Today in History

A gunman in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, opens fire in a Sikh temple, killing six before committing suicide.

The deadliest mass shooting at a US military installation occurs at Fort Hood, Texas, when US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13 and wounds 29.

A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle kills 8 people at Westroads Mall, Omaha, Neb., before taking his own life.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.

Eris, largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System is discovered in images taken Oct. 21, 2003, at Palomar Observatory.

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan dies at age 93. Reagan was the 40th president of the United States.

Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, pleads guilty to 48 counts of murder.

Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, resigns in the wake of mass protest demonstrations.

The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, goes on trial.

Hurricane Fran comes ashore near Cape Fear, No. Car. It will kill 27 people and cause more than $3 billion in damage.

Andre Dallaire’s attempt to assassinate Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is foiled when the minister’s wife locks the door.

Four police officers are indicted on civil rights charges in the beating of Rodney King.

The South Ossetia War (1991-92) begins as Georgian forces enter Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia, Georgia.

Katerina Graham, actress, model, singer, dancer (The Vampire Diaries TV series).

Brazil’s Constituent Assembly authorizes the nation’s new constitution.

Kevin Jonas II, musician, actor; oldest member of the pop rock group Jonas Brothers.

Britain’s The Sunday Times newspaper publishes details of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons development program.

U.S. halts a loan to Chile in protest over human rights abuses.

Space Shuttle Discovery lands afters its maiden voyage.

Military Junta dissolves in Argentina.

A Federal judge voids a state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.

President Ronald Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers.

World’s longest tunnel opens; Switzerland’s St. Gotthard Tunnel stretches 10.14 miles (16.224 km) from Goschenen to Airolo.

Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.

The Soviet Union signs a 20-year friendship pact with Afghanistan.

Voyager 1 space probe launched.

Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.

President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California.

President Richard Nixon admits he ordered a cover-up for political as well as national security reasons.

Peter Emmerich, illustrator; in 2001 created the iconic “Mickey Salutes America” image featuring Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse.

“”Black September,” a Palestinian terrorist group take 11 Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich; by midnight all hostages and all but 3 terrorists are dead.

Two Apollo 14 astronauts walk on the moon.

Members of the Quebec Liberation Front (QLF) kidnap British Trade Commissioner James Cross in Montreal, resulting in the October Crisis and Canada’s first peacetime use of the War Measures Act.

Morgan J. Freeman, film director; his Hurricane Streets (1997) was the first narrative film to win three awards at the Sundance Film Festival; produced MTV reality shows (16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom).

Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first elected African American woman to serve in the House of Representatives.

The Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan begins.

Comedian and political activist Dick Gregory heads for Hanoi, North Vietnam, despite federal warnings against it.

Mario Lemieux, hockey player, led Pittsburgh Penguins to consecutive Stanley Cups (1991-92).

President Lyndon Johnson begins bombing North Vietnam in retaliation for the Gulf of Tonkin incident and asks Congress to go to war against North Vietnam.

Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, first to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping.

The first James Bond film, Dr. No starring Sean Connery, debuts.

Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

Leopold Sedar Sengingor, poet and politician, is elected president of Senegal, Africa.

Maya Lin, American architect who designed the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.

Bernie Mac, comedian, actor; member of the Original Kings of Comedy.

Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Josef Stalin to the Soviet Communist Party Congress.

A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama.

Italy and Yugoslavia agree to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.

Clive Barker, author, director (Hellraiser, Candyman).

The United Nations Command suspends armistice talks with the North Koreans when armed troops are spotted in neutral areas.

Pyongyang in Korea falls to the invading Chinese army.

Ken Follett, novelist (Eye of the Needle, On The Wings of Eagles).

William Daniel Phillips, shared 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to laser cooling, including his invention of the Zeeman slower technique for slowing the movement of gaseous atoms.

Jim Plunkett, pro football quarterback.

Gram Parsons, influential singer, songwriter, guitarist; member of The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and International Submarine Band.

Four TBM Avenger bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida.

Germany launches its first V-2 missile at Paris, France.

Sam Shepard, American playwright and actor.

