Wednesday, October 19

This Day In History

• 1765   The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties.
  
• 1781   British troops under Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Va., as the American Revolution neared its end.
  
• 1812   French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.
  
• 1944   The Navy announced that black women would be allowed into the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).
  
• 1950   United Nations forces entered the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
  
• 1951   President Harry S. Truman signed an act formally ending the state of war with Germany.
  
• 1960   The United States imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba covering all commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.
  
• 1969   Vice President Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters ''an effete corps of impudent snobs.''
  
• 1977   The supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City.
  
• 2001   Two Army Rangers were killed in a helicopter crash in Pakistan in the first combat-related American deaths of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
  
• 2001   It was announced that a New Jersey postal worker and a New York Post employee had tested positive for skin anthrax.
  
• 2001   Some 374 people died when their ferry sank off Indonesia while en route to Australia; most of the victims were believed to be asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq.
  
• 2002   A 37-year-old man was seriously wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Va., in the latest shooting linked by authorities to the Washington sniper case.
  
• 2003   Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter's Square.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1605   Thomas Browne (physician, author: Religio Medici; died Oct 19, 1682)
  
• 1748   Martha Jefferson (Wayles) (First Lady: wife of 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; died Sep 6, 1782)
  
• 1945   Patricia Ireland (social activist: president of NOW)
  
• 1945   John Lithgow (Emmy Award-winning actor: 3rd Rock from the Sun [1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1998-1999]; Tony Award-winning actor: The Changing Room [1973]; Twilight Zone-The Movie, I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, The World According to Garp, Terms of Endearment, Raising Cain, The Pelican Brief, Cliffhanger)
  
• 1967   Amy Carter (First Daughter: daughter of 39th U.S. President Jimmy and Roselyn Carter)