Today in History

A 5.8 earthquake centered at Mineral, Virginia, damages the Washington Monument, forcing the landmark to close for repairs.

Natascha Kampusch,  abducted at the age of 10 in Austria, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity.

Osama bin Laden issues message entitled “A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.”

East and West Germany announce they will unite on Oct 3.

Bolshoi Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov defects in New York City.

Bryan Allen, piloting the Gossamer Condor, wins the Kremer prize for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a one-mile, figure-eight course.

Pathet Lao communists occupy Vientiane, Laos.

Lunar Orbiter 1 takes first photograph of Earth from the moon.

Roger Avary, screenwriter, director (Killing Zoe); shared Academy Award with co-writer Quentin Tarantino for best original screenplay (Pulp Fiction).

Belgium sends troops to Rwanda-Urundi during bloody Tutsi-Hutu conflict.

The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins: People’s Liberation Army bombards island of Quemoy during Chinese Civil War.

Andreas Floer, mathematician, creator of the Floer homology.

First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.

Arab League security pact linking seven Arab States in a military, political and economic alliance goes into effect.

Akhmad Kadyrov, President of Chechnya (Oct 5, 2003–May 9, 2004).

Up to 77,000 members of the U.S. Army Organized Reserve Corps are called involuntarily to active duty to fight the Korean War.

Keith Moon, drummer in The Who.

German SS engineers begin placing explosive charges around the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Patricia McBride, ballerina; in 1961 became youngest principal in the New York City Ballet.

Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, freeing Adolf Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to invade Finland.

Roger John Reginald Greenaway, songwriter (“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,”), record producer. He and co-writer Roger Cook were first UK team to receive an Ivor Novello Award as Songwriters of the Year in two successive years.

Sir Roy Colin Strong, the youngest director of both Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; recipient of Shakespeare Prize.

Barbara Eden, actress (I Dream of Jeannie TV series).

H.O. Smith, molecular biologist credited with helping ‘open the door’ on genetic engineering.

Immigrant laborers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for a robbery they did not commit. Fifty years later, in 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis establishes a memorial in the victims’ honor.

Italian film star Rudolph Valentino dies, causing world-wide hysteria and a number of suicides.

The Emperor of Japan declares war on Germany.

Gene Kelly, dancer, choreographer and actor.

Fanny Farmer, among the first to emphasize the relationship of diet to health, opens her School of Cookery in Boston.

Booker T. Washington forms the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts.

Albert Claude, biologist who won the 1974 Nobel for his work on the sub-structure of the cell. He never graduated from high school.

Jonathan Wainwright, U.S. general who fought against the Japanese on Corregidor in the Philippines and was forced to surrender.

Union batteries cease their first bombardment of Fort Sumter, leaving it a mass of rubble but still unconquered by the Northern besiegers.

After 11 years of war, Spain grants Mexican independence as a constitutional monarchy.

King George III of England refuses the American colonies’ offer of peace and declares them in open rebellion.

Jean Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy, French geographer.

Louis XVI, King of France during the French Revolution who met his fate at the guillotine.

A British attempt to invade Canada by sea fails.

Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec on his third voyage to North America.

Scottish patriot William Wallace is hanged, drawn, beheaded, and quartered in London.

Turks expel the crusaders under Frederick II from Jerusalem.