Today in History

Moscow’s top court upholds ban of gay pride events in Russia’s capital city for 100 years.

Occupy Wall Street movement calling for greater social and economic equality begins in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, coining the phrase “We are the 99%.”

Mohamed Bouazizi immolates himself, the catalyst for the Tunisian revolution and the subsequent Arab Spring.

James, Viscount Severn, son of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex; youngest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Alaska’s Fourpeaked Mountain erupts for the first time in at least 10,000 years.

Israel begins the first forced evacuation of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, as part of a unilateral disengagement plan.

Taipei 101 is completed in Taipei, becoming the world’s tallest high-rise.

Congolese parties of the inter Congolese Dialogue sign a peace accord in the Second Congo War, providing for transitional government and elections within two years.

Rehavam Ze’evi, Israeli tourism minister and founder of the right-wing Moledet party, assassinated by a member of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); he was the first Israeli minister ever assassinated.

Controversial President of Peru Alberto Fujimori removed from office.

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake near Izmit, Turkey kills over 17,000 and injures nearly 45,000.

President Bill Clinton admits to the American public that he had affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Dmitry Kholodov, a Russian journalist, assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces; his murkier began a series of killings of journalists in Russia.

Gen. Sani Abacha leads a military coup in Nigeria that overthrows the government of Ernest Shonekan.

White South Africans approve constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide wins Haiti’s first free election.

Fernando Color de Mello becomes Brazil’s first democratically elected president in nearly 30 years.

Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq is killed in an airplane crash suspected of being an assassination.

93-year-old Rudolf Hess, former Nazi leader and deputy of Adolf Hitler, is found hanged to death in Spandau Prison.

Renault President Georges Besse is shot to death by leftists of the Direct Action Group in Paris.

President Ronald Reagan agrees to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.

Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America; relinquished crown early after scandal over nude photos.

Red Brigade terrorists kidnap Brigadier General James Dozier, the highest-ranking U.S. NATO officer in Italy.

WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station.

China begins a “pedagogical” war against Vietnam. It will last until March.

Egypt and Israel sign the Camp David Accords.

The Space Shuttle is unveiled to the public.

Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.

The Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings.

Peace talks between Pathet Lao and Royal Lao government begin in Vietnam.

Soviet unmanned Luna 17 touches down on the moon.

Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Ziggy Marley, Jamaican musician, leader of Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers; oldest son of reggae great Bob Marley.

The American Surveyor 6 makes a six-second flight on the moon, the first liftoff on the lunar surface.

Ho Chi Minh orders a partial mobilization of North Vietnam to defend against American airstrikes.

Ending an election campaign marked by bitterness and violence, Ferdinand Marcos is declared president of the Philippines.

Jerrie Mock becomes first woman to fly solo around the world.

The U.S. Supreme Court bans the required reading of the Lord’s prayer and Bible in public schools.

Richard Jewell, police officer who discovered pipe bombs on the grounds of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and helped evacuate the area before the bombs exploded.

Some 1,400 Cuban exiles attack the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Rob Marshall, theater and film director, choreographer; awards include 4 Emmys and an Academy Award for Best Picture (Chicago, 2002).

The X-15 rocket plane makes its first flight.

Alan Jackson, country singer with over 60 million records sold worldwide; his many awards include 2 Grammys and 16 Country Music Association awards; “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning”; “Don’t Rock the Jukebox.”

The Thai army seizes power in Bangkok.

The nuclear power station Calder Hall is opened in Britain. Calder Hall is the first nuclear station to feed an appreciable amount of power into a civilian network.

Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education.

Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Pakistan’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

Yugoslavia breaks relations with the Vatican.

Britain reports development of the world’s first nuclear-powered heating system.

The French government appoints Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny to command their troops in Vietnam.

Nguyen Tan Dung, Prime Minister of Vietnam (2006– )

The Smithsonian Institution accepts the Kitty Hawk – the Wright brothers’ plane.

Jeff MacNelly, political cartoonist, creator of the comic strip Shoe.

Adam Michnik, Polish historian and editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wybocza, Poland’s largest newspaper; named Europe’s Man of the Year by La Vie magazine (1989).

Chris Matthews, news anchor, political commentator; host of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

U.S. approves end to internment of Japanese Americans. U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issues Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that Japanese American “evacuees” from the West Coast could return to their homes effective January 2, 1945.

