Today in History

Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is arrested on federal charges, including an attempt to sell the US Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

German Bundestag passes controversial bill mandating storage of citizens’ telecommunications traffic date for six months without probable cause.

North Korea reportedly tests its first nuclear device.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War is signed by the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

A car bomb explodes outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 people.

Last flight of the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” stealth reconnaissance aircraft.

Largest civil settlement in US history: 37 brokerage houses are ordered to pay $1.3 billion to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price fixing.

A raid by Chechen separatists in the city of Kizlyar turns into a hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.

The chemical element Darmstadtium, a radioactive synthetic element, discovered by scientists in Darmstadt, Germany.

Stari Most, a 427-year-old bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is destroyed, believed to be caused by artillery fire from Bosnian Croat forces.

U.S. Marines land in Somalia to ensure food and medicine reaches the deprived areas of that country.

Tajikistan declares independence from USSR.

Lech Walesa is elected president of Poland.

The Berlin Wall is opened after dividing the city for 28 years.

Jo Woodcock, actress (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Torn TV miniseries).

NASA publishes a report on the Challenger accident.

Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, is kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Middleton); wife of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Upon William’s assumption of the British throne, the Duchess would become queen consort.

Michelle Williams, Golden Globe–winning actress (My Week with Marilyn).

Chris O’Dowd, comedian, actor (The IT Crowd and Family Tree TV series, Bridesmaids).

Canada expels 11 Soviets in spying case.

Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung dies in Beijing at age 82.

Michael Buble, multiple Grammy and Juno award–winning singer, songwriter, actor (Crazy Love, It’s Time).

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, writer, radio host; prominent figure in Modern Orthodox Judaism.

Bones discovered by the Leakeys push human origins back 1 million years.

Attica Prison Riot; the 4-day riot leaves 39 dead.

U.S. Marines launch Operation Dubois Square, a 10-day search for North Vietnamese troops near Da Nang.

Canada’s Official Languages Act takes effect, making French equal to English as a language within the nation’s government.

Gillian Anderson, film and TV actress (The X-Files).

NASA launches Apollo 4 into orbit with the first successful test of a Saturn V rocket.

Adam Sandler, actor, comedian, screenwriter, film producer (Saturday Night Live, Happy Gilmore).

Nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada go dark in the worst power failure in history, when a switch at a station near Niagara Falls fails.

Hoda Kotb, Daytime Emmy-winning TV news anchor and host.

Masako, Crown Princes of Japan, wife of Crown Prince Naruhito, heir apparent to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.

Amy Stiller, stand-up comedian, film and TV actress (Little Fokkers, The King of Queens).

The Laos government flees to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane is engulfed in war.

The first ballistic missile-carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, is launched.

Amanda Bearse, film and TV actress (Married with Children).

Melanie Griffith, film and TV actress (Working Girl, Milk Money).

Elvis Presley makes his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show; cameras focus on his upper torso and legs to avoid showing his pelvis gyrations, which many Americans—including Ed Sullivan—thought unfit for a family show.

Sugar Ray Robinson knocks out Carl Olson to regain the world middleweight boxing title.

At the Army-McCarthy hearings, attorney Joseph Welch asks Senator Joseph McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency?”

John Malkovich, actor (Places in the Heart), producer (Juno), director, fashion designer.

Jackie Robinson becomes the highest paid player in Brooklyn Dodger history.

After several unsuccessful attacks on French colonial troops, North Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap orders Viet Minh to withdraw from the Red River Delta.

Harry Gold gets 30 years imprisonment for passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II.

The United Nations takes trusteeship over Jerusalem.

The United States abandons a plan to de-concentrate industry in Japan.

Keri Hulme, New Zealand novelist (The Bone People).

Eugene O’Neill’s play The Iceman Cometh opens at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York.

Rosemary Elizabeth “Posy” Simmonds, award-winning British newspaper cartoonist (The Silent Three, Gemma Bovery, Tamara Drewe) and author / illustrator of children’s books (Fred, The Chocolate Wedding).

Fictional character Smokey Bear (“Only you can prevent forest fires”) created by US Forest Service and the Ad Council.

Allied troops land at Salerno, Italy and encounter strong resistance from German troops.

