Today in History

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

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

Croatian forces capture the city of Knin, a Serb stronghold, during Operation Storm.

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

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

Ami Foster, television actress (Punky Brewster); nominated eight times for Young Actress Award.

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

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.

Actress Marilyn Monroe dies under mysterious circumstances.

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

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

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

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

Mustafa Kemal is appointed virtual ruler of the Ottoman Empire.

The British navy defeats the Ottomans at the naval battle off Port Said, Egypt.

The Austro-German Army takes Warsaw, in present-day Poland, on the Eastern Front.

The first electric traffic signal lights are installed in Cleveland, Ohio.

Miriam Rothschild, English scientist and writer.

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

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

Mary Ritter Beard, American historian and writer.

The Union Navy captures Mobile Bay in Alabama.

Congress adopts the nation’s first income tax to finance the Civil War.

The first transatlantic cable is completed.

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

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

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

Russia, Prussia and Austria sign a treaty agreeing on the partition of Poland.

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