Today in History

After Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of Kenya’s presidential elections, rioting begins in Mombasa, precipitating an economic, humanitarian and political crisis.

 Radiation reaches Earth from the brightest extrasolar event ever witnessed, an explosion of magnetar SGR 1806-20.

China receives permanent normal trade relations with the US.

Taliban forces retake strategic Bagram Airfield during Afghan civil war.

Palestinian guerrillas kill 18 people at airports in Rome and Vienna.

Four Polish officers are tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.

President Reagan takes all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines.

President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan is ousted and murdered in a coup backed by the Soviet Union, beginning a war that will last more than 10 years.

Heather O’Rourke, child actress discovered at age 5 by Stephen Spielberg; she died at age 12 (Poltergeist film series).

Savannah Guthrie, journalist; co-host of NBC’s The Today Show.

The United States agrees to sell F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.

Bill Self, college men’s basketball coach; named the National Coach of the Year in 2000, 2009 and 2011 by The Sporting News and Associated Press National Coach of the Year 2009.

Segregation on buses in Tallahassee, Florida, is outlawed.

The United States and Spain resume relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.

Gerard Depardieu, one of the most prolific character actors in film history; won two Cesar awards from France’s Academie des arts et techniques du cinema and a Golden Globe (Green Card, Cyrano de Bergerac).

The new Italian constitution is promulgated in Rome.

The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development are created.

General George S. Patton’s Third Army, spearheaded by the 4th Armored Division, relieves the surrounded city of Bastogne in Belgium.

Cokie Roberts, American broadcast journalist.

Japanese bombers attack Manila, despite its claim as an open city.

A series of vicious earthquakes take 11,000 lives in Turkey.

Josef Stalin calls tensions with Japan a grave danger.

Radio City Music Hall opens.

Major General Charles Sweeney, the pilot of Bocks Car, the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

In Ohio, iron and steel workers go on strike for an eight-hour day and higher wages.

Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, is shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.

Marlene Dietrich, German-born singer and actress.

Union General William Rosecrans‘ army begins moving slowly toward Murfreesboro, Tennessee, from Nashville.

HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, departs from Plymouth. It will eventually visit the Galapagos Islands where Darwin will form his theories on evolution.

Hinton Helper, southern abolitionist who wrote The Impending Crisis.

Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist.

Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician.

The laws of Burgos give New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorize Negro slavery.