Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Today in history
In 1535
Sir Thomas More was executed in London after being convicted of treason.
In 1777
American forces abandoned Fort Ticonderoga to English Gen. John Burgoyne in the Revolutionary War.
In 1854
the first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson, Mich.
In 1885
French scientist Louis Pasteur gave the first successful anti-rabies inoculation to a boy who had been bitten by an infected dog.
In 1917,
during World War I, Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba from the Turks.
In 1923
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.
In 1928
the first all-talking movie feature, “The Lights of New York,” was previewed in New York.
In 1933
the first All-Star baseball game was played, in Comiskey Park; the American League defeated the National League 4-2.
In 1944,
169 people died in a fire that broke out in the main tent of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Conn.
In 1945
President Harry Truman signed an executive order establishing the Medal of Freedom. Also in 1945 Nicaragua became the first nation to formally accept the United Nations charter.
In 1957
Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title.
In 1967
the Biafran war erupted; it lasted 21⁄2 years and left 600,000 dead. In 1989 the U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, Texas, under terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.