TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 2018

On this day in history:

1454 - Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, Italy. Matthias Ringmann, a German mapmaker, named the American continent in his honour.

1617 - The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.

1734 - The Russians took Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.

1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais were married. They were divorced in 1809.

1812 - Swedish Pomerania was seized by Napoleon.

1837 - The settlement of Melbourne is named.

1839 - The French Academy of Science announced the Daguerreotype photo process. 1857 - South Australia holds its first elections, but an unusually large number of informal votes are submitted.

1870 - Granny Smith, who gave her name to the Granny Smith apple, dies.

1900 - In Germany, women petition Reichstag for the right to take university entrance exams.

1905 - In Manchuria, Japanese troops surrounded 200,000 Russian troops that were retreating from Mudken. 1905 - In Congo, Belgian Vice Gov Costermans committed suicide following an investigation of colonial policy.

1909 - The French National Assembly passed an income tax bill.

1932 - Eamon De Valera was elected president of the Irish Free State and pledged to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown.

1936 - The German press warned that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections would be arrested.

1956 - British authorities arrested and deported Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He was accused of supporting terrorists.

1957 - Egyptian leader Nasser barred UN plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.

1975 - Iraq launched an offensive against the rebel Kurds.

1977 - About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington, DC. They killed one person and took more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later. 2000 - In Norway, the coalition government of Kjell Magne Bondevik resigned as a result of an environmental dispute.