Today in History

The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly Catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950.

US President Barack Obama signs a law officially repealing the 17-year-old policy known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell”; the new law permits homosexuals to serve openly in the US military.

Some 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry flood part of Tennessee after an ash dike breaks at a solid waste containment area in Roane County, in the eastern part of the state.

Most runs scored by any team in modern MLB history as the Texas Rangers thump the Baltimore Orioles 30-3.

Angela Merkel becomes the first woman ever to be Chancellor of Germany; the former research scientist had previously been the first secretary-general of the Christian Democratic Union.

The Orange Revolution, protesting a primary election believed to have been rigged, begins in the Ukraine. On Dec 26 Ukraine’s Supreme Court orders a revote..

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended for refusing to comply with federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building’s lobby.

A passenger on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris, Richard Reid, unsuccessfully attempts to destroy the plane in flight by igniting explosives he’d hidden in his shoes.

Maurice Papon, formerly an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity for his role in deporting more than 1,600 Jews to concentration camps.

Hussein Farrah Aidid relinquishes his disputed title of President of Somalia, an important step toward reconciliation in the country.

The first feature-length film created entirely with computer generated imagery – Toy Story – premiers.

What became known as the Archives of Terror are discovered in a police station near the capital of Paraguay. The records detail tens of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly imprisoned, tortured and / or killed by the security services of several South American governments.

Huntington Library makes the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the public for the first time.

Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher confirms the end of her premiership by withdrawing from the leadership election of the Conservative Party.

The division of East and West Germany effectively ends when the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin reopens for the first time in nearly 30 years.

First prototype of B-2 Spirit strategic stealth bomber unveiled for public viewing.

Justice Department finds memo in Lt. Col. Oliver North’s office on the transfer of $12 million to Contras of Nicaragua from Iranian arms sale.

Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108.

Scarlett Johansson, actress, model (North, Lost in Translation).

Benigno Aquino, the only real opposition on Ferdinand Marcos’ reign as president of the Philippines, is gunned down at Manila Airport.

President Ronald Reagan calls for defense-pact deployment of the MX missile.

The US Federal Labor Relations authority decertified the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) from representing federal air traffic controllers, as a result of a PATCO strike in August that was broken by the Reagan Administration.

Eighteen Communist Party secretaries in 49 provinces are ousted from Poland.

Abu Hassan, the alleged planner of the 1972 Munich raid, is killed by a bomb in Beirut.

Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II; born Karol Jozef Wojtyla. The Polish-born Wojtyla was the first non-Italian pope since Pope Adrian VI died in 1523; he would become the second-longest serving pope in the history of the Papacy and exercise considerable influence on events of the later portion of the 20th century.

Barbara Walters becomes the first female nightly news anchor on network television.

Sara Jane Moore attempts to assassinate US President Gerald Ford, the second attempt on his life in less than three weeks.

The Viet Cong propose a new truce with the United States and South Vietnam, which includes general elections.

Great Britain announces a plan for moderate Protestants and Catholics to share power in Northern Ireland.

Operation Linebacker I, the bombing of North Vietnam with B-52 bombers, ends.

Princess Martha Louise of Norway.

President Richard M. Nixon signs a bill giving the District of Columbia representation in the U.S. Congress.

Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants becomes the first baseball player since Babe Ruth to hit 600 home runs.

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review.

The children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers.

The United States announces the allocation of 900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine in India.

The EF-105F Wild Weasel makes its first kill over Vietnam.

Almost 40,000 people pay tribute to John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death.

Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president.

U.S. reveals Soviet missile sites in Cuba. President Kennedy orders a naval and air blockade on further shipment of military equipment to Cuba. Following a confrontation that threatens nuclear war, Kennedy and Khrushchev agree on October 28 on a formula to end the crisis. On November 2 Kennedy reports that Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled.

Mariel Hemingway, actress (Lipstick, Manhattan).

Saul Perlmutter, astrophysicist; shared 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for providing evidence the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Jamie Lee Curtis, actress (Halloween, Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda), author (Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day).

Debby Boone, multiple Grammy Award–winning singer, author, actress; “You Light Up My Life” set a a record in 1977 with 10 weeks at the No. 1 spot on music charts.

The prototype of the F-105 Thunder Chief makes its maiden flight.

As a result of the Geneva accords granting Communist control over North Vietnam, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes a crash program to train the South Vietnamese Army.

Jeff Goldblum, actor (Jurassic Park; Independence Day).

Major-General Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, owner of the property company Grosvenor Group.

Steven Van Zandt, singer, songwriter, musician, producer (E Street Band, Steel Mill, Southside Johnny & The Ashbury Jukes) and actor (The Sopranos).

Robin and Maurice Gibb, singers, songwriters; co-founders of the Bee Gees band.

Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam requests admittance to the UN.

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster makes the first automatic pilot flight over the Atlantic.

Rick Nielsen, musician, vocalist, primary songwriter of the band Cheap Trick.

Diane Sawyer, journalist; anchor of ABC World News.

