Today in History

Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel assassinated in Beirut.

A suicide bomber attacks the forward operating base next to the US military airfield at Mosul, Iraq, killing 22 people; it is the deadliest suicide attack on US soldiers during the Iraq War.

Galileo space mission ends as the probe is sent into Jupiter’s atmosphere where it is crushed.

NATO decides to send a peacekeeping force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Tiger Woods wins golf’s PGA Championship, the first golfer to win 3 majors in a calendar year since Ben Hogan in 1953.

Earthquake in Taiwan kills more than 2,400, injures over 11,305, and causes $300 billion New Taiwan dollars ($10 billion in US dollars).

The new Globe theater opens in England.

The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.

Popocatepetl, a volcano in Mexico spews forth gases and ash after nearly a half-century of dormancy.

The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 begins when Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and invalidates the existing constitution.

Armenia granted independence from USSR.

General Colin Powell is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. All 259 passengers were killed in the explosion caused by a bomb– hidden inside an audio cassette player — that detonated inside the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. A shower of airplane parts falling from the sky also killed 11 Lockerbie residents.

Ashley and Courtney Paris, twins who played in the Women’s National Basketball Association, Ashley for the Los Angeles Sparks, Courtney for the Atlanta Dream.

500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai’s People’s Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press.

US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard arrested for spying and passing classified information to Israel; he received a life sentence on Nov. 1, 1987.

A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.

The United States sends a ten-ship task force to Grenada.

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge

Belize granted full independence from the United Kingdom.

President Jimmy Carter announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan resigns over disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policies related to the Palestinians.

Two Soviet cosmonauts set a space endurance record after 96 days in space.

President Carter urges 65 degrees as the maximum heat in homes to ease the energy crisis.

Operation Paul Bunyan: after North Korean guards killed two American officers sent to trim a poplar tree along the DMZ on Aug. 18, US and ROK soldiers with heavy support chopped down the tree.

The last South Vietnam president, Nguyen Van Thieu, resigns.

A report claims that the use of defoliants by the U.S. has scarred Vietnam for a century.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus launched.

Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.

U.S. planes conduct widespread bombing raids in North Vietnam.

American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada.

Ricki Lake, actress (China Beach TV series), producer, host of The Ricki Lake Show TV talk show for which she won a Daytime Emmy.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the air quality act, allotting $428 million for the fight against pollution.

Kiefer Sutherland, British-born Canadian actor, producer, director; best known as Jack Bauer on the 24 TV series, a role that garnered him several awards including an Emmy and Golden Globe.

Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards — Thomas C. Cornell, 31, co-secretary of the Catholic Peace Fellowship; Roy Lisker, 27, a volunteer of the Catholic Worker Movement; James E. Wilson, 21, a volunteer at the Catholic Worker Movement and a member of the Fellowship for Reconciliation; and M P, Edelman, a full-time worker for the War Resisters League.

Great Britain’s House of Commons votes to ban the death penalty.

The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution.

Bob Dylan records his first album in a single day at a cost of $400.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike becomes the first woman prime minister of Ceylon.

Florence Griffith Joyner, track star, Olympic medalist. Died unexpectedly of heart failure at age thirty-eight on September 21, 1998.

A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration.

Mark Levin, attorney, author; host of syndicated radio program The Mark Levin Show.

Carrie Fisher, actress, author, screenwriter; best known as Prince Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy and he bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge; daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds.

Chris Evert (Chris Evert-Lloyd), No. 1 women’s pro tennis player in the world for 260 weeks in the 1970s; she reached 34 Grand Slam singles finals, a record unmatched by any other pro, female or male.

Ivan Stang (Douglass St. Clair Smith), writer, Church of the SubGenius.

Patti Davis, actress, author; daughter of former US Pres. Ronald Reagan.

Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov, rebel leader widely credited for the Chechen victory in First Chechen War (1994-96); President of Chechnya (1997-99).

Ronald McNair, astronaut; died when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch on Jan. 2, 1986.

The United Nations grants Libya its independence by 1952.

George Zimmer, businessman; founded Men’s Wearhouse.

