Today in History

Trans World Airlines’ final flight following the carrier’s purchase by American Airlines; TWA began operating 76 years earlier. The final flight, 220, piloted by Capt. Bill Compton, landed at St. Louis International Airport.

Ukraine’s voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum for independence from the USSR.

Channel Tunnel sections from France and the UK meet beneath the English Channel.

East Germany’s parliament changes its constitution, abolishing a section that gave the Communist Party the leading role in the state.

Benazir Bhutto, politician, becomes the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North pleads the 5th Amendment before a Senate panel investigating the Iran-Contra arms sale.

AIDS virus officially recognized.

Indian Army recaptures part of Kashmir, which had been occupied by Pakistan.

America’s first draft lottery since 1942 is held.

Andrew Adamson, New Zealand film director, producer, screenwriter (Shrek; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe); he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2006.

Candace Bushnell, author (Sex and the City, The Carrie Diaries).

Rosa Parks refuses to sit in the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, defying the South’s segregationist laws.

Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord whose Medellin Cartel killed thousands.

Bette Midler, singer, songwriter, actress, producer; her awards include 3 Grammys, 4 Golden Globes, 3 Emmys and a special Tony for her contribution to Broadway (1974).

National gasoline rationing goes into effect in the United States.

The first Civil Air Patrol is organized in the United States.

Richard Pryor, influential comedian, actor, satirist.

Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg], American actor, writer and director (Annie Hall).

Josef Stalin’s aide, Sergei Kirov, is assassinated in Leningrad.

Nazi storm troops become an official organ of the Reich.

Martin Rodbell, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist.

An American army of occupation enters Germany.

King Constantine of Greece refuses to surrender to the Allies.

Mary Martin, American actress.

President William Howard Taft severs official relations with Nicaragua’s Zelaya government and declares support for the revolutionaries.

The Italian Parliament debates the future of the Triple Alliance and asks for compensation for Austria’s action in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Twenty officers and 230 guards are arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the revolt at the Winter Palace.

Kaiser Wilhelm II refuses to meet with Boer leader Paul Kruger in Berlin.

Rex Stout, writer, creator of detective character Nero Wolfe.

Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan Earp are exonerated in court for their action in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.

Oliver Herford, American humorist and poet.

President Abraham Lincoln gives the State of the Union address to the 37th Congress.

The U.S. gunboat Penguin seizes the Confederate blockade runner Albion carrying supplies worth almost $100,000.

Julia Moore, poet.

Madame Tussaud, Swiss-born modeller in wax who founded the world-famous exhibition on London’s Baker Street.

Edmund Champion and other Jesuit martyrs are hanged at Tyburn, England, for sedition, after being tortured.

Henry I of England dies and the crown is passed to his nephew Stephen of Bloise.