On June 23, 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his "Type-Writer," featuring a QWERTY keyboard; it was the first commercially successful typewriter.
On this date:
In 1314, during the First War of Scottish Independence, the two-day Battle of Bannockburn, resulting in victory for the forces of Robert the Bruce over the army of King Edward II, began near Stirling.
In 1537, Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza, the founder of Buenos Aires, died aboard his ship while heading back to Spain.
In 1757, forces of the East India Company led by Robert Clive won the Battle of Plassey, which effectively marked the beginning of British colonial rule in India.
In 1892, the Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated former President Grover Cleveland on the first ballot.
In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.
In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.
In 1950, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501, a DC-4, crashed into Lake Michigan with the loss of all 58 people on board.
In 1968, a syndicated newspaper column by Joseph Kraft coined the term "Middle America."
In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974.) President Nixon signed Title IX barring discrimination on the basis of sex for "any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland because of a bomb authorities believe was planted by Sikh separatists.
In 1993, in a case that drew widespread attention, Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, Virginia, sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her. (John Bobbitt was later acquitted of marital sexual assault; Lorena Bobbitt was later acquitted by reason of insanity of malicious wounding.) Canada's Senate ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement.