Marsha Norman, playwright (Getting Out, ‘Night Mother).

An earthquake and tidal wave kill hundreds in Japan.

General George S. Patton dies at the age of 60 after being injured in a car accident.

German troops surround the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne in Belgium.

Tess Gallagher, American writer.

Eight American and British officers land from a submarine on an Algerian beach to take measure of Vichy French to the Operation Torch landings.

The German Army cuts off the Crimean Peninsula from the rest of the Soviet Union.

Frank Zappa, bandleader, composer, guitarist, satirist, filmmaker and advocate of creative freedom.

As war heats up with Germany, the British war cabinet holds its first meeting in the underground war room in London.

Carl Brewer, Canadian hockey player; won three Stanley Cups (1962-64) as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Jane Fonda, actress, political activist, exercise guru; films include Klute and Coming Home.

Victor Chang, Chinese Australian cardiac surgeon who pioneered the development of an artificial heart valve.

Cole Porter’s musical Anything Goes premieres at New York’s Alvin Theatre.

John Gardner, poet and novelist (Grendel, October Light).

Elaine May, comedy writer.

An international arms control meeting opens in London.

Marilyn French, novelist and critic (The Women’s Room).

President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill.

Police turn machine guns on striking Colorado mine workers, killing five and wounding 20.

Robert Creeley, poet.

John Scopes is found guilty for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tenn., and is fined $100.

John Mortimer, British barrister and playwright (Rumpole of the Bailey).

Judy Holliday, actress.

Billy Taylor, jazz pianist.

Stan “The Man” Musial, Hall of Fame baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The British House of Lords ratifies the Versailles Treaty.

Kurt Waldheim, controversial fourth Secretary General of the United Nations.

German ace Rudolf von Eschwege is killed over Macedonia when he attacks a booby-trapped observation balloon packed with explosives.

Bill Carlisle, the infamous ‘last train robber,’ robs a train in Hanna, Wyoming.

Stonehenge is sold by auction for 6,600 pounds sterling ($11,500) to a Mr. Chubb, who buys it as a present for his wife. He presents it to the British nation three years later.

U.S. Marines occupy Vera Cruz, Mexico. They will stay six months.

Chuck Jones, animator and director of Warner Brothers cartoons.

Josh Gibson, baseball player for the Negro Leagues, Home-Run King.

Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China.

Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, artist.

Elizabeth G. Speare, writer of historical novels for children.

Cunard liner Mauritania sets a new speed record for steamship travel, 624 nautical miles in a one day run.

In San Juan, President Theodore Roosevelt pledges citizenship for Puerto Rican people.

Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and existentialist.

Coleman Hawkins, jazz saxophonist.

Allen Lake, founded Penguin Books in 1935.

Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing offers amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.

Ernest Hemingway, American novelist and short-story writer.

Rene Magritte, surrealist painter (Golconda).

Mary Church Terrell founds the National Association of Colored Women in Washington, D.C.

Juan de la Cierva, aeronautical engineer who invented the autogyro.

Andrés Segovia, Spanish classical guitarist.

Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian.

Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Raoul Lufbery, French-born American fighter pilot of World War I.

Rockwell Kent, artist, book illustrator.

Frederick Dick, physician.

Arnold Lucius Gesell, psychologist and pediatrician.

Joseph Stalin, Communist leader of the Soviet Union.

Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer.

The James Gang robs a train in Adair, Iowa.

The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.

Florenz Ziegfeld, producer, creator of Ziegfeld Follies.

Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache sign a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.

Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.

Wild Bill Hickok kills gunman Dave Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, in what is regarded as the first formal quick-draw duel.

From Georgia, Confederate General John B. Hood launches the Franklin-Nashville Campaign into Tennessee.

Union troops defeated at Chickamauga seek refuge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is then besieged by Confederate troops.

The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.

The Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Va. begins, a disastrous Union defeat which sparks Congressional investigations.

Willem Einthoven, physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter.

The first of a series of debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas goes on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time.

Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA.

Franklin Colman, a pro-slavery Missourian, guns down Charles Dow, a Free Stater from Ohio, near Lawrence, Kansas.

