Today in History

Orakzai bombing, Afghanistan: members of the Taliban drive an explosive-laden truck into a meeting of 600 people discussing ways to rid their area of the Taliban; the bomb kills 110.

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator—described as the biggest scientific experiment in history—is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland.

A general strike begins in Guinea; eventually, it will lead to the resignation of the country’s president, Lansana Conte.

For the first time ever, temperatures exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit when thermometers hit 101.3 F (38.5 Celsius)  at Kent.

The last British troops leave Hong Kong. After 156 years of British rule, the island is returned to China.

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

The largest Mafia trial in history, with 474 defendants, opens in Palermo, Italy.

Coca-Cola Co. announces it will resume selling “old formula Coke,” following a public outcry and falling sales of its “new Coke.”

The Israeli army pulls out of Lebanon after 1,099 days of occupation.

Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes President of Nicaragua, vowing to continue the country’s transformation to a socialist state with close ties to the USSR and Cuba.

Imprisoned Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands is elected to the British Parliament.

Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, lends his support to the militants holding the American hostages in Tehran.

The Metropolitan Museum announces the first major theft in its 110-year history, $150,000 Greek marble head.

US and Panama sign Panama Canal Zone accord, guaranteeing Panama would have control of the canal after 1999.

David Frost purchases the exclusive rights to interview Richard Nixon.

The North Vietnamese Army attacks the South Vietnamese town of Buon Ma Thout, the offensive will end with total victory in Vietnam.

Guinea-Bissau (Portuguese Guinea) gains independence from Portugal.

Yitzhak Rabin replaces resigning Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir.

The London Bridge, built in 1831 and dismantled in 1967, reopens in Lake Havusu City, Arizona, after being sold to Robert P. McCulloch and moved to the United States.

The American table tennis team arrives in China.

The Senate approves a Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18.

Rocker Jim Morrison tried in Miami on “lewd & lascivious behavior.” Although convicted and sentenced to jail, he was free on bond while his case was being appealed when he dies in Paris, July 3, 1971.

A 15-man group of special forces troops begin training for Operation Kingpin, a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam.

Brett Favre, pro football player; only pro quarterback to throw for over 70,000 yards, completing 6,000 passes, including over 500 for touchdowns.

James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King and is sentenced to 99 years in jail.

Singer Bobbie Gentry records “Ode to Billie Joe,” which will become a country music classic and win 4 Grammys.

U.S. Forces launch Operation Robin, in Hoa Province south of Saigon in South Vietnam, to provide road security between villages.

The North Vietnamese capture a Green Beret camp at Ashau Valley.

Protester David Miller is convicted of burning his draft card.

“”(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” becomes the Rolling Stones’ first No. 1 single in the USA.

Panama breaks ties with the U.S. and demands a revision of the canal treaty.

Daniel Pearl, journalist; captured and beheaded by Al Queda in Pakistan; Daniel Pearl Foundation to promote tolerance and understanding internationally founded in his memory.

President John F. Kennedy federalizes Alabama’s National Guard to prevent Governor George C. Wallace from using guardsmen to stop public-school desegregation.

Buddhist monk Ngo Quang Duc dies by self immolation in Saigon to protest persecution by the Diem government.

The satellite Telstar is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, beaming live television from Europe to the United States.

Jomo Kenyatta returns to Kenya from exile, during which he had been elected president of the Kenya National African Union.

Colin Firth, Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor (The King’s Speech).

NASA launches Discoverer 13 satellite; it would become the first object ever recovered from orbit.

Belgium sends troops to the Congo to protect whites as the Congolese Bloodbath begins, just 10 days after the former colony became independent of Belgian rule.

The USS Nautilus completes the first circumnavigation of the globe underwater.

Adolph Coors, the beer brewer, is kidnapped in Golden, Colo.

Bell Aircraft displays a fixed-wing vertical takeoff plane.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the St. Lawrence Seaway is held at Massena, New York.

English jockey Sir Gordon Richards retires with a world-record total of 4,870 victories, later broken by Johnny Longden of the United States. Richards was the first jockey ever to be knighted.

President Dwight Eisenhower calls Senator Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party.

North Korean gunners at Wonsan fire on the USS Missouri, the ship responds by firing 998 rounds at the enemy position.

Pat Benatar, singer; the four-time Grammy winner’s hits include “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and “Invincible”.

Daniel Hugh Kelly, film and TV actor (The Good Son).

President Harry S. Truman calls the National Guard to active duty to fight in the Korean War.

Bill O’Reilly, TV host (The O’Reilly Factor), author.

National Military Establishment renamed Department of Defense.

Linda Lovelace (Linda Boreman), pornographic actress made famous by the movie Deep Throat, she later became an anti-pornography activist.

