill Lyceum, at 34th Street and Third Avenue. In Brooklyn, writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (of “The Yellow Wall-paper” fame) told the congregation of the Parkside Church: “It is true that a woman’s duty is centered in her home and motherhood…[but] home should mean the whole country, and not be confined to three or four rooms or a city or a state.”

Source: history.com for the complete article

history.com The Surprising History of International Women’s Day