1803: The first impeachment trial of a U.S. Judge, John Pickering, begins.
1845: Florida becomes the 27th U.S. state.
1857: Under pretexts, Britain and France declare war on China.
1861: The serfs of Russia are emancipated by Alexander II as part of a program of westernization.
1863: President Abraham Lincoln signs the conscription act compelling U.S. citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.
1877: Rutherford B. Hayes, the republican governor of Ohio is elected president, his election confirmed by an electoral commission after disputed election the previous November.
1905: The Russian Czar agrees to create an elected assembly.
1918: The Soviets and Germany sign a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk depriving the Soviets of White Russia.
1919: Boeing flies the first U.S. international airmail from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington.
1923: The first issue of Time magazine is published. Its editor, Henry R. Luce, is just out of Yale.
1931: President Herbert Hoover signs a bill that makes Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem.
1939: In Bombay, Gandhi begins a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.
1969: Sirhan Sirhan testifies in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.
1973: Japan discloses its first defense plan since World War II.
1999: Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky appears on national television to explain her affair with President Bill Clinton.
HistoryNet.com
