Today in History

Burj Khalifa (Khalifa tower) officially opens in Dubai, UAE. At 2,722 ft (829.8 m) it is the world’s tallest man-made structure.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) becomes the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the Rose Revolution of November 2003.

Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a former professional wrestler, is sworn in as populist governor of Minnesota.

Over 300 people die and more than 700 are injured in Pakistan’s deadliest train accident, when an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train.

The Ulster Volunteer Force kills six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day 10 Protestant civilians are murdered in retaliation.

President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey (The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales) in London, England.

A 7.7 earthquake kills 15,000+ people in Tonghai County, China.

Spain signs a treaty to return Ifni province to Morocco.

Patty Loveless, country singer; her multiple awards include Academy of Country Music Top Female Vocalist 1996, 1997.

The French Army in Indochina launches Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.

UN forces abandon Seoul, Korea, to the Chinese Communist Army.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, biographer, historian, political commentator; won Pulitzer Prize in 1995 (No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During WWII) and the Lincoln Prize in 2005 (Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln).

Maureen Reagan, actress, political activist; first child born to Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman.

Gao Xingjian, novelist, playwright, critic; awarded Nobel Prize for Literature (2000).

Billboard magazine publishes its first music “Hit Parade.”

Floyd Patterson, professional boxer; at age 21 he became the youngest man to win the world heavyweight title (later replaced by Mike Tyson at age 20) and the first heavyweight to regain the title.

Jane Wyman, American film actress, received Academy Award for Johnny Belinda; she was the first wife of future US President Ronald Reagan.

The U.S. Supreme Court decides in the Gonzales v. Williams case that Puerto Ricans are not aliens and can enter the United States freely, yet stops short of awarding citizenship.

France offers to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the United States.

Utah becomes the 45th state of the Union.

Union General Henry Halleck, at the direction of President Abraham Lincoln, orders General Ulysses Grant to revoke his infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational area in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi.

Louis Braille, developer of a reading system for the blind.

Jacob Ludwig Grimm, German philosopher who wrote fairy tales with his brother.

Sir Isaac Newton, scientist who developed the laws of gravity and planetary relations.