Today In History

1607: The English colony at Jamestown, Va., was settled.

1842: composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, who collaborated with Sir William Gilbert in writing 14 comic operas, was born in London.

1846: The United States declared that a state of war already existed against Mexico.

1917: Tthree peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.

1918: The first U.S. airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced. (The airplane was printed upside-down on some stamps, making them collector’s items.) 1940: In his first speech as prime minister of Britain, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

1954: President Eisenhower signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.

1954: The musical play “The Pajama Game” opened on Broadway.

1958: Vice President Nixon’s limousine was battered by rocks thrown by antiU.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.

1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter’s Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.

1985: A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group “MOVE” ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group’s headquarters; 11 people died in the resulting fire.