TODAY IN HISTORY

In 787, the Second Nicene Council opened under Pope Hadrian I. Numbered by some as the seventh of the church’s 21 ecumenical councils, Nicea II condemned iconoclasm, the belief that the veneration of Christian images and relics is idolatry.

In 1621, the first news-sheet in English was printed in England. It had no name, but is considered the beginning of English journalism.

In 1780, Benedict Arnold escaped one day after his treason was disclosed. Arnold, a major-general and commander of the American fort West Point, had planned to surrender the fort to the British. He became a colonel in the British army and later lived in Saint John, N.B., where he engaged in business for four years. He then returned to England, where he died in 1801. In 1788, Canada made its first shipment of furs to China.

In 1869, the Black Friday panic hit Wall Street after an attempt by financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk to corner the gold market. Gold prices tumbled when the U.S. Treasury announced it would sell $4 million in gold.