Today in history

1297 : Battle at Stirling Bridge: Scottish rebel Wallace beats English

1304 : Willem III becomes earl of Holland

1649 : Oliver Cromwell seizes Drogheda, Ireland. Most inhabitants are massacred.

1773 : Benjamin Franklin writes 'There never was a good war or bad peace'

1789 : Alexander Hamilton appointed 'First Secretary of Treasury'

1853 : First electric telegraph used (Merchant's Exchange to Pt Lobos)

1875 : First newspaper cartoon strip: 'Professor Tigwissel’s Burglar Alarm,' created by cartoonist Livingston 'Hop' Hopkins and published in the New York Daily Graphic.

1922 : British mandate of Palestine begins

1950 : Dick Tracy TV show sparks uproar concerning violence

1959 : Congress passes a bill authorizing food stamps for poor Americans

1962 : Beatles cut 'Love Me Do' & 'PS I Love You' with Andy White on drums

1962 : Drummer Ringo Starr replaces Pete Best of the Beatles

1989 : Wall Street investment bank 'Drexel Burnham Lambert' formally pleads guilty to securities and mail fraud charges, ending a major chapter of the 1980s Wall Street insider-trading scandal (Ivan Boesky & Michael Milken).

1990 : After a decade of performing in the Francophone world, Celine Dion makes her formal English-language debut in the United States with the release of her album 'Unison'.

1996 : David Bowie's single 'Telling Lies' becomes the first song offered as a digital single by a major record label (Virgin Records). Bowie launches the single by hosting an online chat in which he and two other people pretending to be him answer questions from the audience. Bowie tells the truth while the other two are 'telling lies'

2001 : 2.977 victims are killed in attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 are hijacked and crash into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. American Airlines Flight 77 is hijacked and crashes into the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 is hijacked and crashes into grassland in Shanksville due to the passengers fighting to regain control of the airplane. The World Trade Center towers collapse as a result of the crashes.