1474 Near Belfort, a Swiss army without William Tell defeated a French effort to conquer Switzerland in the Burgundian War. The threat united the peoples of Alps as never before and they stayed that way.
1835 Texas proclaimed its independence from Mexico, and became an independent and sovereign state (until 1845) with Sam Houston as its first president. A biography of Houston is discussed elswhere on this blog.
1895 First shipment of canned Dole pineapples from Hawaii. Still shipping. We have been to the original Dole plantation on Oahu, and another on Maui. Yum, yum.
1953 ‘Robin Hood’ was banned from Indiana state school libraries because it was communist. Oh, oh, watched it every Thursday evening about that time. Did not know he was Red Robin, thought that was a bird in the spring.
1981 The Canadarm, a robotic space arm (the first of five) was deployed on the Space Shuttle Columbia. They were used on more than 90 missions over 30 years. They originated in a Quebec engineering firm.
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