Today in History

A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle kills 8 people at Westroads Mall, Omaha, Neb., before taking his own life.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji.

Military Junta dissolves in Argentina.

The Soviet Union signs a 20-year friendship pact with Afghanistan.

Morgan J. Freeman, film director; his Hurricane Streets (1997) was the first narrative film to win three awards at the Sundance Film Festival; produced MTV reality shows (16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom).

Comedian and political activist Dick Gregory heads for Hanoi, North Vietnam, despite federal warnings against it.

Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, first to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping.

A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama.

Italy and Yugoslavia agree to pull troops out of the disputed Trieste border.

Pyongyang in Korea falls to the invading Chinese army.

Jim Plunkett, pro football quarterback.

Four TBM Avenger bombers disappear approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida.

The Lindberghs arrive in New York on a holiday visit after a two-year voluntary exile.

The New Constitution in the Soviet Union promises universal suffrage, but the Communist Party remains the only legal political party.

Calvin Trillin, journalist and writer.

Joan Didion, essayist and novelist (Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play it as it Lays).

The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States, which had begun 13 years earlier.

Richard Wayne Penniman [Little Richard], singer, musician; important influence on rock ‘n’ roll.

James Cleveland, considered the "King of Gospel."

The British empire reaches an accord with the Irish revolutionary group the Sinn Fein; Ireland is to become a free state.

David Lloyd George replaces Herbert Asquith as the British prime minister.

Italy, Austria and Germany renew the Triple Alliance for six years.

George Taylor makes the first manned glider flight in Australia in a glider that he designed himself.

The Japanese destroy a Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Korea.

Walt Disney, animator and creator of an entertainment empire.

Fritz Lang, film director (Metropolis, M).

Confederate General John Bell Hood sends Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry and a division of infantry toward Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant’s cavalry receives a setback in an engagement on the Mississippi Central Railroad at Coffeeville, Mississippi.

In the U.S. Congress, petitions and bills calling for the abolition of slavery are introduced.

George Armstrong Custer, Union cavalry leader who met his fate at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna.

Martin Van Buren, 8th president in the United States–and the first born in the United States.

Phi Beta Kappa is organized as the first American college Greek letter-fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.

Pope Innocent VIII issues a bill deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in Germany.