TODAY IN HISTORY

2014

the U.S. war in Afghanistan, fought for 13 bloody years and still raging, came to a formal end with a quiet flaglowering ceremony in Kabul that marked the transition of the fighting from U.s.-led combat troops to the country’s own security forces.

1612

Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune, but mistook it for a star. (Neptune wasn’t officially discovered until 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.)

1895

The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, held the first public showing of their movies in Paris.

1908

A major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000people.

1912

San Francisco’s Municipal Railway began operations with Mayor James Rolph Jr. at the controls of Streetcar No. 1 as 50,000 spectators looked on.

1945

Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.

1972

Kim Il Sung, the premier of North Korea, was named the country’s president under a new constitution.

1973

The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon.

1981

Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American “test-tube” baby, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

1991

Nine people died in a crush of people trying to get into a rap celebrity basketball game at City College in New York.

2007

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest as the country’s army tried to quell a frenzy of rioting in the wake of her assassination.

2012

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children.

2015

A grand jury in Cleveland declined to indict a white rookie police officer in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a Black boy who was shot while playing with what turned out to be a pellet gun.