On this date

1766 — Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans to assume his duties as the first Spanish governor of the Louisiana Territory, where he encountered resistance from the French residents. 1770 — The Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people. 1867 — Thousands of members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood launched the Fenian Rebellion in Ireland in an attempt at overthrowing British rule; the poorly-organized rising was swiftly put down by British and Irish authorities. 1927 — “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place,” the last Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was published in the U.S. in Liberty Magazine. 1933 — In German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote; the Nazis joined with a conservative nationalist party to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag. 1946 — Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in which he said: “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent, allowing police governments to rule Eastern Europe.” 1953 — Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died after three decades in power. 1963 — Country music performers Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins died in the crash of their plane, a Piper Comanche, near Camden, Tennessee, along with pilot Randy Hughes (Cline’s manager). 1966 — BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707, crashed into Japan’s Mount Fuji after breaking up in severe turbulence; all 124 people on board were killed. 1970 — The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect after 43 nations ratified it. 1982 — Comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33. 1993 — Palair Macedonian Airlines Flight 301, a Fokker 100, crashed after taking off from Skopje Airport, killing 83 of the 97 persons aboard. 2008 — Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole announced that airline passengers would be able to carry small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes. (The plan was dropped three months later amid fierce congressional and industry opposition.)