Dick Butkus, pro football player; inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1979.

Franklin D. Roosevelt tells Americans to plan for a long war.

The British army seizes 1,000 Italians in a sudden thrust in Egypt.

Czech President Emil Hacha ousts pro-German Joseph Tiso as the Premier of Slovakia in order to preserve Czech unity.

Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.

David Hockney, painter.

Mary Travers, singer, songwriter; member of Vocal Group folk group Peter, Paul and Mary (“Puff the Magic Dragon,” “If I Had a Hammer”).

Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China.

Judi Dench (Dame Judith Dench), actress; known to James Bond fans for her role as M in Bond films beginning with Golden Eye (1997), her many awards include an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Chocolat, 2000).

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Japanese actress and bestselling children’s author (Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window); established Japan’s first TV talk show, Tetsuko no Heya (Tetsuko’s Room), breaking with traditional subservient depiction of Japanese women.

Billy Edd Wheeler, singer, songwriter ("Jackson," "Coward of the County").

Robert H. Goddard patents a rocket-fueled aircraft design.

First appearance of the animated character Betty Boop (“Dizzy Dishes”).

John Cassavetes, actor (The Dirty Dozen), film director, screenwriter (Faces).

Dick Van Patten, actor; best known for his role on the TV series Eight is Enough.

Robert Shaw, actor and writer.

Henry Kendall, particle physicist; shared Nobel Prize in 1990.

Robert Frank, photographer.

James Schuyler, poet, novelist and playwright.

Redd Foxx (John Sanford), comedian, actor; best known for his starring role in the TV series Sanford and Son.

Mona van Duyn, American poet laureate.

William Lipscomb, chemist; awarded Nobel Prize in 1976.

Kirk Douglas, American actor (Spartacus).

The new Finnish Republic demands the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

A German zeppelin bombs London for the first time, causing little damage.

The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecks the German cruiser Emden, forcing her to beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean.

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the U.S. and first President to resign from office.

Thomas P. "Tip" O’Neill, speaker of the House of Representatives.

An airmail route opens between London and Windsor.

The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is patented.

Jacques Tati, French actor and director.

A child labor bill passes in the German Reichstag, forbidding work for children under age 13.

Grace Hopper, mathematician and computer pioneer.

Joseph E. Levine, film producer, founder of Embassy Pictures Corporation, an independent studio and distributor of films such as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, The Graduate, A Bridge Too Far, and The Lion in Winter.

Japanese troops land near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.

George Price, cartoonist.

The Russian czar rejects Boer Paul Kruger’s pleas for aid in South Africa against the British.

Jean de Brunhoff, illustrator and author, creator of the Babar series of books.

Paul Robeson, actor and activist.

Jean Piaget, psychologist who did pioneering work on the development of children’s intellectual faculties.

Dorothy Thompson, journalist, writer and radio commentator.

Vita Sackville-West, writer.

Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist.

Colonel Harland Sanders, originator of Kentucky Fried Chicken fast-food restaurants.

The Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, opens to the public.

Alfred M. Landon, Republican governor of Kansas who carried only two states in his overwhelming defeat for the presidency by Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.

Ed Wynn, actor and comedian.

Henry J. Kaiser, shipbuilder.

James Stephens, Irish writer (The Charwoman’s Daughter, The Crock of Gold).

Max von Laue, German physicist.

Meta Vaux Warrick, sculptor.

Amy Lowell, poet.

Charles Rudolph Walgreen, “the father of the modern drugstore.”

P.B.S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of Louisiana.

Howard T. Ricketts, pathologist.

The capital of Colorado Territory is moved from Golden to Denver.

Carl Nielsen, Danish composer.

Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–“

Major General John G. Foster replaces Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside as Commander of the Department of Ohio.

At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson repels an attack by Union forces.

The U.S. Senate approves establishment of a committee that would become the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War.

James Mathew Barrie, writer (Peter Pan, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up).

Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer who was falsely accused of giving French military secrets to foreign powers.

Franz Boas, anthropologist.

Stanford White, architect whose designs include Madison Square Garden and Washington Arch.

California, in the midst of a gold rush, enters the Union as the 31st state.

Joel Chandler Harris, writer, creator of the Uncle Remus tales.

William Maybach, German engineer, designed the first Mercedes automobile.

