TODAY in HISTORY
Today is Saturday, September 8, the 251th day of 2018. There are 114 days left in the year. 1276 Pope John XXI is chosen.
1380 Battle of Kulikovo: Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance. 1504 Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
1565 The Knights of Malta lift the Ottoman siege of Malta that began on May 18. 1655 Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign Army.
1727 A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children. 1781 American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war’s last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory. 1793 French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote. 1831 William IV and Adelaide of SaxeMeiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1888 In England, the first six Football League matches are played. 1914 World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war. 1926 Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1933 Ghazi bin Faisal became King of Iraq. 1943 World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the armistice with Italy. 1952 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang.
1966 The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first- aired episode, The Man Trap. 1974 Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford signs the pardon of Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1994 USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard. 2004 Nasa’s unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash- lands when its parachute fails to open.
2005 Two Ilyushin Il- 76 aircraft from EMERCOM land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.
2016 Nasa launches OSIRIS- REx.