Also on this day
Lead Story
1915
On this day in 1915, a prototype tank nicknamed Little Willie rolls off the assembly line in England. Little Willie was far from an overnight success. It weighed 14 tons, got stuck in trenches and crawled over rough terrain at only two miles per hour. However, improvements were made to...
American Revolution
1781
On this day in 1781, British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, a former Patriot officer already infamous and much maligned for betraying the United States the previous year, adds to his notoriety by ordering his British command to burn New London, Connecticut.
The Continental Army had been using New London to store...
Automotive
2007
On this day in 2007, Volkswagen of America announces that it is moving its headquarters from Auburn Hills, Michigan to Herndon, Virginia. The company made the move, it said, to be closer to the East-Coasters who buy most of its cars. “You want to work in an environment where you...
Civil War
1863
After months of campaigning against Battery Wagner on Morris Island in a protracted Union effort to capture nearby Charleston, South Carolina, a Confederate garrison finally flees the island.
Union Rear Admiral Samuel du Pont was ordered to capture Charleston in January 1863. In April, he launched a naval attack through the mouth...
Cold War
1976
A Soviet Air Force pilot lands his MIG fighter jet in Japan and asks for asylum in the United States. The incident was a serious embarrassment for the Soviets, and also provided a bit of a surprise for U.S. officials. When the Soviets first put the MIG-25 (known as the...
Crime
2012
On this day in 2012, in a case that generated national headlines, former Illinois police officer Drew Peterson is found guilty in the 2004 murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. Savio’s death originally was ruled an accident after her body was discovered in an empty bathtub at her suburban...
Disaster
1943
A new high-speed train traveling between New York City and Washington, D.C., derails, killing 79 people, on this day in 1943. An apparent defect in an older car attached to the train combined with the placement of a signal gantry resulted in the deadly accident.
The Congressional Limited was a newly...
General Interest
1522
One of Ferdinand Magellan’s five ships–the Vittoria–arrives at SanlÚcar de Barrameda in Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world. The Vittoria was commanded by Basque navigator Juan SebastiÁn de Elcano, who took charge of the vessel after the murder of Magellan in the Philippines in April 1521. During...
1966
South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death by a deranged messenger during a parliamentary meeting in Cape Town. The assailant, Demetrio Tsafendas, was a Mozambique immigrant of mixed racial descent–part Greek and part Swazi.As minister of native affairs and later as South African leader, Verwoerd oversaw the...
1972
At Furstenfeldbruck air base near Munich, an attempt by West German police to rescue nine Israeli Olympic team members held hostage by Palestinian terrorists ends in disaster. In an extended firefight that began at 11 p.m. and lasted until 1:30 a.m., all nine Israeli hostages were killed, as were five...
Hollywood
1997
On this day in 1997, an estimated 2.5 billion people around the globe tune in to television broadcasts of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, who died at the age of 36 in a car crash in Paris the week before. During her 15-year marriage to Prince Charles, the...
Literary
1847
On this day in 1847, writer Henry David Thoreau moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts, after living for two years in a shack he built himself on Walden Pond.
Thoreau graduated from Harvard and started a school with his brother. But in 1839, he decided...
Music
1997
“The people’s princess” was the label Great Britain’s newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to use in describing the late Princess Diana in his first public statement following her death. It was a sensitive and understated way to refer to Diana’s tremendous popularity among the British public despite her...
Old West
1844
On this day in 1844, the western explorer John C. Fremont arrives at the shores of the Great Salt Lake, one of the many areas he will map for the lasting benefit of a westward-moving nation.
When Fremont reached the strange saltwater inland lake (a remnant of the much larger prehistoric...
Presidential
1901
On this day in 1901, President William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you...
Sports
1995
On this day in 1995, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played. “The Iron Man” was credited with reviving interest in baseball after a 1994 work stoppage forced the cancellation of the World Series...
Vietnam War
1972
South Vietnamese President Thieu abolishes popular elections in the country’s 10,775 hamlets and supercedes a 1968 law establishing the election of hamlet and village officers. The 44 province chiefs, all appointed by Thieu, were ordered to reorganize local government and appoint hamlet officials. Thieu cited the continuing Communist...
World War I
1914
On September 6, 1914, some 30 miles northeast of Paris, the French 6th Army under the command of General Michel-Joseph Manoury attacks the right flank of the German 1st Army, beginning the decisive First Battle of the Marne at the end of the first month of World War I.
After invading...
World War II
1944
On this day in 1944, British intelligence receives word that, despite setbacks, Italian guerillas fighting the German occupiers of their country are continuing to widen their activity.
Since the Italian surrender in the summer of 1943, German troops had occupied wider swaths of the peninsula to prevent the Allies from using...