Robert DeNiro, American actor, won Oscars for his roles in The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull.

Martin Scorsese, film director (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull).

German Luftwaffe general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet commits suicide. The Nazi government tells the public that he died in a flying accident.

The Soviet Union occupies Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

In the Battle of River Plate near Montevideo, Uruguay, the British trap the German pocket battleship Graf Spee. German Captain Langsdorf sinks his ship believing that resistance is hopeless.

Italy declares the 1935 pact with France invalid because ratifications had not been exchanged. France denies the argument.

US Lt. Gen. Calvin Waller, deputy commander-in-chief for military operations with US Central Command (Forward) during the First Gulf War.

Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina), named to the Papacy March 13, 2013.

George Lindsey, comic actor best known for his role as Goober on The Andy Griffith Show.

Due to rising anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler’s Germany, Albert Einstein immigrates to the United States. He makes his new home in Princeton, N.J.

John (Red) Kerr, basketball coach.

Charles Lindbergh inaugurates Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in the Sikorsky flying boat American Clipper.

Bob Guccione, publisher; founder of Penthouse magazine.

William Safire, journalist and author.

Cynthia Ozick, writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm).

Spain threatens to quit the League of Nations if Germany is allowed to join.

Rock Hudson, actor (McMillan & Wife TV series; Giant).

The Fascist militia marches into Rome.

Hank Williams, Sr., influential Country singer, songwriter and guitarist (“Lonesome Blues,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart”.)

Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic.

Nat “King” Cole, American jazz pianist and singer.

German troops evacuate Brussels.

The German Army recaptures the Russian Port of Riga from Russian forces.

Shelby Foote, American writer, famous for his three-volume narrative on America’s Civil War.

Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge).

John Hersey, novelist and journalist (Men on Bataan, Hiroshima).

The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Art Linkletter, radio and television personality.

The Camp Fire Girls are founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.

Apache chief Geronimo dies of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Willard Frank Libby, American chemist who won a Nobel Prize for his part in creating the carbon-14 method in dating ancient findings.

Warren E. Burger, chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, marries Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York.

Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft.

Eugene Paul Wigner, Hungarian-born physicist.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader.

James Cagney, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mister Roberts).

Bernice Abbott, photographer.

Thornton Wilder, novelist and playwright (Our Town).

Doris Humphrey, modern dance choreographer.

Georges Lemaitre, Belgian astronomer.

Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, is overthrown by a group of American sugar planters led by Sanford Ballard Dole.

Mae West, American actress in burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and movies.

The British steamer Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar.

Harry Hopkins, who organized the Works Projects Administration under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Erle Stanley Gardner, detective writer, creator of Perry Mason.

S.Y. Agnon, Israeli writer (The Day Before Yesterday).

Bernard Law Montgomery, British field marshal who defeated Rommel in North Africa and led Allied troops from D-Day to the end of World War II.

At a Christmas party, Sam Starr (husband to infamous outlaw queen Belle Starr) shoots his old enemy Frank West, but is fatally wounded himself.

The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.

John Joseph Montgomery makes the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.

William Carlos Williams, poet, playwright, essayist and writer who won a Pulitzer prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems.

Samuel Goldwyn, American movie mogul who helped start MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer).

Frederick Douglass is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.

Carl Van Vechten, writer.

Andrew “Rube” Foster, father of the Negro baseball leagues.

Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.

General George Crook‘s command is attacked and bested on the Rosebud River by 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.

The first Kentucky Derby is run in Louisville.

Thomas J. Watson Sr., U.S. industrialist.

George M. Hoover begins selling whiskey in Dodge City, Kansas–a town which had previously been “dry.”

James Weldon Johnson, African-American poet and novelist (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man).

The Suez Canal is formally opened.

The Battle of Beecher’s Island begins, in which Major George “Sandy” Forsyth and 50 volunteers hold off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.

Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, French composer.

Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaces General Joseph E. Johnston with General John Bell Hood in hopes of defeating Union General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta.

General Ulysses S. Grant is named overall Union Commander of the West.

Union General Ambrose Burnside marches north out of Washington, D.C., to begin the Fredericksburg campaign.

