Today in History

Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israeli cities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) isolate the cause of Legionnaire’s disease.

Plans are disclosed for the World Trade Center in New York.

The United States begins spraying foliage with herbicides in South Vietnam, in order to reveal the whereabouts of Vietcong guerrillas.

Gandhi breaks a 121-hour fast after halting Muslim-Hindu riots.

The German Army launches its second attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest from the advancing Red Army.

General MacArthur repels the Japanese in Bataan. The United States takes the lead in the Far East war criminal trials.

The Russians force the Turkish 3rd Army back to Erzurum.

Aviator Eugene Ely performs his first successful take off and landing from a ship in San Francisco.

Cary Grant, U.S. film actor (Gunga Din, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest).

The Isthmus Canal Commission in Washington shifts its support from Nicaragua to Panama as a favored canal site.

Oliver Hardy, film comedian, one half of Laurel and Hardy.

A.A. [Alan Alexander] Milne, novelist, humorist and journalist (Winnie the Pooh).

John Tyler, former president of the U.S., is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

Daniel Hale Williams, physician who performed the first open heart surgery, founder of Chicago’s Provident Hospital.

Jim Bowie arrives at the Alamo to assist its Texas defenders.

Joseph Glidden, inventor.

Daniel Webster, congressman from New Hampshire, Massachusetts senator, and secretary of state before the Civil War.

Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands, naming them the ‘Sandwich Islands’ after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.

Frederick III, the elector of Brandenburg, becomes king of Prussia.

Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York.