George Foreman, world heavyweight champion boxer.

Patti Austin, Grammy Award-winning singer and actress (“Real Me”).

The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager, piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.

Author Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of F. Scott) dies in a fire at Highland Hospital.

Folk singer Arlo Guthrie (“Alice’s Restaurant,” “City of New Orleans”), son of Woody Guthrie.

Jackie Robinson becomes the first black to play major league baseball as he takes the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Big Four meet in Moscow to discuss the future of Germany.

John Prine, singer, songwriter; influential for his poem-like lyrics (“The Great Compromise,” “Blue Umbrella”).

Chiang Kai-shek and the Yenan Communist forces halt fighting in China.

Jose Feliciano, guitarist, singer, songwriter.

Harriet Miers, White House counsel.

U.S. carrier-based aircraft begin airstrikes against Japan in preparation for invasion.

Allied troops liberate the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald north of Weener, Germany.

In their second attempt to take the Seelow Heights, near Berlin, the Red Army launches numerous attacks against the defending Germans. The Soviets gain one mile at the cost of 3,000 men killed and 368 tanks destroyed.

American B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, killing 100,000.

B-29s hit the Tokyo area.

Rod Stewart, singer, songwriter (“Maggie May,” “Tonight’s the Night”).

Judith Jamison, American ballerina.

The Irish refuse to oust all Axis envoys and deny the accusation of spying on Allied troops.

American and British forces complete their amphibious landing of Sicily.

The Allies begin bombing Germany around the clock.

Adolf Hitler calls Field Marshall Erwin Rommel back from Tunisia in North Africa.

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

General Carl Spaatz becomes the head of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.

Germany razes the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and kills more than 1,300 citizens in retribution of the murder of Reinhard Heydrich.

The war halts civilian car production at Ford.

London severs diplomatic relations with Romania.

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

Soviet troops halt the German advance on Moscow.

Gunpei Yokoi, inventor of Game Boy.

Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, biologist and writer of popular books about science such as Time’s Cycle and The Panda’s Thumb.

Great Britain and the Soviet Union promise aid to Turkey if it is attacked by the Axis Powers.

England’s House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs.

Paul Theroux, author (The Great Railway Bazaar).

U.S. troops occupy Greenland to prevent Nazi infiltration.

Vichy France threatens to use its navy unless Britain allows food to reach France.

Iceland is attacked by German planes.

London severs diplomatic relations with Romania.

The Soviets and Germany agree on the East European borders and the exchange of industrial equipment.

Germany begins the bombing of England.

The Norwegian army capitulates to the Germans.

Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.

German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France’s “impenetrable” Maginot Line.

David Rabe, playwright (Sticks and Bones, Hurlyburly).

German planes attack 12 ships off the British coast; sinking 3 ships and killing 35 people.

Japanese occupy island of Hainan in French Indochina.

Germany annexes Austria.

Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

David Halberstam, New York Times correspondent, author, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1964.

Keith Duckworth, English mechanical engineer whose Cosworth DFV (Double Four Valve) engine revolutionized Formula One racing.

Jerry Herman, songwriter.

F. Lee Bailey, American defense attorney.

Nazis begin burning books by “unGerman” writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.

Nevada becomes the first U.S. state to regulate drugs.

Paul von Hindenburg is elected president in Germany.

The first synthetic rubber is produced.

Jimmy Dean, singer, actor, TV host and businessman.

Eddie Fisher, American singer.

Maurice Sendak, children’s author and illustrator (Where the Wild Things Are).

WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming.

David Dinkins, first African-American mayor of New York City.

Prussia lifts its Nazi ban, Adolf Hitler is allowed to speak in public.

(Mary Violet) Leontyne Price, opera singer.

The trial of Tennessee teacher John T. Scopes opens, with Clarence Darrow appearing for the defense and William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution.

Nat Hentoff, journalist.

Tennessee adopts a new biology text book denying the theory of evolution.

F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby.

The Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is kidnapped and assassinated by Fascists in Rome.

J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a New York state law forbidding late-night work for women.

The United States withdraws its last troops from Germany.

Thelonius Monk, jazz pianist and composer.

David Brinkley, broadcaster.

The Republican convention in Chicago endorses women’s suffrage.

Richard Adams, English novelist (Watership Down).

Alex Comfort, English physician and author (Joy of Sex).

The Treaty of Versailles goes into effect.

In Washington, the House of Representatives passes legislation for women’s suffrage.

Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic.

Robert B. Woodward, synthetic chemist.

Germany is rebuked as the Entente officially rejects a proposal for peace talks and demands the return of occupied territories from Germany.

James Herriot, Scottish writer and country veterinarian (All Creatures Great and Small).

Saul Bellow, writer.