The Stonewall Brigade begins to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal.

Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer famous for The Seagull and Three Sisters.

Childe Hassam, American impressionist painter and illustrator.

The Republican Party opens its first national convention in Philadelphia.

The Red Turban revolt breaks out in Guangdong, China.

At the Sand River Convention, the British recognize the independence of the Transvaal Board.

Composer and pianist Frederic Chopin dies in Paris of tuberculosis at the age of 39.

Austrian General Alfred Windisch-Gratz crushes a Czech uprising in Prague.

Kate Greenway, painter and illustrator (Mother Goose).

A grim abolitionist meeting is held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts.

Joseph Norman Lockyer, British astronomer and discoverer of helium.

The first steam ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on its own power, the Canadian ship Royal William, begins her journey from Nova Scotia to The Isle of Wight.

Daniel Conway Moncure, U.S. clergyman, author, abolitionist

Patrick R. Cleburne, Confederate general.

Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54′ 40′.

Alexander Gardner, American photographer who documented the Civil War and the West.

Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, developed baseball.

Simon Bolivar the “liberator” proclaims Columbia a republic.

Napoleon Bonaparte arrives at the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he has been banished by the Allies.

Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden.

Napoleon Bonaparte‘s army defeats the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow.

Bayonne Decree by Napoleon Bonaparte of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.

John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, abolitionist, reformer and founder of the Liberal Party.

The U.S. fleet arrives in Tripoli.

The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convenes for the first time in Washington, D.C.

Ottoman forces, supported by the British, capture Aboukir, Egypt from the French.

Napoleon Bonaparte defeats an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy.

Merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street.

National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of demonstrators in Paris.

The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia approves the constitution for the United States of America.

Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and politician who died in the defense of the Alamo.

France limits the importation of goods from Britain.

Humphrey Davy, English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas.

British Maj. Gen. John Burgoyne surrenders 5,000 men at Saratoga, N.Y.

British forces evacuate from Boston to Nova Scotia.

The British take Bunker Hill outside of Boston, after a costly battle.

Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter

Captain James Cook becomes the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle.

Britain repeals the Stamp Act.

John Jacob Astor, American fur trader and entrepreneur.

Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne.

Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems.

Britain declares war on France.

Louis XVIII, King of France.

Edward Jenner, physician.

Charles Edward Stuart, the young pretender, defeats the government forces at the battle of Falkirk in Scotland.

Marquis Marie Jean de Condorcet, French mathematician and philosopher, a leading thinker in the Enlightenment.

William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Spain signs the Treaty of the Hague with the Quadruple Alliance ending a war that was begun in 1718.

Benjamin Franklin, statesman, diplomat, scientist and inventor who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac.

John Wesley, English evangelist and theologian, founder of the Methodist movement.

Maine and Plymouth are incorporated in Massachusetts.

Louis XIV sends an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.

Frederick I, king of Sweden

Isaac Watts, English minister and hymn writer.

Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.

Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi sees the belts on Jupiter’s surface.

Henry Vaughan, poet

The Treaty of Lyons ends a short war between France and Savoy.

Boris Godunov, the boyar of Tarar origin, is elected czar in succession to his brother-in-law Fydor.

Sir Francis Drake claims San Francisco Bay for England.

The Church of England is re-established.

Afghan chief Sher Khan defeats Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.

Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.

Henry VIII of England strips Thomas Wolsey of his office for failing to secure an annulment of his marriage.

Present-day New York Harbor is discovered by Giovanni da Verrazzano.

Pius V, Pope 1566-1572.

Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain to find a western route to the Indies.

At a grand feast, Philip the Good of Burgundy takes the “vow of the pheasant,” by which he swears to fight the Turks.

France defeats England at Castillon, France, ending the Hundred Years’ War.

Sandro Botticelli, painter (The Birth of Venus).

Tamerlane’s Mongols destroy the army of Mahmud Tughluk, Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat.

English forces defeat the Scots under David II during the Battle of Neville’s Cross, Scotland.

The Sixth Crusade ends when an Egyptian-Khwarismian force almost annihilates the Frankish army at Gaza.

Edward I (Longshanks), King of England (1272-1307).

Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian, the Emperor of the West, dies of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe.

Emperor Julian issues an edict banning Christians from teaching in Syria.