Today In History (August 5th 2016)

(Image courtesy of www.nwitimes.com)

On This Day In:

1391: Castilian sailors in Barcelona, Spain set fire to a Jewish ghetto, killing 100 people and setting off four days of violence against Jews.

1763: Colonel Henry Bouquet decisively defeats the Indians at the Battle of Bushy Run in Pennsylvania during Pontiac‘s rebellion.

1762: Russia, Prussia and Austria sign a treaty agreeing on the partition of Poland.

1806: The Holy Roman Empire ended with the abdication of Emperor Francis II.

1815: A peace treaty with Tripoli–which follows treaties with Algeria and Tunis–brings an end to the Barbary Wars.

1825: Bolivia declared its independence from Peru.

1858 The first transatlantic cable is completed.

1861 Congress adopts the nation’s first income tax to finance the Civil War.

1864The Union Navy captures Mobile Bay in Alabama.

1892 Harriet Tubman receives a pension from Congress for her work as a nurse, spy and scout during the Civil War.

1914 The British Expeditionary Force mobilizes for World War I.

1914 The first electric traffic signal lights are installed in Cleveland, Ohio.

1915 The Austro-German Army takes Warsaw, in present-day Poland, on the Eastern Front.

1916 The British navy defeats the Ottomans at the naval battle off Port Said, Egypt.

1921 Mustafa Kemal is appointed virtual ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

1926: Gertrude Ederle became the first U.S. woman to swim across the English Channel.

1941 The German army completes taking 410,000 Russian prisoners in Uman and Smolensk pockets in the Soviet Union.

1945: The first atomic bomb used in warfare was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

1951 The United Nations Command suspends armistice talks with the North Koreans when armed troops are spotted in neutral areas.

1962 Actress Marilyn Monroe dies under mysterious circumstances.

1962: Jamaica gained its independence within the Britain Commonwealth.

1964 President Lyndon Johnson begins bombing North Vietnam in retaliation for Gulf of Tonkin incident and asks Congress to go to war against North Vietnam.

1965: President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed the poll taxes and literacy tests that had restricted black voter registration in the South.

1974 President Richard Nixon admits he ordered a cover-up for political as well as national security reasons.

1997: British prime minister Tony Blair and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams meet—the first time in 76 years that a British leader and an IRA ally meet.

1981 President Ronald Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers.

1992 Four police officers indicted on civil rights charges in the beating of Rodney King.

1995 Croatian forces capture the city of Knin, a Serb stronghold, during Operation Storm.

1997 Mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, goes on trial.

2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy to replace Gray Davis as governor of California to Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.

2012 A gunman in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, opens fire in a Sikh temple, killing six before committing suicide.

2012: Curiosity, a SUV-size rover, successfully landed on Mars. The rover's research has been planned for the next two years, but since Curiosity's electricity is powered by plutonium, it could be operational and provide insight into Mars for decades to come

People Born Today (August 5th)

1850: Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and author of “The Necklace.”

1876: Mary Ritter Beard, American historian and writer.

1906: John Houston, film director of such movies as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre andThe Maltese Falcon.

1908: Miriam Rothschild, English scientist and writer.

1923: Richard G. Kleindienst, one of the key officials who helped elect Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1969.

1930: Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

1975: Ami Foster, television actress (Punky Brewster); nominated eight times for Young Actress Award.

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