This Day in History
On July 12, 1909, the House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax, and submitted it to the states. (It was declared ratified in February 1913.)
On this date:
In 1543, England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. In 1812, United States forces led by Gen. William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. (However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit.) In 1817, author, poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill authorizing the Army Medal of Honor. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was flown by helicopter from the White House to a secret mountaintop location as part of a drill involving a mock nuclear attack on Washington. In 1960, the Etch A Sketch Magic Screen drawing toy, invented by French electrician Andre Cassagnes, was first produced by the Ohio Art Co. In 1962, The Rolling Stones played their first-ever gig at The Marquee in London. In 1967, rioting erupted in Newark, New Jersey, over the police beating of a black taxi driver; 26 people were killed in the five days of violence that followed. In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced his choice of U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running-mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket. In 1994, President Bill Clinton, visiting Germany, went to the eastern sector of Berlin, the first U.S. president to do so since Harry Truman. In 2001, Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an $8.7 million settlement with the city and its police union. Ten years ago: Former White House press secretary Tony Snow died in Washington, D.C. at age 53. Former All-Star outfielder and longtime Yankees broadcaster Bobby Murcer died in Oklahoma City at age 62. Angelina Jolie gave birth at a hospital on the French Riviera to twins Knox and Vivienne, making a family of eight with Brad Pitt.