In 1694, the Bank of England received a royal charter as a
commercial institution.
In 1789, Congress established the Department of Foreign
Affairs, the forerunner of the Department of State.
In 1794, French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre
was overthrown and placed under arrest; he was executed the
following day.
In 1861, Union General George B. McClellan was put in command
of the Army of the Potomac.
In 1866, Cyrus W. Field finally succeeded, after two
failures, in laying the first underwater telegraph cable
between North America and Europe.
In 1909, Orville Wright tested the U.S. Army's first
airplane, flying himself and a passenger for one hour and 12
minutes.
In 1942, Benny Goodman and his Orchestra and vocalist Peggy
Lee recorded "Why Don't You Do Right" in New York for
Columbia Records.
In 1967, in the wake of urban rioting, President Johnson
appointed the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of the
violence.
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to
recommend President Nixon's impeachment on a charge that he
had personally engaged in a "course of conduct" designed to
obstruct justice in the Watergate case.
In 1976, Air Force veteran Ray Brennan became the first
person to die of so-called "Legionnaire's Disease" following
an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.
In 1986, the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, one day after being
freed by Muslim extremists in Lebanon, entered the U.S.
military hospital in Wiesbaden, West Germany.
In 1991, fighting escalated in the breakaway republic of
Croatia, as a Yugoslav air force jet fired on Croatian forces
and ground fighting erupted into clashes with federal tanks
and troops.
In 1995, the Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in
Washington by President Clinton and South Korean President
Kim Young-sam.
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