| 1657 | France and England form an alliance against Spain. |
| 1743 | George Frideric Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” had its premiere, in London. |
| 1775 | Patrick Henry called for America’s independence from Britain, telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
 Patrick Henry |
| 1791 | Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman’s rights, sets up a group of women’s clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth. |
| 1848 | Hungary proclaims its independence of Austria. |
| 1857 | Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City. |
| 1858 | Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables. |
| 1862 | Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson faces his only defeat at the Battle of Kernstown, Va |
| 1880 | John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 percent. |
| 1903 | The Wright brothers obtain an airplane patent. |
| 1909 | British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole. |
| 1909 | Theodore Roosevelt begins an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
 Theodore Roosevelt |
| 1919 | Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. |
| 1920 | Great Britain denounces the United States because of its delay in joining the League of Nations. |
| 1921 | Arthur G. Hamilton sets a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet. |
| 1927 | Captain Hawthorne Gray sets a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet. |
| 1933 | The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers. |
| 1942 | The Japanese occupy the Anadaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. |
| 1951 | U.S. paratroopers descend from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea. |
| 1956 | Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, although it is still within the British Commonwealth. |
| 1967 | Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement. |
| 1970 | Mafia boss Carlo Gambino is arrested for plotting to steal $3 million. |
| 1972 | The United States calls a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris. |
| 1981 | U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women. |
| 1981 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions. |
| 1994 | Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings broke Gordie Howe’s National Hockey League career record with his 802nd goal.
Wayne Gretzky scores 802nd Goal
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| 1998 | “Titanic” won 11 Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best song, to tie the record set by 1959′s “Ben-Hur.” (The record was tied again by “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” in 2003.) |
| 2001 | Russia’s orbiting Mir space station ended its 15-year odyssey with a fiery plunge into the South Pacific. |
| 2003 | A U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Iraq; 11 soldiers were killed and seven were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch. |
| 2008 | A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. |
| 2010 | President Barack Obama signed a $938 billion health care overhaul. |
| 2011 | Actress Elizabeth Taylor died at age 79. |
| 2012 | The U.S. Army formally charged Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the deaths of 17 villagers, more than half of them children, during a shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan. |
Today in History facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, and HistoryOrb.com.
In 1876, Governor Rutherford B. Hayes and Governor Samuel J. Tilden competed in on of the most disputed elections in our nation’s history. I won’t get into all the specifics, but let’s cover the same numbers that we have covered in the two earlier examples. Governor Tilden received 247,448 more popular votes than did Governor Hayes. This number can be represented as 2.97% of the voting population voting for Hayes and Tilden combined. Now we start to see an issue. Almost 3% difference in the popular vote, and Hayes was declared the victor because he was 185-184 in the electoral college. This election stands as the only time in America’s history where there has been an absolute majority of the popular vote–more than 50%–go to one person, yet the votes did not get the majority winner elected president.
