Today in History

US Senate confirms Janet Yellen as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve Bank in the central bank’s 100-year history.

New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro erupts for the first time since 1897.

Explorer and author Jason Lewis becomes the first person to complete a human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

NASA reveals photographs from Mars Global Surveyor that suggest the presence of water on the red planet.

Former Ku Klux Klan organizer Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner of the bitterly contested 2000 Presidential elections more than five weeks after the election due to the disputed Florida ballots.

Yugoslavia’s president Slobodan Milosevic and Argentina’s vice-president Carlos Alvarez both resign from their respective offices.

Australia’s voters reject a referendum to make the country a republic with a president appointed by Parliament.

Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales: over 1 million people line London’s streets to honor her and 2.5 billion watched the event on TV.

The Rova of Antananarivo, home of Madagascar’s sovereigns from the 16th to the 19th centuries, is destroyed by fire.

The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.

Pope John Paul II publishes “Veritatis splendor encyclical,” regarding fundamentals of the Catholic Church’s role in moral teachings.

The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, is destroyed during a riot that started as a political protest.

Leningrad, second-largest city in the USSR, is changed to Saint Petersburg, which had been the city’s name prior to 1924.

Emma Stone, actress (Zombieland, Spiderman).

Fiji becomes a republic independent of the British Commonwealth.

The Iran arms-for-hostages deal is revealed, damaging the Reagan administration.

Guerrillas of the leftist 19th of April Movement seize Colombia’s Palace of Justice in Bogata; during the two-day siege and the military assault to retake the building over 100 people are killed, including 11 of the 25 Supreme Court justices.

President Ronald Reagan agrees to contribute U.S. troops to the peacekeeping unit in Beirut.

Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat is assassinated in Cairo by Islamic fundamentalists. He is succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak.

Islamic militants in Tehran say that they will turn over the American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.

Twelve-year-old Marcus Hooper becomes the youngest person to swim the English Channel.

Queen Elizabeth marks her Silver Jubilee.

Democrat Tip O’Neill is elected speaker of the House of Representatives. He will serve the longest consecutive term as speaker.

A Provisional IRA unit takes a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London, and a 6-day siege begins.

US House of Representatives confirms Gerald Ford as Vice-President of the United States, 387–35.

The world learns an earlier announcement that all Israeli athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympics had been rescued was erroneous; all had been killed by their captors from the Black September terrorist group; all but 3 terrorists also died in shootout around midnight.

Pakistan severs diplomatic relations with India after New Delhi recognizes the state of Bangladesh.

M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American screenwriter, director and producer (The Sixth Sense, The Village).

Hells Angels, hired to provide security at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, beat to death concert-goer Meredith Hunter.

Charles de Gaulle opens the 19th Winter Olympics in France.

Judd Apatow, film producer, director, screenwriter (Bridesmaids).

Hanoi insists the United States must end its bombings before peace talks can begin.

Patricia Harris takes post as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, becoming the first African American U.S. ambassador.

Rosa Maria “Rosie” Perez, actress (Fearless), director, choreographer, Puerto Rican rights activist.

The United States reports that all Soviet offensive arms are out of Cuba.

Chris Christie, 55th governor of New Jersey.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, one of the founders of modern psychiatry, dies.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

Jeff Foxworthy, comedian, actor; best known for his comedy routine, “You might be a redneck if . . . “.

 Vanguard TV3 explodes on the launchpad, thwarting the first US attempt to launch a satellite into Earth’s orbit.

Maria Shriver, journalist, author; First Lady of California while married to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

British runner Roger Bannister breaks the four minute mile.

The last American and Korean prisoners are exchanged in Operation Big Switch, the last official act of the Korean War.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

Winston E. Scott, US Navy commander and astronaut.

JoBeth Williams, actress, director (Poltergeist, The Big Chill); current (2013) president of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.

Florida’s Everglades National Park is established.

Sally Field, actress; won Academy Award for Best Actress in 1979 (Norma Rae) and 1984 (Places in the Heart); won 3 Emmys for work in television.

The United States extends a $3 billion loan to Great Britain to help compensate for the termination of the Lend-Lease agreement.

Swoosie Kurtz, Tony and Emmy award–winning actress (Fifth of July, And the Band Played On).

Sir Richard J. Roberts, English scientist; shared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1993) for discovery of split genes.

