| On this date in: |
| 1763 |
France ceded Canada to England under the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War. |
| 1840 |
Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha. |
| 1846 |
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – the Mormons – began an exodus west from Illinois. |
| 1962 |
The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for a Soviet spy held by the United States. |
| 1964 |
Bob Dylan’s album “The Times They Are A-Changin”‘ was released. |
| 1967 |
The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect. |
| 1989 |
Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African-American to head a major U.S. political party. |
| 2003 |
Iraq agreed to allow U-2 surveillance flights over its territory, meeting a key demand by U.N. inspectors searching for banned weapons; President George W. Bush brushed aside Iraqi concessions as too little, too late. |
| 2004 |
Rapper-producer Kanye West’s debut CD, “The College Dropout,” was released. |
| 2005 |
North Korea boasted publicly for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons. |
| 2007 |
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech at the state house in Springfield, Ill. |
| 2007 |
Gen. David Petraeus took charge of U.S. forces in Iraq. |
| 2011 |
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to step down or leave the country and instead handed his powers to his vice president. |
