This Day In History
1783 - Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
1791 - Britain's Observer newspaper was first published.
1812 - Peter Gaillard patented the power mower.
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This Day In History
1783 - Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
1791 - Britain's Observer newspaper was first published.
1812 - Peter Gaillard patented the power mower.
1867 - The National Grange of Husbandry was founded.
1875 - William Marcy Tweed, the "Boss" of New York City's Tammany Hall political organization, escaped from jail and fled from the U.S.
1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. Wilson became the first chief executive to travel to Europe while in office.
1942 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration. The program had been created in order to provide jobs during the Great Depression.
1942 - U.S. bombers attacked the Italian mainland for the first time during World War II.
1943 - Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis announced that any club was free to employ black players.
1945 - The U.S. Senate approved American participation in the United Nations.
1965 - The U.S. launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Comdr. James A. Lovell on board.
1973 - Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter.
1977 - Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire, crowned himself emperor in a ceremony believed to have cost more than $100 million. He was deposed 2 years later.
1978 - Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been murdered.
1979 - For the second time, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to urge Iran to free American hostages that had been taken on November 4.
1980 - The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. Five national guardsmen were later convicted of the murders.
1983 - U.S. jet fighters struck Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon in retaliation for attacks directed at American reconnaissance planes. Navy Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. was shot down and captured by Syria.
1984 - A five-day hijack drama began as four men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran. Two American passengers were killed by the hijackers.
1986 - Both U.S. houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.
1987 - Cuban inmates at a federal prison in Atlanta freed their 89 hostages, peacefully ending an 11-day uprising.
1988 - The government of Argentina announced that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers had ended a four-day military revolt.
1990 - Iraq promised to release 3,300 Soviet citizens it was holding.
1991 - Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was released after nearly seven years in captivity in Lebanon.
1991 - Pan American World Airways ceased operations.
1992 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.
1993 - The Angolan government and its UNITA guerrilla foes formally adopted terms for a truce. The conflict was killing an estimated 1,000 people per day.
1994 - Bosnian Serbs released 53 out o