On this day in history
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Source: HistoryNet.com
1657: France and England form an alliance against Spain.
1743: Handel's Messiah is performed for the first time in London.
1752: Canada’s first newspaper, the Halifax Gazette, is printed by John Bushell.
1775: American revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, while addressing the House of Burgesses, declares "give me liberty, or give me death!"
1857: Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.
1858: Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables.
1880: John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 per cent.
1903: The Wright brothers obtain an airplane patent.
1909: British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole.
1921: Arthur G. Hamilton sets a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
1927: Captain Hawthorne Gray sets a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
1933: The Reichstag gives Adolf Hitler the power to rule by decree.
1967: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement.
1970: Mafia boss Carlo Gambino is arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.
1972: The United States calls a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.