During the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony McAuliffe responds to a German surrender request with a one word answer: “Nuts!”

Billie Jean King, U.S. tennis player and women’s rights pioneer.

The Soviets drive German troops back 15 miles at the Don River.

Japanese troops make an amphibious landing on the coast of Lingayen Gulf on Luzon, the Philippines.

Anthony Crosthwaite-Eyre, English publisher.

Joaquim Chissano, second President of Mozambique (1986–2005); credited with transforming Mozambique into one of Africa’s most successful democracies.

Christopher Lloyd, actor; (Back to the Future Film series; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; won three Emmys, two of them for his role as Jim Ignatoski in Taxi TV series).

1,200 soldiers are killed in a battle between the Japanese and Mongolians in China.

Pan Am inaugurates the first transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila.

H. Norman Schwarzkopf, American general and commander of the coalition forces during the Persian Gulf War.

Fay Weldon, author (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil).

Megan Terry, playwright (Calm Down Mother, Goona Goona).

Egypt signs treaty of friendship with Iraq.

A son is born to Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Soviet troops leave Manchuria after a truce is reached with the Chinese over the Eastern Railway dispute.

British King George is confined to bed with a congested lung; the queen is to take over duties.

Tommy Lasorda, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team from 1975 to 1996.

Pope Pius rejects Mussolini‘s offer of aid to the Vatican.

Gunther Schuller, composer and French Horn player.

Geraldine Page, actress well known for roles in Tennessee Williams’ plays.

Robert Dole, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate.

Michael Collins, Irish politician, is killed in an ambush.

Hawkshaw Hawkins (Harold Hawkins), country singer; he died along with country stars Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas when the small plane that was carrying them crashed in 1963.

Timothy Leary, American psychologist who experimented with psychedelic drugs.

A Labor conference committee in the United States urges an eight-hour workday and a 48-hour week.

The last of the food restrictions, enforced because of the shortages during World War I, are lifted.

John Lee Hooker, blues singer and guitarist.

Yehudi Menuhin, violinist.

The Anglo-Indian army, led by British General Sir Charles Townshend, attacks a larger Turkish force under General Nur-ud-Din at Ctesiphon, Iraq, but is repulsed.

U.S. places economic support behind Allies.

Benjamin Britten, English composer, pianist and conductor.

Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, wife of US President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is stolen from the Louvre in Paris, where it had hung for more than 100 years. It is recovered in 1913.

German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announces a definitive cure for syphilis.

David Riesman, sociologist, author of The Lonely Crowd.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer.

Ringling Brothers buys Barnum & Bailey.

Race riots in Atlanta, Georgia leave 21 people dead.

Russian troops fire on civilians beginning Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.

Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader from 1977 to 1987, held nominal leadership position until his death in 1997.

George Beadle, American geneticist.

A fire causes considerable damage to the unfinished Williamsburg bridge in New York.

Japan proclaims that it is determined to keep Russia from encroaching on Korea.

Sean O’Faolain, Irish short story writer.

Hoagy Carmichael, American composer, pianist and singer.

Alexander Calder, sculptor.

The first automobile race takes place between Paris and Rouen, France.

Bicycle makers Charles and Frank Duryea show off the first American automobile produced for sale to the public by taking it on a maiden run through the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet.

Jacque Lipchitz, sculptor.

Charles de Gaulle, French general in exile during World War II and president of France from 1958 to 1969.

The Oklahoma land rush officially starts at noon as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.

Selman Abraham Waksman, biochemist.

John Reed, American journalist, poet and revolutionary, (Ten Days That Shook the World).

Erich Von Stroheim, director, actor and screenwriter best known for Greed.

Arthur Wergs Mitchell, first African-American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

N.C. Wyeth, painter famous for his illustrations of Treasure Island and Robin Hood.

Margery Williams Bianco, author (The Velveteen Rabbit).

George Herriman, cartoonist, creator of Krazy Kat.

Frank Winfield Woolworth’s ‘nothing over five cents’ shop opens at Utica, New York. It is the first chain store.

General Alfred Terry sends Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and Little Bighorn rivers to search for Indian villages.

D.W. [David Wark] Griffith, influential U.S. film director (The Birth of A Nation, Intolerance).

Ellen Glasgow, American novelist.

The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov), leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and first head of the U.S.S.R.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team, arrive in San Francisco after a rollicking, barnstorming tour of the West.

The “Great Train Robbery” takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana.

Federal troops capture Wilmington, N.C.

Union General Philip Sheridan defeats Confederate General Jubal Early‘s troops at the Battle of Fisher’s Hill in Virginia.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins.

Union troops push 5,000 confederates out of Maysbille, Ark., at the Second Battle of Pea Ridge.

Robert E. Lee is named commander of Virginia forces.

Spain declares war on the Moors in Morocco.

Giacomo Puccini, Italian operatic composer best known for Madam Butterfly.

Heinrich Hertz, German physicist, the first person to broadcast and receive radio waves.

