Today in History

US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is attacked and burned down; 4 Americans are killed including the US ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens.

Bernard “Bernie” Madoff arrested and charged with securities fraud in what was called a $50-billion Ponzi scheme.

Russia detonates a nano-bomb; dubbed the “Father of All Bombs,” it is the largest non-nuclear weapon developed to date.

President of Mexico Felipe Calderon launches a military-led offensive against drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacan.

Cronulla riots begin in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Palestine Liberation organization confirms the death of its longtime chairman Yasser Arafat; cause of death has never been conclusively determined.

NATO assumes command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, its first major operation outside Europe.

People’s Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.

NASA launches its 100th Space Shuttle mission.

House of Lords Act reforming Britain’s House of Lords, given Royal Assent; the act removed the right to hereditary seats (sitting members were permitted to remain).

The Kyoto Protocol international treaty intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses, opens for signature.

Forty-three African nations sign the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty.

Full diplomatic relations are established between the United States and Vietnam.

The Irish Government announces an end to a 15-year ban on broadcasting by the IRA and its political branch, Sinn Fein.

Sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas begin.

Troops from Egypt and Morocco arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of the international operation to prevent Iraq from invading.

Voyager 2 discovers two partial rings around Neptune.

Al Qaeda formed at a meeting in Peshawar, Pakistan.

An unidentified buyer buys Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Irises” from the estate of Joan Whitney Payson for $53.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York.

Dodge Morgan sails solo nonstop around the world in 150 days.

Mikhail Gorbachev is named the new Soviet leader.

Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan, part of the crew of Space Shuttle Challenger, becomes the first American woman to walk in space.

Hamish Blake, Australian comedian, actor, author; won Gold Logie Award for “Most Popular Personality on Television”; half of award-winning comedy duo Hamish and Andy (Andy Lee).

Honda announces it will build the first Japanese-owned passenger-car assembly plant in the United States–in Ohio.

Massive demonstrations take place in Tehran against the shah.

The so-called “Gang of Four,” Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s widow and three associates, are arrested in Peking, setting in motion an extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.

Saturday Night Live comedy-variety show premiers on NBC, with guest host comedian George Carlin and special guests Janis Ian, Andy Kaufman and Billy Preston; at this writing (2013) the show is still running.

Bettina Goislard, first United Nations worker to be killed in Afghanistan (Nov. 16, 2003) since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001; she was a French employee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Soviet Union is kicked out of World Cup soccer for refusing to play Chile.

Challenger, the lunar lander for Apollo 17, touches down on the moon’s surface, the last time that men visit the moon.

U.S. Army Special Forces raid the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam but find no prisoners.

Levi-Strauss starts to sell bell-bottomed jeans.

Apollo 7, with three men aboard, is successfully launched from Cape Kennedy.

The Concorde, a joint British-French venture and the world’s first supersonic airliner, is unveiled in Toulouse, France.

The United States launches Gemini 12, a two-man orbiter, into orbit.

Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria since 2000.

Frank Sinatra, Jr., is returned home to his parents after being kidnapped for the ransom amount of $240,000.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants.

Demi Moore, actress (Ghost, A Few Good Men); in 1996 became highest-paid actress in film history when she received $12.5 million to star in Striptease.

Folk singer Bob Dylan performs in New York City for the first time, opening for John Lee Hooker.

Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.

Iran turns down Soviet aid in favor of a U.S. proposal for aid.

Paul Sereno, paleontologist; discovered several new dinosaur species (including Sarcosuchus imperator, “SuperCroc”) on various continents.

Israel raids Syrian positions on the Sea of Galilee.

A 75,000-watt light bulb is lit at the Rockefeller Center in New York, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s first light bulb.

The polio virus is identified and photographed for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Douglas Adams, British writer, (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement from baseball.

Christina Onassis, businesswoman; inherited and operated the Onassis shipping businessh.

Negotiations in China between the Nationalists and Communists open as Tientsin is virtually lost to the Communists.

President Harry S. Truman proposes free, two-year community colleges for all who want an education.

Daryl Hall, singer, songwriter, musician, producer; lead vocalist of Hall & Oates (“Rich Girl,” “Maneater”).

A Boeing B-29 Superfortress shatters all records by crossing the United States in five hours and 27 minutes.

Brenda Lee, singer; her 37 US chart hits in the 1960s is surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Ray Charles and Connie Francis (“I’m Sorry,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”).

