On this day in history
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Source: HistoryNet.com
1303: A peace treaty is signed between England and France.
1520: Hernando Cortes defeats Spanish troops sent against him in Mexico.
1674: John Sobieski becomes Poland's first king.
1774: Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.
1775: North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.
1784: The Peace of Versailles ends a war between France, England and Holland.
1799: Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d'Acre in Egypt.
1861: North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1874: Levi Strauss begins marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.
1902: The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends.
1927: Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.
1930: The first airplane is catapulted from a dirigible.
1932: Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
1939: Pan American Airways starts the first regular passenger service across the Atlantic.
1942: Japan completes the conquest of Burma.
1951: During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first jet air ace in history.
1961: A white mob attacks civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama.
1969: In South Vietnam, troops of the 101st Airborne Division reach the top of Hill 937 after nine days of fighting entrenched North Vietnamese forces.
1970: 100,000 people march in New York, supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.
