Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots was born on this day in 1542.

Eli Whitney the inventor of the cotton gin and developed the concept of mass production was born on this day in 1765. In the American Revolution, George Washington’s army was in retreat in 1776 as they crossed the Delaware river from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

Pope Pius IX on this day in 1854 proclaimed his unreserved belief in the Immaculate Conception. The theory that Mary, the mother of Jesus was free of original sin from the moment she was conceived.

 US President Abraham Lincoln on this day in 1863 announced his plan for the  Reconstruction of the South. On the same day English boxer Tom King defeated American John Heenan to become the first world heavyweight champion.

The United States declared war on Japan on this day in 1941 and so entered into World War Two. On the same day Great Britain, Canada and Australia also declared war on the Japanese.

In 1949 the Chinese Nationalist Party moved the Chinese government from the mainland to the island of Taiwan due to pressure from the Communists.

On the TV show ‘I Love Lucy’ a pregnancy was for the first time acknowledged on a TV show on this day in 1952. A year later Los Angeles was declared as the third largest city in the United States.

In 1962 a strike began as workers from the International Typographical Union took to vote for industrial action. The strike closed nine New York City newspapers and lasted 114 days, ending on April 1st 1963.

In Zimbabwe, the African countries Manpower Minister was found guilty on this day in 1980 of killing a white farmer. The minister, Edgar Tekere, was freed under a law that protected government ministers acting to suppress terrorism. On the same day in New York City Mark Chapman shot John Lennon, earlier the same day the former Beatle had autographed an album for Chapman.

On this day in 1982 Norman D Mayer held the Washington Monument hostage. His demands were to end all nuclear weapons. If his demands were not met he planned to blow up the monument with explosives he claimed were inside a van. After a ten hour siege of the monument he was shot dead by police. Exactly five years later in Washington DC, the US President Reagan and the Soviet leader Gorbachev signed a treaty agreeing to the destruction of each nations arsenals of intermediate range nuclear weapons.