This Day In History

657- Battle of Siffin during the first Muslim civil war between Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muawiyah I beside Euphrates River

920- Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at Pamplona. 1469- Wars of the Roses: Battle of Edgecote Moor Pitting the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of King Edward IV.

1678- England & Netherlands signs treaty: sending ultimatum to France

1803- The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world’s first public railway, opens in south London. 1847- The Liberian Declaration of Independence is signed making Liberia a sovereign nation, independent from the American Colonization Society 1891- France annexes Tahiti.

1936- The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.

1941- US embargo on oil-export to Japan

1944- Japanese suicide attack on US lines in Guam 1944- Russian troops arrive in Weichsel

1944- The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain (nicknamed “gasometer”).

1945- Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the Japanese surrender during WWII 1945- Japanese government disregards US ultimatum

1945- US cruiser Indianapolis reaches Tinian with atom bomb

1945- Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled

1947- President Truman signs National Security Act (1947), establishing Department of Defense, CIA, National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff 1951- Netherlands ends state of war with Germany 1952- King Farouk I of Egypt abdicates [Black Saturday] 1956- Egypt seizes the Suez Canal

1957- USSR launches 1st intercontinental multistage ballistic missile

1963-Skopje, Yugoslavia, destroyed by earthquake, kills 1,000+

1963 -US Syncom 2, 1st geosynchronous communications satellite, launched