| (1755) Dr. Johnson’s dictionary is published
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Nine years of solitary scholarly effort are about to change the world as Samuel Johnson’s ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ is published in London. It will stand as the definitive dictionary for 173 years.. |
| (1927) America’s worst river flood begins
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| Swollen by the previous year’s torrential rains, the Mississippi River begins flowing over levees as more record-breaking showers fall. The ensuing flood will wash into 10 states, eventually covering 14 percent of Arkansas. . |
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| (1942) Malta is awarded the George Cross for bravery
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Britain’s King George VI awards an entire island’s populace a medal for heroism. Malta, an island in the southern Mediterranean, and part of the British Empire, has been relentlessly bombarded by WWII Axis powers.. |
| (1947) Jackie Robinson integrates baseball
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| More than 26,000 spectators, at least 14,000 of them African Americans, crowd into New York’s Ebbet Field as Jack Roosevelt Robinson, the first African American to play baseball for a Major League team, starts as the Brooklyn Dodgers’ first baseman against the Boston Braves. Robinson will endure racist resistance throughout his first season in the majors, but the national pastime’s color barrier will be forever broken.. |
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