Today in History

An Indianapolis court finds heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson guilty of rape.

The first free elections take place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin is elected.

Ground is broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Camp David treaty is signed between Israel and Egypt.

Writer John Kennedy Toole commits suicide at the age of 32. His mother helps get his first and only novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, published. It goes on to win the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.

John F. Kennedy meets with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in Washington to discuss increased Communist involvement in Laos.

The United States sets off an H-bomb blast in the Marshall Islands, the second in four weeks.

Dr. Jonas Salk announces a new vaccine against polio.

The United States Air Force flag design is approved.

Senator Joe McCarthy names Owen Lattimore, an ex-State Department adviser, as a Soviet spy.

Erica Jong, poet, novelist (Fear of Flying, How to Save Your Own Life).

Hermann Goering warns all Jews to leave Austria.

Vine Deloria, Jr., writer, activist.

Sandra Day O’Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Bob Elliot, radio comedian, one half of Bob and Ray.

On the Western Front, the Germans take the French towns Noyon, Roye and Lihons.

William Westmoreland, U.S. army general during the Vietnam War.

The Balkan allies take Adrianople.

Tennessee Williams, American dramatist (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire).

Joseph Campbell, folklorist and writer.

Eastman Film Co. manufactures the first commercial motion picture film.

Duncan Hines, U.S. restaurant guide author

Robert Frost, poet, multiple Pulitzer Prize-winner.

A.E. Houseman, poet (A Shropshire Lad).

Edward Bellamy, writer (Looking Backward).

Famed western artist George Catlin begins his voyage up the Missouri River aboard the American Fur Company steamship Yellowstone.

German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven dies in Vienna. He had been deaf for the later part of his life, but said on his death bed “I shall hear in heaven.”

Louise Otto, German author.

The territory of New Orleans is organized in the Louisiana Purchase.

Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa, Palestine.

The famous Flemish composer Heinrich Issac dies.