Today in History: March 29

1986: A court in Rome declared innocent six men in a plot to kill the Pope.
1976: Eight Ohio National Guardsmen are indicted for shooting four Kent State students during an anti-war protest on May 4, 1970.

1975: Egyptian president Anwar Sadat declares that he will reopen the Suez Canal on June 5, 1975.

1973: American troops evacuated Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) as the United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War.

1971: Lt. William L. Calley Jr. is found guilty for his actions in the My Lai massacre.

1967: France launches its first nuclear submarine.

1966: Leonid Brezhenev becomes First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. He denounces the American policy in Vietnam and calls it one of aggression.

1962: Cuba opens the trial of the Bay of Pigs invaders.

1961: The 23rd amendment, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote for president, is ratified.

1952: President Harry Truman removes himself from the presidential race.

1951: The Chinese reject Gen. Douglas MacArthur's offer for a truce in Korea.

1951: Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I opens on Broadway starring Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner.

1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death for turning over U.S. military secrets to the Soviet Union.

1943: British Conservative politician John Major, who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997, was born.

1941: The British sink five Italian warships off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean.

1936: Italy firebombs the Ethiopian city of Harar.

1917: Man o' War, perhaps the most famous American Thoroughbred in 20th-century horse racing, was foaled.

1916: The Italians call off the fifth attack on Isonzo.

1913: The German government announces a raise in taxes in order to finance the new military budget.

1903: A regular news service begins between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.

1886: Coca-Cola goes on sale for the first time at a drugstore in Atlanta. Its inventor, Dr. John Pemberton, claims it can cure anything from hysteria to the common cold.

1879: British troops of the 90th Light Infantry Regiment repulse a major attack by Zulu tribesmen in northwest Zululand.

1867: The United States purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars.

1867: On this day in 1867, with the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario.

1847: U.S. troops under General Winfield Scott take possession of the Mexican stronghold at Vera Cruz.

1827: Composer Ludwig van Beethoven is buried in Vienna amidst a crowd of over 10,000 mourners.

1807: German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the sky.

1790: John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States (1841–45), was born.

1638: A permanent European colony is established in present-day Delaware.

1461: Edward IV defeated Henry VI for the throne of England in the bloodiest battle of the York-Lancaster conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.