TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1943

The nearly month-long Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the Great Synagogue.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1770

Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

1868

At the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, 35out of 54senators voted to find Johnson guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” over his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, falling one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict; the trial ended 10days later after two other articles of impeachment went down to defeat as well.

1920

Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV.

1939

the federal government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, New York.

1966

China launched the Cultural Revolution, a radical as well as deadly reform movement aimed at purging the country of “counter-revolutionaries.”

1975

Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1984

Comedian Andy Kaufman died in Los Angeles at age 35.

1988

The U.S. Supreme Court, in California v. Greenwood, ruled that police could search discarded garbage without a search warrant. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine.

1990

Death claimed entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in Los Angeles at age 64 and “Muppets” creator Jim Henson in New York at age 53.