Peter Handke, playwright and poet.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.

Tom Brokaw, NBC News anchorman.

Britain agrees to send arms to Finland, which is fighting off a Soviet invasion.

France and Germany sign a treaty of friendship.

Sergio Aragones, illustrator and writer; best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and for creating the Groo the Wanderer comic book series.

Aviator Beryl Markham flies the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

The 14th Dalai Lama [Tenzin Gyatso], Tibetan religious leader, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

American Ambassador Davis says Japan is a grave security threat in the Pacific.

Walter E. Fountroy, politician and civil rights leader.

Francois Truffaut, French film director (The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player).

Mike Nichols, film and stage director (The Graduate).

Charles Foley, game designer; co-creator of Twister game.

Andre Previn, pianist and conductor.

Robert Pirzig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The first "talkie," The Jazz Singer, opens with popular entertainer Al Jolson singing and dancing in black-face. By 1930, silent movies were a thing of the past.

Mussolini warns Germany to stop agitation in Tyrol.

Maxine Kumin, poet novelist and children’s author.

The German Reichstag accepts the Dawes Plan, an American plan to help Germany pay off its war debts.

As European inflation soars, one loaf of bread in Berlin is reported to be worth about 140 billion German marks.

Benito Mussolini threatens Italian newspapers with censorship if they keep reporting “false” information.

Ireland’s 26 southern counties become independent from Britain forming the Irish Free State.

Dave Brubeck, jazz pianist and composer.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, dies at the age of 60 in his home at Sagamore Hill, New York.

The German Army begins a general retreat across the Aisne, with British troops in pursuit.

The Bolsheviks imprison Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.

Richard Hofstadter, historian who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work.

Orson Welles, actor, director, and writer (Citizen Kane).

Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian anthropologist and explorer.

Mary Douglas Leakey, archaeologist and paleoanthropologist.

Danny Thomas, actor, producer, philanthropist; founder of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Maine becomes a dry state.

Dorothy Kirsten, opera singer.

Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson become the first men to reach the North Pole.

Sammy Price, jazz pianist.

The luxury liner Lusitania leaves London for New York on her maiden voyage.

Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge flies a powered, man-carrying kite that carries him 168 feet in the air for seven minutes at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

W. Warrick Cardozo, physician, researcher of Sickle Cell Anemia.

The Japanese army in Korea surrounds a Russian army retreating to Manchuria.

French Army Nationalists are revealed to have forged documents to guarantee a conviction for Alfred Dreyfus.

Jimmie Lunceford, bandleader.

Eliot Porter, nature photographer.

President McKinley appoints W.H. Taft commissioner to report on the Philippines.

Billy Rose, songwriter famous for “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and “Me and My Shadow”.

Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist.

Ira Gershwin, American lyricist and musical collaborator with his brother George.

Caroline Gordon, writer (The Strange Children).

Harold Ross, New Yorker editor.

Comanche, the only 7th Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer’s “Last Stand” at the Little Bighorn, dies at Fort Riley, Kansas.

William Kemmler becomes the first man to be executed by the electric chair.

Major General George Kenney, commander of the U.S. Fifth Air Force in New Guinea and the Solomons during World War II.

Martha Turner is murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in London, England.

Walter Johnson, baseball pitcher, “The Big Train.”

Joyce Kilmer, American poet, best known for “Trees.”

Louis Pasteur gives the first successful anti-rabies inoculation.

Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, present President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.

Sam Rayburn, U.S. Congressman from Texas & Speaker of the House (1940-46, 1949-53).

Alexander Flemming, Scottish bacteriologist who discovered penicillin in 1928.

Carl Sandburg, U.S. journalist, poet and biographer.

Thomas A. Edison makes the first sound recording when he recites “Mary had a Little Lamb” into his phonograph machine.

Jack McCall is convicted for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and sentenced to hang.

Thomas Mann, German novelist and essayist, forced into exile by the Nazis.

Alexandra, the last Russian Czarina.

The last British troops to serve in Austria are withdrawn.

Robert F. Scott, British explorer.

The Reno brothers–Frank, John, Simeon and William–commit the country’s first train robbery near Seymore, Indiana netting $10,000.

The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.

In the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.

The monitor Weehawken sinks in Charleston Harbor.