Saul Bellow, American novelist (Herzog, Humboldt’s Gift).

President Wilson blasts the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans.

The six-day Battle of the Marne ends, halting the German advance into France.

Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso.

The Titanic begins her maiden voyage which will end in disaster.

The world’s first flying-boat airplane, designed by Glenn Curtiss, makes its maiden flight at Hammondsport.

President Taft ends a 15,000-mile, 57-day speaking tour.

The Panama Canal opens.

Revolution in China begins with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last Ch’ing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi. By October 26, the Chinese Republic will be proclaimed, and on December 4, Premier Yuan Shih-K’ai will sign a truce with rebel general Li Yuan-hung.

The House of Lords in Great Britain gives up its veto power, making the House of Commons the more powerful House.

Two German cruisers, the Emden and the Nurnberg, suppress a native revolt on island of Ponape in the Caroline Islands in the Pacific when they fire on the island and land troops.

Slavery is abolished in China.

Dominique Georges Pire, Belgian cleric and educator.

George W. Crockett, first African-American lawyer with the U.S. Department of Labor.

An SOS signal is transmitted for the first time in an emergency when the Cunard liner SS Slavonia is wrecked off the Azores.

Kathryn McLean (Forbes), author (Mama’s Bank Account).

Japan and Russia agree to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Russia and Japan declare war on each other.

Leon Bismarck “Bix” Beiderbecke, jazz cornetist and composer.

Argentina bans the importation of American beef because of sanitation problems.

David O. Selznick, film producer (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca).

South African Boers accept British terms of surrender.

The Boers of South Africa score their last victory over the British, capturing British General Methuen and 200 men.

Walter Brattain, physicist, one of the inventors of the transistor.

Alberto Giacometti, sculptor and painter.

Frederick Loewe, songwriter.

Stella Adler, actress and teacher.

The Automobile Club of America installs signs on major highways.

Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo renounces the Treaty of Paris, which annexed the Philippines to the United States.

U.S. Marines land in Cuba.

Bertolt Brecht, German poet and dramatist (The Threepenny Opera).

John F. Enders, virologist.

Harold MacMillan, British prime minister (1957-1963).

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open-heart surgery, without the benefit of penicillin or blood transfusion.

New Mexico State University cancels its first graduation ceremony, because the only graduate was robbed and killed the night before.

Jimmy Durante, American comedian and film actor.

Wyoming becomes the 44th state.

Boris Pasternak, Russian novelist and poet (Dr. Zhivago).

Little Bighorn participant Major Marcus Reno is caught window-peeping at the daughter of his commanding officer—an offense for which he will be courtmartialed.

Marcel Proust, French novelist (Remembrance of Things Past).

At Appomattox Court, Va, General Robert E. Lee issues his last orders to the Army of Northern Virginia.

At the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads in Mississippi, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeats the numerically superior Union troops.

George Washington Carver, chemist, agronomist, helped change the agricultural economy of the South.

The first telegraph line to Denver is completed.

General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson succumbs to illness and wounds received during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

P.T. Barnum’s star midgets, Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, are married.

London’s Underground begins operations.

Dorothea Dix is appointed superintendent of female nurses for the Union army.

Florida secedes from the Union.

General Stephen Kearny and Commodore Robert Stockton retake Los Angeles in the last California battle of the Mexican War.

Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine in the United States.

The Smithsonian Institution is established in Washington through the bequest of James Smithson.

Led by religious leader Brigham Young, the first Mormons begin a long westward exodus from Nauvoo, Il., to Utah.

Hallie Quinn Brown, American educator, women’s rights leader.

Alexander III, Russian czar.

Mormon leader Joseph Smith moves his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.

Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert.

Lord Acton [John E.E. Dalberg], English historian, editor of The Rambler.

Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated by an allied army at the Battle of Laon, France.

Napoleon personally directs lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert.

The nine-ship American flotilla under Oliver Hazard Perry wrests naval supremacy from the British on Lake Erie by capturing or destroying a force of six English vessels.

Montgomery Blair, lawyer.

Tripoli declares war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute.

Napoleon Bonaparte leaves Cairo, Egypt, for Syria, at the head of 13,000 men.

Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, is beheaded.

Matthew C. Perry, American naval officer, opened Japan to trade with the west.

The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.

“”Common Sense” by Thomas Paine is published.

American troops capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.

The Treaty of Paris ends the French-Indian War. France gives up all her territories in the New World except New Orleans and a few scattered islands.

George Ross, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Supporters of Marie de Medici, the queen mother, who has been exiled to Blois, are defeated by the king’s troops at Ponts de Ce, France.

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Hulagu, a Mongol leader, seizes Baghdad, bringing an end to the Abbasid caliphate.