TODAY IN HISTORY

1815

The United States and Britain exchanged the instruments of ratification for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.

1863

The International Red Cross was founded in Geneva.

1864

During the Civil War, the Union ship USS Housatonic was rammed and sunk in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, by the Confederate hand-cranked submarine HL Hunley in the first naval attack of its kind; the Hunley also sank.

1897

The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, convened its first meeting in Washington.

1944

During World War II, U.S. forces invaded Eniwetok Atoll, encountering little initial resistance from Imperial Japanese troops. (The Americans secured the atoll less than a week later.)

1959

The United States launched Vanguard 2, a satellite that carried meteorological equipment.

1964

The Supreme Court, in Wesberry v. Sanders, ruled that congressional districts within each state had to be roughly equal in population.

1972

President Richard M. Nixon departed the White House with his wife, Pat, on a historic trip to China.

1988

Lt. Col. William Higgins, a Marine Corps officer serving with a United Nations truce monitoring group, was kidnapped in southern Lebanon by Iranian-backed terrorists (he was later slain by his captors).

1995

Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings (he was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison).

2014

Jimmy Fallon made his debut as host of NBC’S “Tonight Show.”

2015

Vice President Joe Biden opened a White House summit on countering extremism and radicalization, saying the United States needed to ensure that immigrants were fully included in the fabric of American society to prevent violent ideologies from taking root at home.