Today in History

KGB arrests journalist Nicholas Daniloff (US News World Report) on a charge of spying and hold him for 13 days.

Eiffel Tower welcomes its 150 millionth visitor, 33-year-old Parisian Jacqueline Martinez.

Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) forced out of Lebanon after 10 years in Beirut during Lebanese Civil War.

First recorded instance of a comet (Howard-Koomur-Michels) hitting the sun; the energy released is equal to approximately 1 million hydrogen bombs.

Tom Brokaw becomes news anchor of Today Show.

Cameron Diaz, model, award-winning actress (The Mask, There’s Something About Mary, Any Given Sunday).

US Senate confirms Thurgood Marshall as first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Gavin Fisher, mechanical engineer; chief designer of the Williams Formula One racing team (1997–2005).

Hot Line communications link installed between Moscow and Washington, DC.

President John F. Kennedy appoints General Lucius D. Clay as his personal representative in Berlin.

US Army Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, receives posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions in the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia.

Anna Politkovskaya (Anna Mazepa), New York-born Ukrainian journalist, writer, human rights advocate best known for her reporting from Chechnya.

Jayne Irving, TV broadcaster (Good Morning Britain).

Molly Ivins, American political humorist, newspaper columnist.

Robert Crumb (R. Crumb), satiric “underground” cartoonist (Fritz the Cat), musician.

Nazi leader Hermann Goering is elected president of the Reichstag.

Carrie Saxon Perry, 1st black mayor of a major US city (Hartford CT).

Warren Buffett, business magnate; listed as world’s wealthiest person in 2008.

Kitty Wells (Ellen Muriel Deason), first female singer to top the Country Music charts in US (“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels,” 1952).

Ted Williams, Hall of Fame outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, the last man to hit .400 in a season.

Huey P. Long, Louisiana politician who served as governor and U.S. senator, known as “The Kingfish.”

The Moravia, a passenger ship arriving from Germany, brings cholera to the United States.

Ernest Rutherford, physicist who discovered and named alpha, beta and gamma radiation and was the first to achieve a man-made nuclear reaction.

Union General John Fremont declares martial law throughout Missouri and makes his own emancipation proclamation to free slaves in the state. President Lincoln overrules the general.

The first British tramway is inaugurated at Birkenhead by an American, George Francis Train.

Creek Indians massacre over 500 whites at Fort Mims, Alabama.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, novelist best known for Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.

The French fleet arrives in the Chesapeake Bay to aid the American Revolution.

The Peace of Nystad ends the Second Northern War between Sweden and Russia, giving Russia considerably more power in the Baltic region.

Rosa de Lima of Peru becomes the first American saint to be canonized.