On this date

1634 — English colonists sent by Lord Baltimore arrived in present-day Maryland. 1776 — Gen. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was awarded the first Congressional Gold Medal by the Continental Congress. 1865 — During the Civil War, Confederate forces attacked Fort Stedman in Virginia but were forced to withdraw because of counterattacking Union troops. 1911 — One hundred forty-six people, mostly young female immigrants, were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York. 1924 — The Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in Greece. 1931 — In the so-called “Scottsboro Boys” case, nine young black men were taken off a train in Alabama, accused of raping two white women; after years of convictions, death sentences and imprisonment, the nine were eventually vindicated. 1947 — A coal-dust explosion inside the Centralia Coal Co. Mine No. 5 in Washington County, Illinois, claimed 111 lives; 31 men survived. 1957 — A signing ceremony was held for the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community. 1975 — King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. (The nephew was beheaded in June 1975.) 1988 — In New York City’s so-called “Preppie Killer” case, Robert Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. (Chambers received 5 to 15 years in prison; he was released in 2003 after serving the full sentence.) 1990 — Eighty-seven people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when fire raced through an illegal social club in New York City. 2016 — Caleb Heard rescued two ducks aptly named Curly and Rambo after a neighborhood dog attacked them near his Lakeshore Drive home.

Thought for today ‘It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.’ Andre Gide French author and critic (1869-1951)