TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 10
610 In Islam, the traditional date of the Laylat al-Qadr, when Muhammad began to receive the Qur’an
1519 Magellan’s 5 ship set sail to circumnavigate the Earth
1539 King Francis of France declares that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin.
1582 Russia ends its 25-year war with Poland.
1628 The Swedish warship Vasa capsizes and sinks in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage.
1792 King Louis XVI was taken into custody by mobs during the French Revolution. He was executed the following January after being put on trial for treason.
1821 Missouri became the 24th state in the United States.
1827 Race riots in Cincinnati (1,000 blacks leave for Canada)
1831 William Driver of Salem, Massachusetts, is the first to use the term “Old Glory” in connection with the American flag, when he gives that name to a large flag aboard his ship, the Charles Daggett.
1846 The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson.
1911 Parliament Act reduces power of House of Lords
1921 Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio at his summer home on Campobello island.
1945 The day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced they would surrender. The only condition was that the status of Emperor Hirohito would remain unchanged.
1949 National Military Establishment renamed Department of Defense.
1950 President Harry S. Truman calls the National Guard to active duty to fight in the Korean War.
1970 Rocker Jim Morrison tried in Miami on “lewd & lascivious behavior.” Although convicted and sentenced to jail, he was free on bond while his case was being appealed when he dies in Paris, July 3, 1971.
1975 David Frost purchases the exclusive rights to interview Richard Nixon.
1977 Postal employee David Berkowitz arrested in Yonkers, NY, accused of being “Son of Sam” the 44 caliber killer
1988 U.S. President Reagan signed a measure that provided $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans who were interned by the U.S. government during World War II.
1990 Magellan Space Probe is Inserted in Orbit Around Venus
1994 U.S. President Clinton claimed presidential immunity when he asked a federal judge to dismiss, at least for the time being, a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Corbin Jones.
1995 Norma McCorvey, “Jane Roe” of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, announced that she had joined the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.
2001 An attack on a train during the Angolan Civil War kills about 250 people
2003 The First Person to Get Married While in Space. Ekaterina Dmitriev and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were married. Malenchenko was about 240 miles above the earth in the international space station
2006 All toiletries are banned from commercial airplanes after Scotland Yard disrupts a a major terrorist plot involving liquid explosives. After a few weeks, the toiletries ban was modified.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