Frank Kellogg, U.S. Secretary of State who tried to outlaw war with the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

The Portuguese governor of Macao, China, is assassinated because of his anti-Chinese policies.

In New York, the Astor Place Opera House, the city’s first operatic theater, is opened.

Randolph Caldecott, illustrator.

Mary Cassatt, impressionist painter.

Sam Houston sworn in as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

Horace Greeley publishes New Yorker, a weekly literary and news magazine and forerunner of Harold Ross’ more successful The New Yorker.

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opens the first passenger railway line.

Albrecht von Graefe, German eye surgeon, founder of modern opthamology.

Russia and Britain establish the Alaska/Canada boundary.

The Tennessee Legislature adjourns ending David “Davy” Crockett’s state political career.

Gregor Johann Mendel, Austrian botanist, genetics pioneer.

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), English novelist (Silas Marner, Middlemarch).

Five Indian tribes in Ohio make peace with the United States and declare war on Britain.

Richard Wagner, German composer.

A British army under the Duke of Wellington defeats the French at Salamanca, Spain.

Franz Liszt, piano virtuoso.

Congress passes the Embargo Act, which halts all trading completely. It is hoped that the act will keep the United States out of the European Wars.

The first successful parachute descent is made by Andre-Jacqes Garnerin, who jumps from a balloon at some 2,200 feet over Paris.

Congress passes laws prohibiting slave trade with foreign countries although slavery remains legal in the United States.

President George Washington proclaims American neutrality in the war in Europe.

Michael Faraday, English physicist, inventor of the dynamo, the transformer and the electric motor.

Thomas Jefferson becomes the first U.S. Secretary of State.

Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov drive the Turkish army under Yusuf Pasha from the Rymnik River, upsetting the Turkish invasion of Russia.

Theodore Hook, English novelist best known for Impromptu at Fulham.

Rembrandt Peale, American painter known for portraits of U.S. founding fathers.

With the approach of General Benedict Arnold‘s army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger abandons Fort Stanwix and returns to Canada.

American Captain Nathan Hale is hanged as a spy by the British in New York City; his last words are reputed to have been, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

Esek Hopkins takes command of the Continental Navy — a total of seven ships.

Slavery is outlawed in England.

The Stamp Act is passed, the first direct British tax on the American colonists.

The Austrian army defeats the Prussians at Breslau in the Seven Years War.

Princeton University, in New Jersey, receives its charter.

The Peace of Fussen is signed.

George Washington, Commander-in-chief of Continental forces during the American Revolution and first U.S. President.

Immanuel Kant, German philosopher.

Frederick William abolishes serfdom on crown property in Prussia.

The Austrian army forces the Turkish army out of Belgrade, ending the Turkish revival in the Balkans.

The Tuscarora Indian War begins with a massacre of settlers in North Carolina, following white encroachment that included the enslaving of Indian children.

Henry Fielding, English novelist (Tom Jones).

Philip Dormer Stanhope, statesman of letters.

England’s “Bloodless Revolution” reaches its climax when parliament invites William and Mary to become joint sovereigns.

Charles II gives large tracts of land from west of the Connecticut River to the east of Delaware Bay in North America to his brother James, the Duke of York.

The General Provincial Court in session at Patuxent, Maryland, impanels the first all-woman jury in the Colonies to hear evidence against Judith Catchpole, who is accused of murdering her child. The jury acquits her after hearing her defense of never having been pregnant.

Prince Conde’s rebels narrowly defeat Chief Minister Mazarin’s loyalist forces at St. Martin, near Paris.

Denis Papin, inventor of the pressure cooker.

Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on Parliament at Nottingham.

The first legislation prohibiting gambling is enacted in Boston.

Indians attack a group of colonists in the James River area of Virginia, killing 350 residents.

Mikhail Romanov is elected czar of Russia.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish artist, the namesake of the beard style.

Sir Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman, essayist (The Advancement of Learning).

The French take the French town of Thionville from the English.

New laws are passed in Spain giving Indians in America protection against enslavement.

Spain and Portugal divide the eastern hemisphere in the Treaty of Saragossa.

Anne of Cleeves (born in Cleeves, Germany), fourth wife of Henry the VIII.

Henry VIII ascends to the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.

Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil.

Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at Bosworth. This victory establishes the Tudor dynasty in England and ends the War of the Roses.

King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses.

Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain, patron of Christopher Columbus.

Ivan III (the Great), grand prince of Russia.

Charles VII, King of France.

Richard II, who is still a child, begins his reign, following the death of his grandfather, Edward III. His coronation takes place July 16.

John II, also known as John the Good, succeeds Philip VI as king of France.

Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.

King Edward I defeats the Scots under William Wallace at Falkirk.

Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France.

After promising to go to the aid of the Fifth Crusade within nine months, Frederick II is crowned emperor by Pope Honorius III.

Stephen of Blois is crowned the king of England.

Charles Martel of Gaul dies at Quiezy. His mayoral power is divided between his two sons, Pepin III and Carloman.

St. Agapitus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

St. Gaius ends his reign as Catholic Pope.