Today in History

Dow Jones Industrial Average sinks to lowest level in 11 years in response to failures in the US financial system.

First module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.

Fire in England’s Windsor Castle causes over £50 million in damages.

Microsoft Windows 1.0 released.

South Africa backs down on a plan to install black rule in neighboring Namibia.

Dierks Bentley, country singer, songwriter (“What Was I Thinkin'”, “Every Mile a Memory”).

The United States files an antitrust suit to break up ATT.

The United States announces it will give Turkey $35 million for farmers who agree to stop growing opium poppies.

U.S. census reports the population at 200 million.

Wan Yanhai, Chinese activist.

President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.

The Maryland National Guard is ordered desegregated.

U.S. troops push to the Yalu River, within five miles of Manchuria.

Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) marries Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Westminster Abbey.

Duane Allman, singer, songwriter, musician; co-founder and primary leader of the The Allman Brothers Band until his death in 1971.

The Nazi war crime trials begin at Nuremberg.

U.S. Army and Marine soldiers attack the Japanese-held islands of Makin and Tarawa, respectively, in the Central Pacific.

Joe Biden, politician; US Senator from Delaware (1973–2009); President Barack Obama’s vice-president, beginning in 2009

Dick Smothers, actor, singer; half of the Smothers Brothers whose controversial comedy-variety TV show challenged censorship boundaries in the 1960s, finally resulting in cancellation in 1969.

Don DeLillo, author (White Noise, Libra).

Japan and China reject the League of Council terms for Manchuria at Geneva.

Mrs. Glen Hyde becomes the first woman to dare the Grand Canyon rapids in a scow (a flat-bottomed boat that is pushed along with a pole).

Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General, New York senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. He was assassinated while running for president.

Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist.

Thomas McGrath, poet and novelist.

Bulgaria proclaims its neutrality in the First World War.

Alistair Cooke, English journalist, television host.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, 42-year-old hired gunman Tom Horn is hanged for the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell.

Edwin Hubble, American astronomer who proved that there are other galaxies far from our own.

Selma Lagerdorf, Swedish novelist (The Story of Gosta Berling).

Sweden’s 17-year-old King Charles XII defeats the Russians at Narva.

Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian leader of a 100-year-old rebel slave group, is killed in an ambush.

Diocletian is proclaimed emperor of Numerian in Asia Minor by his soldiers. He had been the commander of the emperor’s bodyguard.