1601 – Church authorities in Rome burn Hebrew books
1639 – Connecticut’s first constitution, the “Fundamental Orders,” was adopted.
1699 – Massachusetts holds day of fasting for wrongly persecuting “witches”
1761 – Third Battle of Panipat: In one of the largest battles of the century, the mostly Muslim Afghani Durrani Empire defeats the mostly Hindu Maratha Empire in Northern India. An estimated 60,000–70,000 were killed in the fighting and about 40,000 Maratha prisoners massacred afterwards.
1784 – US Congress of the Confederation ratifies the Treaty of Paris, signed September 3, 1783, ending the Revolutionary War, and forwards it to Great Britain
1794 – Dr Jessee Bennet of Edom, Virginia, performs 1st successful Cesarean section operation in the US on his wife
1873 – Prominent African American Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback elected to US Senate (though never seated due to state elections controversy)
1882 – The Myopia Hunt Club, in Winchester, MA, became the first country club in the United States.
1911 – Roald Amundsen’s South Pole expedition lands on the Ross Ice Shelf
1914 – The Gandhi-Smuts Agreement is reached between Gen. J.C. Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi, regarding voluntary registration, poll tax, recognition of Indian marriages and other matters
1943 – Churchill, Roosevelt and de Gaulle meet in Casablanca to discuss their WWII strategy
1954 – The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator. The new company was called the American Motors Corporation.
1960 – US Army promotes Elvis Presley to Sergeant
1963 – George Wallace sworn in as Governor of Alabama, his address states “segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!”
1967 – New York Times reports Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments
1979 – US President Jimmy Carter proposes Martin Luther King’s birthday be a holiday
1981 – US Federal Communications Commission frees stations to air as many commercials an hour as they wish
1986 – Vinicio Cerezo becomes only the second freely elected President of Guatemala since CIA-sponsored coup in 1954
1994 – The Duchess of Kent converts to Catholicism, the first member of the Royal Family to do so in more than 300 years
1995 – Mexico pledges profits from state-owned Pemex’s $7-billion-per-year oil revenues in an effort to secure US congressional approval of loan guarantees; President Clinton approves a $20-billion U.S. aid package for Mexico
1999 – The U.S. proposed the lifting of the U.N. ceilings on the sale of oil in Iraq. The restriction being that the money be used to buy medicine and food for the Iraqi people.
2004 – The national flag of Georgia, the so-called “five cross flag” restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years
2005 – The European Huygens space probe lands on Saturn’s moon Titan
2019 – US President Donald Trump denies he is a Russian agent after NY Times article states the FBI started an investigation and the Washington Post raised issues over a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
