Today in History

Terrorist bombers kill over 200 and wound over 300 more at the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali.

Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members killed and over 35 wounded.

Chief of Army Staff Perez Musharraf seizes power in Pakistan through a bloodless military coup.

NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates at bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; 5 others are killed and 31 wounded.

The House of Representatives passes the Equal Rights Amendment 354-23.

President Richard Nixon announces the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in Vietnam by Christmas.

Hugh Jackman, actor; well known for his recurring role as Wolverine in the X-Men films, his many awards include a Golden Globe (Les Miserables, 2013) and a Tony Award Special Award for Extraordinary Contribution to the Theatre Community (2012).

1964 USSR launches Voskhod I, first spacecraft with multi-person crew; it is also the first mission in which the crew did not wear space suits.

Inejiro Asanuma, leaders of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.

Ante Gotvina, Croatian lieutenant general; convicted in 2011 of war crimes during the Croatian civil war, his conviction was overturned in 2012.

Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanches), one of the most infamous political terrorists of the 1970s; currently (2013) serving a life term in France.

Chris Wallace, former host/moderator of Meet the Press, currently (2013) host of Fox News Sunday; the three-time Emmy winner is the only person thus far to host more than one major Sunday political talk show.

Angel Rippon, first female journalist to present BBC national television news on a permanent basis.

The U.S. Fifth Army begins an assault crossing of the Volturno River in Italy.

Luciano Pavarotti, Italian opera tenor.

Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum security prison.

Dick Gregory, comedian and social activist.

Richard Coles, child psychologist and author.

Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed by Germans for aiding the escape of Allied prisoners.

The Anglo-Boer War begins.

Apache leader Cochise signs a peace treaty with General Howard in Arizona Territory.

Charles Sumner Greene, architect.

Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, dies under mysterious circumstances in Tennessee.

Shah Sultan Husayn surrenders the Persian capital of Isfahan to Afgan rebels after a seven month siege.

Admiral Sir George Rooke defeats the French fleet off Vigo.

The song “Three Blind Mice” is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song.

Rudolf II, the king of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeds his father, Maximillian II, as Holy Roman Emperor.

Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII by his third wife Jane Seymour.

Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.