Emperor Tu Duc orders that Christian priests are to put to death.

Oscar Hertwig, embryologist.

Henri Rousseau, French painter.

John Muir, naturalist.

Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops siege the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida.

General Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas wins independence from Mexico.

C. H. McCormick patents the first practical reaper.

Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes.

The Democratic party holds its first national convention.

Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia that kills close to 60 whites.

The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is printed, both in English and in the newly invented Cherokee alphabet.

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Confederate General.

Charles Scribner, founded the publishing firm which became Charles Scribner’s Sons and also founded Scribner’s magazine.

Charlotte Bronte, novelist (Jane Eyre).

Napoleon Bonaparte‘s General Junot is defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimeiro, Portugal.

Benito Juarez, President of Mexico.

Vice Admiral and Viscount Horatio Nelson wins his greatest victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Nelson is fatally wounded in the battle, but lives long enough to see victory.

Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Great Britain.

John Henry Newman, English theologian and writer.

Jules Michelet, French historian who wrote the 24-volume Historie de France.

Trinidad, West Indies surrenders to the British.

France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.

The French King Louis XVI is guillotined for treason.

The French royal family is arrested in Varennes.

Samuel Slater opens the first cotton mill in the United States (in Rhode Island).

North Carolina ratifies the Constitution, becoming the 12th state to do it.

Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.

Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa and Wyandot Indians sign the treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.

Jean de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes make the first free-flight ascent in a balloon to over 500 feet in Paris.

Friedrich Froebel, founder of kindergarten.

As troubles with Great Britain increase, colonists in Massachusetts vote to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.

Pope Clement XIV abolishes the Jesuit order.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan”).

William Sydney Smith, British seaman during the Napoleonic Wars.

Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese printmaker.

John Loudon McAdam, engineer who invented and gave his name to macadamized roads.

A Scottish Jacobite army commanded by Lord George Murray routs the Royalist army of General Sir John Cope at Prestonpans.

The British blockade of Toulon is broken by 27 French and Spanish warships attacking 29 British ships.

Ethan Allen, American Revolutionary commander.

The Treaty of Passarowitz is signed by Austria, Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

Russia and Turkey sign the Treaty of Pruth, ending the year-long Russo-Turkish War.

French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John’s.

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet), French philosopher, historian, poet, dramatist and novelist.

William III and Mary II are crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer.

Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.

James Needham returns to Virginia after exploring the land to the west, which would become Tennessee.

The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War and cedes Dutch New Amsterdam to the English.

The Maryland Toleration Act is passed, allowing all people freedom of worship.

In Maryland, the first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, is denied a vote in the Maryland Assembly.

Michael Romanov, son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar.

The Pilgrims land at or near Plymouth Rock.

Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe.

Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats his enemies in battle and affirms his position as Japan’s most powerful warlord.

The Jesuit poet Robert Southwell is hanged for “treason,” being a Catholic.

The Duke of Mayenne of France is defeated by Henry IV at the Battle of Arques.

Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Pope names Henry VIII of England Defender of the Faith after defending the seven sacraments against Luther.

Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal.

Mongol Emperor Babur annihilates the Indian Army of Ibrahim Lodi.

Estevao Gomes returns to Portugal after failing to find a clear waterway to Asia.

Suleiman (the Magnificent), son of Selim, becomes Ottoman sultan in Constantinople.

Christopher Columbus dies.

King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.

Henry IV defeats the Percys in the Battle of Shrewsbury in England.

Edward II of England is murdered by order of his wife.

Philip Augustus, Henry II of England and Frederick Barbarossa assemble the troops for the Third Crusade.

The warrior Yoritomo is made Shogun without equal in Japan.

Seljuk Turks at Chivitot slaughter thousands of German crusaders.

Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.

Traditional date of the foundation of Rome.

Heraclius restores the True Cross, which he has recaptured from the Persians.

In Italy, Aetius, the supreme army commander, is murdered in Ravenna by Valentinian III, the emperor of the West.

Plato, Greek philosopher.

Vespian, a gruff-spoken general of humble origins, enters Rome and is named emperor by the Senate.

Marcus Antonius is defeated by Octavian near Modena, Italy.