On this day in history:
1618 - Johann Kepler discovered the third Law of Planetary Motion.
1702 - England's Queen Anne took the throne upon the death of King William III.
1782 - The Gnadenhutten massacre took place. About 90 Indians were killed by militiamen in Ohio in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.
1853 - The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington,
DC.
1855 - A train passed over the first railway suspension bridge at Niagara Falls,
NY.
1862 - The Confederate ironclad "Merrimack" was launched.
1880 -
U.S. President Rutherford B. Hays declared that the
United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.
1887 - The telescopic fishing rod was patented by Everett Horton.
1894 - A dog license law was enacted in the state of
New York. It was the first animal control law in the
U.S.1904 - The Bundestag in Germany lifted the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.
1905 - In Russia, it was reported that the peasant revolt was spreading to Georgia.
1907 - The British House of Commons turned down a women's suffrage bill.
1909 - Pope Pius X lifted the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.
1910 - In France, Baroness de Laroche became the first woman to obtain a pilot's license.
1910 - The King of Spain authorized women to attend universities.
1911 - In Europe, International Women's Day was celebrated for the first time.
1911 - British Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Gray declared that Britain would not support France in the event of a military conflict.
1917 - Russia's "February Revolution" began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg. The revolution was called the "February Revolution" due to Russia's use of the Old Style calendar.
1917 - The
U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.
1921 - Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato was assassinated while leaving the Parliament in Madrid.
1921 - French troops occupied Dusseldorf.
1933 - Self-liquidating scrip money was issued for the first time at Franklin,
IN.
1941 - Martial law was proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
1942 - During World War II, Japanese forces captured Rangoon, Burma.
1943 - Japanese forces attacked American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle lasted five days.
1945 - Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the
U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She later became the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.
1946 - In New York City, the "Journal American" became the first commercial business to receive a helicopter license.
1946 - The French naval fleet arrived at Haiphong, Vietnam.
1948 - The
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction in public schools was unconstitutional.
1953 - A census bureau report indicated that 239,000 farmers had quit farming over the last 2 years.
1954 - France and Vietnam opened talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina.
1954 - Herb McKenley set a world record for the quarter mile when he ran the distance in 46.8 seconds.
1957 - The International Boxing Club was ruled a monopoly putting it in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.
1959 - Groucho, Chico and Harpo made their final TV appearance together.
1961 - Max Conrad circled the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in the Piper Aztec.
1965 - The
U.S. landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam. They were the first
U.S. combat troops to land in Vietnam.
1966 - Australia announced that it would triple the number of troops in Vietnam.
1973 - Two bombs exploded near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain. 234 people were injured.
1982 - The
U.S. accused the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.
1985 - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported that 407,700 Americans were millionaires. That was more than double the total from just five years before.
1986 - Four French television crewmembers were abducted in west Beirut. All four were eventually released.
1988 - In Fort Campbell,
KY, 17
U.S. soldiers were killed when two Army helicopters collided in midair.
1989 - In Lhasa, Tibet, martial law was declared after three days of protest against Chinese rule.
1999 - The
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
Kris and Anna Benson have filed for divorce on Thursday in Atlanta. The petition for divorce claims the marriage is "irretrievably broken." I think this marriage has been in the frits since Kris was traded to Baltimore at the end of last year. The Mets say she wasn’t the reason he was traded but it’s hard to not believe it. Anna is a pretty brash woman, doesn’t care what comes out of her mouth or who’s listening. If you followed the news and the timing of the trade it’s pretty easy to see the writing on the wall. It was Anna that blasted the Mets organization after they signed Carlos Delgado. He has refused to stand for the playing of “God Bless America.” She was quoted as saying, “How are they going to sit there and say it's so controversial when they sign someone like Delgado, who turns his back on our flag?" She was speaking about the fact that there was speculation in the city that she was going bare her birthday suit and Mets management wasn’t too thrilled with the idea. They didn’t want any more bad publicity or distractions around the team. It’s pretty clear that Anna cost her husband much money from endorsement opportunities from playing in New York. What turns out to be the Mets loss will be the Orioles gain and Kris’s loss will be every guy’s gain. 
