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Today in History.




1129
The warrior Yoritomo is made Shogun without equal in Japan.
1525
Estevao Gomes returns to Portugal after failing to find a clear waterway to Asia.
1794
France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.
1808
Napoleon Bonaparte's General Junot is defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimeiro, Portugal.
1831
Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia that kills close to 60 whites.
1858
The first of a series of debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas goes on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time.
1863
Confederate raiders under William Quantrill strike Lawrence, Kansas, leaving 150 civilians dead.
1864
Confederate General A.P. Hill attacks Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon railroad. His attack is repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate casualties.
1915
Italy declares war on Turkey.
1942
U.S. Marines turn back the first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal in the Battle of Tenaru.
1944
The Dumbarton Oaks conference, which lays the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations, is held in Washington, D.C.
1945
President Harry S. Truman cancels all contracts under the Lend-Lease Act.
1959
Hawaii is admitted into the Union.
1963
The South Vietnamese Army arrests over 100 Buddhist monks in Saigon.
1968
Soviet forces invade Czechoslovakia because of the country's experiments with a more liberal government.

1972
US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus launched.
1976
Mary Langdon in Battle, East Sussex, becomes Britain's first firewoman.
1976
Operation Paul Bunyan: after North Korean guards killed two American officers sent to trim a poplar tree along the DMZ on Aug. 18, US and ROK soldiers with heavy support chopped down the tree.
1986
In Cameroon 2,000 die from poison gas from a volcanic eruption.
1988
Ceasefire in the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq.

1989
Voyager 2 begins a flyby of planet Neptune.
1991
Communist hardliners' coup is crushed in USSR after just 2 days; Latvia declares independence from USSR.
1994
Ernesto Zedillo wins Mexico's presidential election.
1996
The new Globe theater opens in England.
2000
Tiger Woods wins golf's PGA Championship, the first golfer to win 3 majors in a calendar year since Ben Hogan in 1953.

2001
NATO decides to send a peacekeeping force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.




Joke of the Day.


What do you do when you come across an elephant in the jungle?






Wipe it off and say you’re sorry.