TODAY IN HISTORY

HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY 1922

Vladimir Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which lasted nearly seven decades before dissolving in December 1991.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1813

British troops burned Buffalo, New York, during the War of 1812.

1853

The United States and Mexico signed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to buy some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.

1860

10 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the state militia seized the United States Arsenal in Charleston.

1903

About 600 people died when fire broke out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago.

1954

Olympic gold medal runner Malvin G. Whitfield became the first Black recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award for amateur athletes.

1972

The United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.

1994

A gunman walked into a pair of suburban Boston abortion clinics and opened fire, killing two employees.

(John C. Salvi III was later convicted of murder; he died in prison, an apparent suicide.)

1999

Former Beatle George Harrison fought off a knife-wielding intruder who’d broken into his mansion west of London and stabbed him in the chest. (The attacker was later acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity.)

2004

A fire broke out during a rock concert at a nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 194 people. Bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw died in Thousand Oaks, California, at age 94.

2006

A state funeral service was held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for former President Gerald R. Ford.

2009

Seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed by a suicide bomber at a U.S. base in Afghanistan.

2015

Bill Cosby was charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

It was the first criminal case brought against the comedian out of the torrent of allegations that destroyed his good-guy image as “America’s Dad.”

(Cosby’s first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked; he was convicted on three charges at his retrial in April 2018 and was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction in June 2021 and Cosby went free.)