Today in History... June 18th

1983 Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space

1979 President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the Salt II pact to limit nuclear arms

1966 Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African America to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission

1959 A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration

1944 The U.S. First Army breaks through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cuts off the German-held port of Cherbourg

1942 The U.S. Navy commissions its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson

1928 Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane

1864 At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realizes the town can no longer be taken by assault and settles into a siege

1815 At the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon is defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington

1812 The War of 1812 begins when the United States declares war against Britain

1778 British troops evacuate Philadelphia