Today in History

Lt. Col. Oliver North and Rear Adm. John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress regarding the Iran-Contra scandal.

Ho Chi Minh orders a partial mobilization of North Vietnam to defend against American airstrikes.

American pilot Francis Gary Powers pleads guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court.

Chinese communists attack the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel is wounded when an Allied fighter strafes his staff car in France.

Peter Schickele, composer, creator of P.D.Q. Bach.

Laszlo Nagy, Hungarian poet.

James Purdy, writer (Cabot Wright Begins).

Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic.

Art Linkletter, radio and television personality.

Christina E. Stead, novelist and screenwriter.

James Cagney, American actor (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mister Roberts).

Bernice Abbott, photographer.

Georges Lemaitre, Belgian astronomer.

Erle Stanley Gardner, detective writer, creator of Perry Mason.

S.Y. Agnon, Israeli writer (The Day Before Yesterday).

Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaces General Joseph E. Johnston with General John Bell Hood in hopes of defeating Union General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta.

Andrew Jackson becomes the governor of Florida.

Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders to the British at Rochefort, France.

The U.S. fleet arrives in Tripoli.

Ottoman forces, supported by the British, capture Aboukir, Egypt from the French.

National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of demonstrators in Paris.

France limits the importation of goods from Britain.

John Jacob Astor, American fur trader and entrepreneur.

Peter III of Russia is murdered and his wife, Catherine II, takes the throne.

Isaac Watts, English minister and hymn writer.

France defeats England at Castillon, France, ending the Hundred Years’ War.