Art Garfunkel, American singer, one half of “Simon and Garfunkel.”

The German army completes taking 410,000 Russian prisoners in the Uman and Smolensk pockets in the Soviet Union.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is re-elected for third term.

Margaret Drabble, English novelist (The Millstone, The Realms of Gold).

Germany invalidates Jews’ passports.

The Lindberghs arrive in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.

The New Constitution in the Soviet Union promises universal suffrage, but the Communist Party remains the only legal political party.

Calvin Trillin, journalist and writer.

Joan Didion, essayist and novelist (Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play it as it Lays).

The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States, which had begun 13 years earlier.

Richard Wayne Penniman [Little Richard], singer, musician; important influence on rock ‘n’ roll.

James Cleveland, considered the "King of Gospel."

Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Babbit.

Bob Newhart, deadpan standup comedian and TV actor (The Bob Newhart Show).

Hitler‘s National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.

David Wagoner, poet and novelist (The Escape Artist).

Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States.

Richard G. Kleindienst, one of the key officials who helped elect Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1969.

William Larned’s steel-framed tennis racquet gets its first test.

The British empire reaches an accord with the Irish revolutionary group the Sinn Fein; Ireland is to become a free state.

Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested for murder.

Richard Scarry, Children’s author and illustrator.

George Sheehan, cardiologist well known for his book Running and Being.

General John Pershing leads U.S. troops into the first American action against German forces.

David Lloyd George replaces Herbert Asquith as the British prime minister.

Bulgaria enters World War I on the side of the Central Powers.

France and Great Britain declare war on Turkey.

Vivien Leigh, British actress famous for her role as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.

Italy, Austria and Germany renew the Triple Alliance for six years.

Calbraith P. Rodgers ends first transcontinental flight–49 days from New York to Pasadena, Calif.

Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.

George Taylor makes the first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed himself.

Miriam Rothschild, English scientist and writer.

John Houston, film director of such movies as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon.

Arthur Koestler, Hungarian novelist and essayist who wrote about communism in Darkness at Noon and The Ghost in the Machine.

The Japanese destroy a Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.

Ray Croc, founder of the McDonald’s hamburger franchise in 1955.

Walt Disney, animator and creator of an entertainment empire.

British troops under Lord Roberts seize Pretoria from the Boers.

Freeman F. Gosden, radio comedy writer and performer (Amos ‘n’ Andy).

Federico Garcia Lorca, Spanish poet and dramatist.

A.C. Nielsen, founder of the Nielsen Ratings.

Harriet Tubman receives a pension from Congress for her work as a nurse, spy and scout during the Civil War.

Fritz Lang, film director (Metropolis, M).

Jean Cocteau, French artist, writer and actor.

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazillian composer.

A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers’ strike in Chicago.

Will Durant, historian and author.

Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, British author.

John Maynard Keynes, economist.

Robert Goddard, American rocket scientist, held more than 200 rocketry patents.

The first ball-point pen is patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.

Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman and Clay Allison, four of the West’s most famous gunmen, meet in Dodge City, Kansas.

Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders to Colonel Nelson Miles in Montana Territory, after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada falls 40 miles short.

Mary Ritter Beard, American historian and writer.

Susan B. Anthony is arrested for trying to vote.

Author Victor Hugo returns to Paris from the Isle of Guernsey where he had lived in exile for almost 20 years.

The first shipment of cattle leaves Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.

As the Confederate army approaches Appomattox, it skirmishes with Union forces at Amelia Springs and Paine’s Cross Road.

Confederate General John Bell Hood sends Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry and a division of infantry toward Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Federal troops occupy Vicksburg, Mississippi and distribute supplies to the citizens.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant’s cavalry receives a setback in an engagement on the Mississippi Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.

In the U.S. Congress, petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery are introduced.

Harriot E. Wilson’s Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.

The first transatlantic cable is completed.

U.S. Army troops in the Four creeks region of California, head back to quarters, officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, will continue for a few more years.

Eugene V. Debs, American Socialist leader and first president of the American Railway Union.

British and French defeat the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.

