Today in History

1698: Tsar Peter I of Russia puts a tax on beards in an effort to get his countrymen to look more like Frenchmen.

1774: The first Continental Congress gathers at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to consider colonial grievanaces against the British crown.  All the colonies except Georgia send delegates.

1817: The plaintiffs in Adams v. Lindsell mail the acceptance that will lead to creation of the “mailbox rule” in contracts.

1836: Former Tenessee lawyer and Governor Sam Houston is elected first president of the Republic of Texas.

1857: Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte, the “Father of Sociology,” dies at Paris, France.

1874: Napoleon Lajoie is born at Woonsocket, Rhode Island.  In 1901, while he’s hitting .422, he’ll become the first major league baseball player to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded.

1877: Sioux war leader Crazy Horse is bayoneted to death by a U.S. Army private while resisting arrest at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

1927: Future Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Adolph Volcker is born at Cape May, New Jersey.  Most of your students are too young to remember that there was a time Alan Greenspan wasn’t the Fed chair.

1983: Canadian college dropout Peter Jennings becomes anchor of the ABC Evening News.