Today in History

Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa’s first black president.

The USS Nautilus completes the first circumnavigation of the globe underwater.

Judith Jamison, American ballerina.

England’s House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs.

Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.

Arthur Kopit, American playwright.

Nazis begin burning books by “unGerman” writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.

WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming.

J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Richard Adams, English novelist (Watership Down).

Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic.

Carl Albert, U.S. politician.

David O. Selznick, film producer (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca).

Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer and actor.