Today Holidays
Niue: Takai Commission Holiday
Events
1492 - Reconquista: the emirate of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrenders.
1777 - American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.
1788 - Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
1791 - Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
1818 - The British Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.
1833 - Re-establishment of British rule on the Falklands.
1860 - The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the Académie des Sciences in Paris.
1871 - Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.
1900 - John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur, China.
1935 - Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh.
1941 - World War II: German bombing severely damages the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales.
1942 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history -- the Duquesne Spy Ring.
1942 - World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces.
1949 - Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
1955 - Panamanian president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated.
1959 - Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the U.S.S.R.
1971 - The second Ibrox disaster kills 66 fans at a Rangers-Celtic football match.
1974 - President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo.
1999 - A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359;mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487;mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C); 68 deaths are reported.
2001 - Sila Calderón becomes the first female Governor of Puerto Rico.
2002 - Eduardo Duhalde is appointed interim President of Argentina by the Legislative Assembly.
2004 - Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it will return to Earth two years later.