John Kerry, politician; unsuccessful Democratic nominee for President of the United States (2004); secretary of state (2013– ).

In the Battle of Cape Esperance, near the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeat a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter.

The United States declares war on Italy and Germany.

Donna Mills, actress (Knots Landing TV series, Play Misty for Me movie).

Tom Hayden, social and political activist; author, politician.

Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” is performed for the first time by singer Kate Smith.

Jim Harrison, novelist and poet (Legends of the Fall).

Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson.

Albert Anderson and Orvil Anderson set a new altitude record in South Dakota, when they float to 74,000 feet in a balloon.

The Disarmament Conference in Geneva ends in failure.

Reports say Paraguay has captured 11,000 Bolivians in the war over Chaco.

Dottie West, influential female country singer, songwriter; won Grammy for “Here Comes My Baby Back Again” (1965).

Rod Taylor, actor (The Birds).

As the economic crisis grows, the Bank of the United States closes its doors.

Babe Ruth hits his 500th major league home run against the Cleveland Indians.

Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist and essayist.

Nearly 400 world leaders sign a letter to President Calvin Coolidge asking the United States to join the World Court.

Willie “Big Mama” Thornton, blues singer.

Jonathan Winters, comedian.

Tom Landry, coach of the Dallas Cowboys, winning two Super Bowls.

The French enter the town of Essen in the Ruhr valley, to extract Germany’s resources as war payment.

Grace Paley, short story writer.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is dedicated.

The first two-minutes’ silence is observed in Britain to commemorate those who died in the Great War.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Famous for The Gulag Archipelago.

Jessica Mitford, investigative journalist (The American Way of Death).

The “Star Spangled Banner” is sung at the beginning of a baseball game for the first time in Cooperstown, New York.

British troops take Cameroon in Africa.

Vince Lombardi, American football coach.

Moroccan Sultan Mulai Hafid abdicates his throne in the face of internal dissent.

Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian novelist.

Joseph Alsop, American journalist.

Construction begins on the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Britain’s King Edward VII meets with Kaiser Wilhelm II to protest the growth of the German navy.

President Teddy Roosevelt induces California to revoke its anti-Japanese legislation.

San Francisco school board orders the segregation of  schoolchildren, inciting Japanese outrage.

The Parisian subway is officially inaugurated.

The battleship Connecticut, launched in New York, introduces a new era in naval construction.

King Alexander and Queen Draga of Belgrade are assassinated by members of the Serbia army.

Glenway Wescott, writer.

British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury rejects the peace overtures offered from Boer leader Paul Kruger.

South African Boers, settler from the Netherlands, declare war on Great Britain.

Rene Clair, French film director.

Nikolai A. Bulganin, premier of the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1958.

Mari Sandoz, writer and biographer (Crazy Horse).

Dean G. Acheson, U.S. secretary of state (1949-53) who helped create NATO.

Hugh MacDiarmid, poet and founder of the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Washington becomes the 42nd state of the Union.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchist, executed with Nicola Sacco.

Willie Hoppe, billiards champion.

George S. Patton, U.S. Army commander in World War II.

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt.

Fiorella H. La Guardia, mayor of New York City from 1933 to 1945.

Jeannette Rankin, U.S. Representative from Montana, the first woman in Congress.

Outlaw Wild Bill Longley, who killed at least a dozen men, is hanged, but it took two tries; on the first try, the rope slipped and his knees drug the ground.

Major General Henry W. Halleck finds documents and archives of the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia. This discovery will lead to the publication of the official war records.

A 10-day truce is declared between generals William Sherman and John Hood so civilians may leave Atlanta, Georgia.

Union gunboats Restless, Bloomer and Caroline enter St. Andrew’s Bay, Fla., and begin bombardment of both Confederate quarters and saltworks.

Union General Ambrose Burnside occupies Fredericksburg and prepares to attack the Confederates under Robert E. Lee.

A raging fire sweeps the business district of Charleston, South Carolina, adding to an already depressed economic state.

Giuseppe Garibaldi lands at Marsala, Sicily.

Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.

Indians incited by Mormon John D. Lee kill 120 California-bound settlers in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

A band of rampaging settlers in California kill four Yokut Indians. The settlers had heard unproven rumors of Yokut atrocities.

Josephine Marshall Jewell Dodge, American educator, pioneer in the concept of day nurseries for children.

