Today in History

North Korean and South Korean ships skirmish off Daecheon Island.

NASA declares the Phoenix mission concluded after losing communications with the lander, five months after it began its exploration on the surface of Mars.

WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a merger, the largest in US history up to that time.

German citizens begin tearing down the Berlin Wall.

President Ronald Reagan refuses to reveal details of the Iran arms sale.

Miranda Lambert, country singer (“Kerosene,” “Famous in a Small Town”)

Brittany Murphy, actress, voice actress, singer, producer; films include Clueless and Sin City; voice of Luanne Platter on long-running animated TV series King of the Hill.

The iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald breaks in half and sinks at the eastern end of Lake Superior–all 29 crew members perish.

Hijackers divert a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes.

Two women are tarred and feathered in Belfast for dating British soldiers, while in Londonderry, Northern Ireland a Catholic girl is also tarred and feathered for her intention of marrying a British soldier.

The PBS children’s program Sesame Street debuts.

Australia begins a draft to fulfill its commitment in Vietnam.

Hugh Bonneville, actor (Downton Abbey, Notting Hill).

Eleanor Roosevelt is buried, she had died three days earlier.

Andrew Hatcher is named associate press secretary to President John F. Kennedy.

Sinbad (David Adkins), comedian, actor (Necessary Roughness, Houseguest).

U.S. Supreme Court upholds the decision barring segregation on interstate railways.

Greg Lake, singer, songwriter, musician, producer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer).

Admiral Jean Darlan orders French forces in North Africa to cease resistance to the Anglo-American forces.

Churchill promises to join the U.S. “within the hour” in the event of war with Japan.

Fascist Italy enacts anti-Semitic legislation.

Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov, Russian astrophysicist; the Novikov self-consistency principle made important contributions to the theory of time travel.

Ennio Morricone, Italian composer and conductor noted for his theme music in spaghetti Westerns such as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

Richard Burton, Welsh actor famous for his roles in The Spy who Came in From the Cold and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Forty-one US suffragettes are arrested protesting outside the White House.

The Imperial government of China retakes Nanking.

Frances Perkins, first woman cabinet member–Secretary of Labor.

Vachel Lindsay, poet (Rhymes to be Traded for Bread).

Henry M. Stanley finds Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji near Unyanyembe in Africa.

Samuel Gridley Howe, educator of the blind.

In the last battle of the American Revolution, George Rogers Clark attacks Indians and Loyalists at Chillicothe, in Ohio Territory.

U.S. Marine Corps founded.

Friedrich von Schiller, playwright and poet.

Oliver Goldsmith, playwright (She Stoops to Conquer).

William Hogarth, English caricaturist.

All Dutch-held areas of New York are returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster.

The Englishman Richard Chancellor is drowned off Aberdeenshire on his return from a second voyage to Russia.

Christopher Columbus discovers Antigua during his second expedition.

Martin Luther, theologian and reformer.