Today in 1869, National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Today in 1897, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the first-ever LGBT rights organization, was founded in Berlin by Magnus Hirschfeld.
Today in 1940, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Dick and Morris "Mac" McDonald opened McDonald’s Bar-B-Q restaurant with a drive in featuring a large menu and carhop service. It wasn’t until 1948, after restaurant repairs, that the partners made Mcdonald’s into a self-service drive-in restaurant with a smaller menu of nine items: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, soft drinks, milk, coffee, potato chips, and a slice of pie. The 15-cent hamburger became a staple for Mcdonald’s.
Today in 1963, the last Project Mercury space flight was launched – it was the United States' first man-in-space program.
Today in 1970, black students Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed and 12 others were injured at Jackson State University in Mississippi, when police opened fire on students during protests about the recent Kent State incident.
Today in 1991, President Bush took Queen Elizabeth to an Oakland A's versus Baltimore Orioles game.
Today in 1997, Attorney General Janet Reno requested the death penalty for "Unabomber" suspect Theodore Kaczynski. However, under an arrangement in which he admitted his guilt, Kaczynski later agreed to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He remains incarcerated at the ADX Florence Supermax prison in Colorado. But he’s still got a sense of humor, apparently. In May 2012, Kaczynski submitted his current information to the Harvard University alumni association. He listed his eight life sentences as “awards” and his current occupation as “prisoner.”
Today in 2000, by a five-to-four vote, the US Supreme Court threw out a key provision of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, saying that rape victims could not sue their attackers in federal court.
Today in 2013, under mounting pressure, President Barack Obama released a trove of documents related to the Benghazi attack.
Today in 2013, scientists announced they had successfully cloned human stem cells.
(Photo credit should read Joerg Koch/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)