President Abraham Lincoln orders the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They are to be hanged on December 26.

Union General George G. Meade leads a foraging expedition to Gunnell’s farm near Dranesville, Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States.

The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision holds that blacks cannot be citizens.

Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.

John Philip Sousa, “The March Master,” American bandmaster and composer. Among his 140 marches are “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis.”

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata premieres in Venice.

Charles Henry Dow, American financial journalist who (with Edward D. Jones) inaugurated the Dow-Jones averages.

Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre is published in London.

George Westinghouse, prolific inventor, held over 100 patents on creations including air brakes for trains.

Frederick William Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

French General Thomas Bugeaud defeats Abd al-Kader’s forces beside the Sikkak River in Algeria.

John Marshall, the third chief justice of the Supreme Court, dies at the age of 79. Two days later, while tolling in his honor in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell cracks.

Philip Henry Sheridan, Union Army general.

Joseph Smith and five others organize the Church of Latter-Day Saints in Seneca, New York.

Jenny Lind, soprano known as the "Swedish Nightingale."

Adolphe Sax, instrument maker and inventor of the saxophone.

The United States invasion of Canada is halted at Stony Creek, Ontario.

The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armeé staggers into Vilna, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign.

Charles Sumner, anti-slavery senator from Massachusetts.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet laureate (1850), wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”

Elizabeth Barret Browning, poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese).

Napoleon Bonaparte imposes a new constitution on Holland.

Catherine Esther Beecher, educator who promoted higher education for women.

Alexander Pushkin, Russian writer (Boris Godunov, The Queen of Spades).

French General Jean Houchard and his 40,000 men begin a three-day battle against an Anglo-Hanoveraian army at Hondschoote, southwest Belgium, in the wars of the French Revolution.

The First U.S. Congress begins regular sessions at Federal Hall in New York City.

The Polish Diet decides to hold a four year session.

Sacagawea (also Sacajawea), American explorer.

France recognizes the United States and signs a treaty of aid in Paris.

Phi Beta Kappa, the first scholastic fraternity, is founded at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

The entire Ottoman fleet is destroyed by the Russians at the Battle of Chesma.

John Dalton, English scientist who developed the atomic theory of matter.

Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary.

Marie Joseph du Motier, Marquis de LaFayette, French soldier and statesman who aided George Washington during the American Revolution.

John Trumbull, American painter.

Nathan Hale, American revolutionary.

John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolution.

John Penn, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Savoy Germany withdraws from the Grand Alliance.

Imperial troops defeat the Turks and take Belgrade, Serbia.

James II defeats James, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last major battle to be fought on English soil.

King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France.

Sivaji crowns himself King of India.

Spain loses Portugal.

Huguenot rebels and the French sign the Peace of La Rochelle.

Pierre Corneille, French author.

Henry VIII of England marries his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. The marriage will last six months.

William Tyndale, the English translator of the New Testament, is strangled and burned at the stake for heresy at Vilvorde, France.

Sir Thomas More is beheaded in England for refusing to swear allegiance to King Henry VIII as head of the Church.

Babur defeats the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghaghra, India.

German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed.

Gustav Vasa becomes king of Sweden.

One of the five ships that set out in Ferdinand Magellan’s trip around the world makes it back to Spain. Only 15 of the original 265 men that set out survived. Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.

Ferdinand Magellan discovers Guam.

Charles of Spain is elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona.

John Cabot returns to England after his first successful journey to the Labrador coast.

Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Santo Domingo in search of gold.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), Italian painter (Sistine Madonna).

Michelangelo Buonarroti, painter, sculptor and architect.

Henry VI is crowned King of England.

Sultan Murat II ends a vain siege of Constantinople.

Henry VI, the youngest king of England to accede to the throne (only 269 days old).

Jan Hus, a Czech who spoke out against Church corruption, is burned at the stake as a heretic.

Joan of Arc, French Saint and national heroine.

Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince.

English King Richard I is killed by an arrow at the Siege of the Castle of Chalus in France.

Harold Godwineson is crowned King Harold II – King of England.

The Byzantine Emperor Basil earns the title "Slayer of Bulgers" after he orders the blinding of 15,000 Bulgerian troops.

Henry II, Holy Roman emperor.

Theodosius becomes sole ruler of Italy after defeating Eugenius at the Battle of the River Frigidus.