1865 Congress passes, by vote of 121-24, the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States – except as punishment for a crime.
1917 Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral merchant ships.
1918 A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.
1933 Adolf Hitler promises parliamentary democracy.
1943 German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to Soviet troops at Stalingrad.
1944 Operation-Overlord (D-Day) postponed until June.
1944 U-592 sunk off Ireland.
1950 US President Harry Truman publicly announces support for the development of a hydrogen bomb.
1972 British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to House of Commons on 'Bloody Sunday', "The Army returned the fire directed at them with aimed shots and inflicted a number of casualties on those who were attacking them with firearms and with bombs"
1985 South African President P. W. Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence.
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