Today in History

Gold hits a record price of $1,826 per ounce.

Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, Nuevo Leon, is found handcuffed, blindfolded and dead following his abduction three days earlier. He had championed crackdowns on organized crime and police corruption.

Historic Kapelbrug (chapel bridge) in Luzern, Switzerland, burns, destroying 147 of its decorative paintings. It was built in 1365.

Dennis Rader, the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) killer receives 10 consecutive life sentences. He had terrorized Wichita, Kansas, murdering 10 people between 1974 and 1991.

A group of hard-line communist leaders unhappy with the drift toward the collapse of the Soviet Union seize control of the government in Moscow and place President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest

Republican Convention in New Orleans nominate the George H.W. Bush-Dan Quayle ticket.

Ohio nurse Donald Harvey sentenced to triple life terms for poisoning 24 patients.

Pete Rose sets record with his 13,941st plate appearance.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini demands a “Saint War” against Kurds.

Luna 24, the USSR’s final major lunar exploration mission, soft-lands on moon.

Hank Aaron makes his 1,378 extra-base hit, surpassing Stan Musial’s record.

Christian Slater, actor (Heathers, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Hard Rain).

Australian troops repulse a Viet Cong attack at Long Tan.

Operation Starlite marks the beginning of major U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam.

James Meredith, the first African American to attend University of Mississippi, graduates.

Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico 2006–2012.

Robert Warren “Bob” Woodruff, journalist, TV news anchor; critically wounded by roadside bomb while reporting on the war in Iraq, January 2006.

Patrick Swayze, actor/dancer (Dirty Dancing, Ghost).

The Royal Air Force Bomber Command completes the first major strike against the German missile development facility at Peenemunde.

Japan sends a crack army to Guadalcanal to repulse the U.S. Marines fighting there.

Frankie Avalon, singer (“Venus,” 5 weeks at No. 1), actor (Beach Blanket Bingo); teen heartthrob of late 1950s–early 1960s.

The film The Wizard of Oz opens in New York City.

William George Rushton, London, actor, author, cartoonist; co-founder of Private Eye satire magazine.

Robert Redford, actor (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Great Gatsby).

Roberto Clemente, outfielder for Pittsburgh Pirates, first Latin American enshrined in National Baseball Hall of Fame; died in plane crash while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, Dec. 31, 1972.

Roman Polanski, Polish film director best known for Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.

Luc Montagnier, virologist who discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The first cross-country women’s air derby begins. Louise McPhetridge Thaden wins first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie finishes first in the lighter-plane category.

Jimmy Witherspoon, blues singer.

Shelly Winters, actress who won an Academy Award for The Diary of Anne Frank.

Tennessee becomes the thirty-sixth state to ratify the nineteenth amendment granting women’s suffrage, completing the three-quarters necessary to put the amendment into effect.

Elsa Morante, Italian writer (History: A Novel).

Germany declares war on Russia while President Woodrow Wilson issues his Proclamation of Neutrality.

Adolph Ochs takes over the New York Times, saying his aim is to give “the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is permissible in good society, and give it early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other medium.”

Prussian forces defeat the French at the Battle of Gravelotte during the Franco-Prussian War.

Union General William T. Sherman sends General Judson Kilpatrick to raid Confederate lines of communication outside Atlanta. The raid is unsuccessful.

Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart‘s headquarters is raided by Union troops of the 5th New York and 1st Michigan cavalries.

Charles F. Adams, U.S. diplomat and public official whose father was John Quincy Adams.

Lord John Russell, Prime Minister of England from 1846 to 1852 and 1865 to 1866.

Poet and artist William Blake marries Catherine Sophia Boucher.

Meriwether Lewis, American explorer who led the Corps of Discovery with William Clark.

The French fleet is destroyed by the British under “Old Dreadnought” Boscawen at the Battle of Lagos Bay.

After invading Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forces Frederick IV of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.

John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returns from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers is ever found.

In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare become parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia, the first English child born in what would become the United States.