Today in History

Controversial President of Peru Alberto Fujimori removed from office.

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

Student demonstration in Prague put down by riot police, leading to an uprising (the Velvet Revolution) that will topple the communist government on Dec. 29.

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

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

Soviet unmanned Luna 17 touches down on the moon.

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

The NVA ambushes American troops of the 7th Cavalry at Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley, almost wiping them out.

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

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

Lorne Michaels, israeli-American TV producer; created Saturday Night Live.

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.

Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian singer, songwriter, musician (“Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “In the Early Morning Rain”).

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

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

German troops evacuate Brussels.

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

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

Vladimir Lenin’s efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits the party into two factions, the Bolsheviks, who support Lenin, and the Mensheviks.

Eugene Paul Wigner, Hungarian-born physicist.

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.

The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.

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

The Suez Canal is formally opened.

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

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.

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

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

Louis XVIII, King of France.

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

The Church of England is re-established.

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