Soprano opera singer Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” makes her American debut at New York’s Castle Garden Theater.

Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susanna” is first performed in a saloon in Pittsburgh.

Seven hundred Maoris led by their chief, Hone-Heke, burn the small town of Kororareka in protest at the settlement of Maoriland by Europeans, in breach with the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

Henry Heinz, manufacturer, founder of H.J. Heinz Co.

Robert Koch, physician and medical researcher.

John Wanamaker, U.S. merchant, founder of one of the first American department stores.

Robert G. Ingersoll, advocate of scientific realism and humanistic philosophy.

Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.

The U.S. War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Seneca Indian Ely Parker becomes the first Indian to lead the Bureau.

James L. Kemper, Confederate general during the American Civil War.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist and political revolutionary (The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment).

Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA.

Indiana is admitted to the Union as the 19th state.

News of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, finally reaches the United States.

U.S. forces led by Thomas Macdonough route the British fleet on Lake Champlain.

British Prime Minster Spencer Perceval is shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.

Ned Ludd leads a group of workers in a wild protest against mechanization.

The Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise.

Robert Fulton patents the steamboat.

Sixteen-year-old Sacajawea, the Shoshoni guide for Lewis & Clark, gives birth to a son, with Meriwether Lewis serving as midwife.

Alexander Hamilton is mortally wounded by Aaron Burr in a duel.

Hector Berlioz, French composer and conductor (Symphonie Fantastique, La Damnation de Faust).

Piedmont, Italy, is annexed by France.

William Henry Fox Talbot, photography pioneer, produced the first book with photographic illustrations (The Pencil of Nature).

An Anglo-Turkish armada bombards Napoleon Bonaparte‘s troops in Alexandria to no avail.

Napoleon Bonaparte takes the island of Malta.

In graditude for putting down a rebellion in the streets of Paris, France’s National Convention appoints Napoleon Bonaparte second in command of the Army of the Interior.

Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts, statesman and orator.

A revolutionary commune is formed in Paris, France.

The Convention of Annapolis opens with the aim of revising the Articles of Confederation.

After receiving a copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, Congress proclaims a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.

Indians, led by William Butler, massacre the inhabitants of Cherry Valley, N.Y.

General George Washington and his troops are defeated by the British under General Sir William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania.

Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

Anne Newport Royall, American newspaper reporter.

John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States (1825-1829).

Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of Treasury, killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

James Parkinson, English physician.

French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.

The first mention of an African American doctor or dentist in the colonies is made in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Robert Treat Paine, Declaration of Independence signer

George II of England crowned.

Christopher Smart, English poet.

The Treaty of Utrecht is signed, ending the War of Spanish Succession. France cedes Maritime provinces to Britain.

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, wins the bloodiest battle of the 18th century at great cost, against the French at Malplaquet.

The French are defeated at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, in the Netherlands by the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy.

The Daily Courant, the first regular English newspaper is published.

James Thomson, Scottish poet.

Imperial troops under Eugene of Savoy defeat the Turks at the Battle of Zenta.

In the first major engagement of King William’s War, British troops from Massachusetts seize Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.

French and English navies battle at Bantry Bay.

James II abdicates the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.

A new legal code is approved for the Dutch and English towns, guaranteeing religious observances unhindered.

The peace of Rueil is signed between the Frondeurs (rebels) and the French government.

Henry of Anjou becomes the first elected king of Poland.

Ben Jonson, English playwright and poet.

Charles V of Milan puts his son Philip in control.

Gregory XIV, Roman Catholic Pope.

Henry VIII is excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Pope Clement VII.

The Catholics defeat the Protestants at Kappel during Switzerland’s second civil war.

The forces of the Holy League are heavily defeated by the French at the Battle of Ravenna.

Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is executed.

Rodrigo Borgia is elected to the papacy as Pope Alexander VI.

Frederick I, elector of Saxony.

Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected Holy Roman Emperor in Germany.

An army of French knights, led by the Count of Artois, is routed by Flemish pikemen.

Scots under William Wallace defeat the English at Stirling Bridge.

Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (1306-1329).

Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Danes under Olaf Tryggvason kill Ealdorman Byrhtnoth and defeat the Saxons at Maldon.

Traditional founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu Tenno.

The Goths lay siege to Rome.

Julius Caesar leads his army across the Rubicon River, plunging Rome into civil war.