Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1834

The city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.

1836

The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

1853

Verdi's opera "La Traviata" premiered in Venice, Italy.

1857

In its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.

1933

A nationwide bank holiday declared by President Roosevelt went into effect.

1944

U.S. heavy bombers staged the first American raid on Berlin during World War II.

1957

The former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.

1981

Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."

1983

A woman in New Bedford, Mass., reported being gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern; four men were later convicted.

1987

The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, killing 189 people.

1988

The board of trustees at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a liberal arts college for the deaf, selected a hearing woman to be school president. Outraged students shut down the campus, forcing the selection of a deaf president instead.

1997

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II launched the first official royal Web site.

1998

A Connecticut state lottery accountant gunned down three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.

2000

Three white New York police officers were convicted of a cover-up in a brutal police station attack on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.

1806

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in Durham, England.

1935

Retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. died in Washington.

1999

The emir of Bahrain (Sheik Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa), a key Western ally who had ruled for nearly four decades, died shortly after a meeting with Defense Secretary William Cohen; he was 65.