Howard Pyle, writer and illustrator (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood).

Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in The National Era.

Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and author of “The Necklace.”

Belle Starr, Western outlaw.

The first Pacific Coast newspaper, Oregon Spectator, is published.

Queen Victoria proclaims Hong Kong a British crown colony.

Jesse James, legendary outlaw of the American West.

Afghanistan surrenders to the British army.

George Armstrong Custer, Union cavalry leader who met his fate at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Dwight L. Moody, evangelist, founder of the Moody Bible Institute.

The first mainland railway line opens in Belgium.

The German government begins curtailing freedom of the press after German Democrats advocate a revolt against Austrian rule.

Chester A. Arthur, 21st president of the United States (1881-1885).

Athens falls to Ottoman forces.

James Merritt Ives, lithographer for Currier and Ives.

Greek rebels capture Tripolitza, the main Turkish fort in the Peloponnese area of Greece.

Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital).

Louis XVIII of France dissolves the chamber of deputies, which has been challenging his authority.

A peace treaty with Tripoli–which follows treaties with Algeria and Tunis–brings an end to the Barbary Wars.

Having decided to abandon the Niagara frontier, the American army blows up Fort Erie.

U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames, in Ontario, broke Britain’s Indian allies with the death of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, and made the Detroit frontier safe.

P.T. Barnum, American showman.

A Spanish army repels the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires, Argentina.

US Navy lieutenant Richard Somers and members of his crew are buried at Tripoli; they died when USS Intrepid exploded while entering Tripoli harbor on a mission to destroy the enemy fleet there during the First Barbary War.

David Farragut, U.S. admiral during the American Civil War.

The day after he routed counterrevolutionaries in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte accepts their formal surrender.

The U.S. Congress prohibits citizens from serving in any foreign armed forces.

Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.

Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the National Convention in France.

Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna.

Sir Robert Peel, British prime minister.

Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make the first public balloon flight.

Martin Van Buren, 8th president in the United States–and the first born in the United States.

Stephen Decatur, American naval hero during actions against the Barbay pirates and the War of 1812.

Phi Beta Kappa is organized as the first American college Greek letter-fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.

William Johnson, the northern Indian Commissioner, signs a treaty with the Iroquois Indians to acquire much of the land between the Tennessee and Ohio rivers for future settlement.

Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.

Colonel Henry Bouquet decisively defeats the Indians at the Battle of Bushy Run in Pennsylvania during Pontiac‘s rebellion.

The British fleet bombards and captures Spanish-held Manila in the Philippines.

Frederick II of Prussia defeats the French at Rosbach in the Seven Years War.

Sarah Siddons, Welsh actress.

Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and economist.

Etienne de Silhouette, French minister of finance, artist.

The Fire of London is extinguished after two days.

After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.

The Iroquois League signs a peace treaty with the French, vowing not to wage war with other tribes under French protection.

Louis XIV, “The Sun King” of France who built the palace at Versailles.

American settlers in New England massacre a Pequot Indian village.

A ship from Bristol, the Lyon, arrives with provisions for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.

Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe.

Guy Fawkes is betrayed and arrested in an attempt to blow up the British Parliament in the “Gunpowder Plot.” Ever since, England has celebrated Guy Fawkes Day.

Henry IV’s army defeats the Spanish at the Battle of Fontaine-Francaise.

Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (Leviathan).

William Oughtred, mathematician and inventor of the slide rule.

Tommaso Campanella, Italian philosopher and poet, who wrote City of the Sun.

The Emperor Akbar defeats the Hindus at Panipat and secures control of the Mogul Empire.

Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.

Pope Innocent VIII issues a bill deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.

Swiss troops defeat the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.

Castilian sailors in Barcelona, Spain set fire to a Jewish ghetto, killing 100 people and setting off four days of violence against Jews.

Louis I (the Great), King of Hungary.

Russian troops repel an invasion by Teutonic knights.

The port of Damietta falls to the Crusaders after a siege.

Henry II, King of England (1133-1189).

Members of the First Crusade witness an eclipse of the moon and interpret it as a sign they will recapture Jerusalem.