Belle Boyd, Confederate spy.

The Webster-Ashburton treaty fixes the border between Maine and Canada’s New Brunswick.

Edward VII, King of England, who succeeded his mother Victoria in 1901.

The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process.

Francis Parker, educator and founder of progressive elementary schools.

Parliament passes the Municipal Corporations Act, reforming city and town governments in England.

Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (War and Peace, Anna Karenina).

Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, Confederate commander during the American Civil War.

The first Norwegian immigrants to America arrive on the sloop Restaurationen.

Leland Stanford, railroad builder, founder of Stanford University.

Charles Baudelaire, French poet.

Congress passes the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.

Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine.

Ivan Turgenev, Russian author (Fathers and Sons, A Month in the Country).

Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Creek territory.

U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison take Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.

Swedish Pomerania is seized by Napoleon.

William Barret Travis, commander of the Texas troops at the battle of the Alamo.

Austria joins Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the third coalition against France.

John Brown, abolitionist.

Napoleon Bonaparte participates in a coup and declares himself dictator of France.

Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France.

Jean Pierre Blanchard makes the first balloon flight in North America.

The Ottomans sign a treaty with the Russians ending a five year war.

French Royalists take control of Arles and barricade themselves inside the town.

The Swedish navy captures one third of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.

In Versailles, the French National Assembly declares itself the Constituent Assembly and begins to prepare a French constitution.

Connecticut becomes the 5th state.

George Washington calls for the abolition of slavery.

Americans begin shelling the British surrounded at Yorktown.

The Luddite riots being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning cotton.

The term “United States” is adopted by the Continental Congress to be used instead of the “United Colonies.”

William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. President and the first to die in office.

Captain James Cook discovers Botany Bay on the Australian continent.

Ann Radcliffe, English novelist.

Austrian and Russian troops enter Berlin and begin burning structures and looting.

General Edward Braddock is killed by French and Indian troops.

The first newspaper cartoon in America appears.

The Russians take Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.

British Captain Robert Jenkins loses an ear to a band of Spanish brigands, starting a war between Britain and Spain: The War of Jenkins’ Ear.

Philip V of Spain declares war on France.

Robert La Salle claims lower Mississippi River and all lands that touch it for France.

Peter I, Russian Czar (1682-1725).

James Scott, Duke of Monmouth.

Settlers in New Amsterdam gain peace with the Indians after conducting talks with the Mohawks.

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Isaak Walton, author of the classic The Compleat Angler.

John Dryden, the first official Poet Laureate of Great Britain (1668 to 1700).

The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.

Emperor Rudolf II grants Bohemia freedom of worship.

John Milton, British writer and poet (Paradise Lost).

Duc Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, French cardinal and statesman who helped build France into a world power under the leadership of King Louis XIII.

Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in his sick-bed in a house in Edinburgh when the house blows up.

Gregory XV, Roman Catholic Pope.

Maurice of Saxony is mortally wounded at Sievershausen, Germany, while defeating Albert of Brandenburg-Kulmbach.

England declares war on France.

Jacques Cartier sails into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada.

King James IV of Scotland is defeated and killed by English at Flodden.

Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to the New World.

Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which is named in his honor.

Henry VI of England restored to the throne.

The city states of Venice, Milan and Florence sign a peace agreement at Lodi, Italy.

Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator.

Henry V, British king famous for his victory at Agincourt, France.

In the Battle of Liegnitz, Mongol armies defeat Poles and Germans.

William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England, dies in Rouen while conducting a war which began when the French king made fun of him for being fat.

Coimbra, Portugal falls to Ferdinand, king of Castile.

Constantine ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

Having captured Naples earlier in the year, Belisarius takes Rome.

The Persian army defeats Leonidas and his Spartan army at the Battle Thermopylae, Persia.

Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, becomes Emperor of the West.

Constantine’s three sons, already Caesars, each take the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans share the west while Constantius II takes control of the east.

In the Balkans, the distinguished soldier Septimius Severus is proclaimed emperor by the army in Illyricum.

Hadrian, Rome’s new emperor, makes his entry into the city.

Julius Caesar defeats Gnaius Pompey at Pharsalus.

The Temple of Apollo is dedicated on the Palatine Hill in Rome.