Today in History.

0902
The Aghlabid rulers of Ifriqiyah (modern day Tunisia) capture Taormina, Sicily.
1096
The crusaders under Peter the Hermit reach Constantinople.
1464
Piero de Medici succeeds his father, Cosimo, as ruler of Florence.
1664
The Turkish army is defeated by French and German troops at St. Gotthard, Hungary.
1689
James II's siege of Londonderry, Ireland, ends in failure. James' force had suffered some 8,000 casualties to the defenders' 3,600.
1740
Thomas Arne's song "Rule Britannia" is performed for the first time.
1759
British and Hanoverian armies defeat the French at the Battle of Minden, Germany.
1791
Robert Carter III, a Virginia plantation owner, frees all 500 of his slaves in the largest private emancipation in U.S. history. An 1839 mutiny aboard a Spanish ship in Cuban waters raised basic questions about freedom and slavery in the United States.
1798
Admiral Horatio Nelson routs the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay, Egypt.
1801
The American schooner Enterprise captures the Barbary cruiser Tripoli. Often venturing into harm's way, America's most famous sailing ship, the Constitution, twice came close to oblivion.
1834
Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire.
1864
Union General Ulysses S. Grant gives general Philip H. Sheridan the mission of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Confederate forces. After nearly 10 months of trench warfare, Confederate resistance at Petersburg, Virginia, suddenly collapsed.
1872
The first long-distance gas pipeline in the U.S. is completed. Designed for natural gas, the two-inch pipe ran five miles from Newton Wells to Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1873
San Francisco's first cable cars begin running, operated by Hallidie's Clay Street Hill Railroad Company.
1880
Sir Frederick Roberts frees the British Afghanistan garrison of Kandahar from Afghan rebels.
1893
A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal is patented.
1914
Germany declares war on Russia.
1937
The Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany becomes operational.The Nuremberg Trial would later bring high-ranking Nazis to justice.
1939
Synthetic vitamin K is produced for the first time.
1941
The Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo plane makes its first flight.
1942
Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sinks U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard.
1943
Over 177 B-24 Liberator bombers attack the oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, for a second time.
1944
The Polish underground begins an uprising against the occupying German army, as the Red Army approaches Warsaw.
1946
President Harry S Truman establishes the Atomic Energy Commission.
1950
Lead elements of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division arrive in Korea from the United States.

1954
The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam into two countries at the 17th parallel.
1957
US and Canada create North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
1960
Singer Chubby Checker releases "The Twist," creating a new dance craze. The song had been released by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters the previous year but got little attention.
1964
Arthur Ashe becomes the first African-American to play on the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.
1966
Charles Whitman, shooting from the Texas Tower at the University of Texas, kills 16 people and wounds 31 before being killed himself.

1988
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh begins his national radio show.
2004
In Asuncion, Paraguay, a fire in the Ycua Bolanos V supermarket complex kills nearly 400 people and injures 500.
2007
The I-35W bridge at Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145.

Joke of the Day

When Albert Einstein was making the rounds of the speaker's circuit, he usually found himself eagerly longing to get back to his laboratory work.

One night as they were driving to yet another rubber-chicken dinner, Einstein mentioned to his chauffeur (a man who somewhat resembled Einstein in looks & manner) that he was tired of speechmaking.

"I have an idea, boss," his chauffeur said. "I've heard you give this speech so many times. I'll bet I could give it for you." Einstein laughed loudly and said, "Why not? Let's do it!"

When they arrived at the dinner, Einstein donned the chauffeur's cap and jacket and sat in the back of the room. The chauffeur gave a beautiful rendition of Einstein's speech and even answered a few questions expertly.

Then a supremely pompous professor asked an extremely esoteric question about anti-matter formation, digressing here and there to let everyone in the audience know that he was nobody's fool.

Without missing a beat, the chauffeur fixed the professor with a steely stare and said, "Sir, the answer to that question is so simple that I will let my chauffeur, who is sitting in the back, answer it for me."