On this day in history

President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb.

Source: Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins in the Senate; he is acquitted of perjury and obstruction charges the following month.

Source: TodayIsHoliday

The Bank of North America opens in Philadelphia, the first commercial bank in the United States, chartered by Congress to finance the Revolutionary War effort.

Source: Library of Congress

States choose presidential electors for the first U.S. presidential election; the electors unanimously choose George Washington as president a month later.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Edison's studio films employee Fred Ott sneezing, later recognized as the first motion picture to gain legal status through copyright.

Source: Library of Congress

Commercial transatlantic telephone service begins between New York and London, with a three minute call costing about 75 dollars.

Source: timeanddate

The Georgetown IBM experiment gives the first public demonstration of machine translation, rendering Russian into English.

Source: On This Day

Marian Anderson becomes the first Black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, in the role of Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

Source: TodayIsHoliday

The Los Angeles Lakers beat Atlanta for their 33rd straight win, the longest streak in major pro sports.

Source: On This Day

Galileo Galilei observes three of Jupiter's moons through his telescope, the first evidence that not all heavenly bodies orbit the Earth.

Source: timeanddate

In the New Fourth Army Incident, Nationalist forces attack surrounded Communist troops in China, killing or capturing 7,000.

Source: On This Day

The Khmer Rouge regime falls as Vietnamese forces capture Phnom Penh, ending Pol Pot's genocidal rule in Cambodia.

Source: timeanddate

French forces under the Duke of Guise recapture Calais from England, ending more than two centuries of English possession of the port.

Source: On-This-Day.com

Englishman Henry Mill patents a typewriter design, though a working machine is not built for years.

Source: On This Day

Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries make the first balloon crossing of the English Channel, flying from Dover to Calais.

Source: timeanddate

The Dail Eireann ratifies the Anglo Irish Treaty, establishing the Irish Free State and partitioning Ireland.

Source: On This Day

French physicist Marguerite Perey discovers francium, the last naturally occurring element ever found.

Source: On This Day