Today in History

Queen Elizabeth II, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, dies at the age of 96, in her home at Balmoral.

USAir Flight 427 crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 people aboard; subsequent investigation leads to changes in manufacturing practices and pilot training.

Macedonian Independence Day; voters overwhelmingly approve referendum to form the Republic of Macedonia, independent of Yugoslavia.

Wildfires in Yellowstone National Park in the US, the world’s first national park, force evacuation of the historic Old Faithful Inn; visitors and employees evacuate but the inn is saved.

Pink (Alecia Beth Moore), multiple award-winning singer, including three Grammys (“Lady Marmalade,” “Trouble,” “Imagine.”)

President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard M. Nixon for any crimes arising from the Watergate scandal he may have committed while in office.

Martin Freeman, actor (The Office BBC Two TV series; Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey).

Yuji Nishizawa, hijacked All Nippon Airways flight, July 23, 1999.

Brad Silberling, screenwriter, director (City of Angels); wrote and directed Moonlight Mile (2002) based on the murder of his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, by a stalker.

President Dwight Eisenhower dedicates NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand sign the mutual defense treaty that established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society and editor of Skeptic magazine.

Japanese representatives sign a peace treaty in San Francisco.

Ann Beattie, writer (Chilly Scenes of Winter, Picturing Will).

Korea is partitioned by the Soviet Union and the United States.

Germany’s V-2 offensive against England begins.

Senator Huey Long of Louisiana is shot to death in the state capitol, allegedly by Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, Jr.

Michael Frayn, playwright (A Very Private Life, Noises Off).

Patsy Cline, country singer (“Crazy”, “I Fall to Pieces”).

Peter Sellers, English comic actor, famous for his role as Inspector Clouseau.

Sid Caesar, comedian and television star, best known for “Your Show of Shows,” and “The Sid Caesar Show.”

Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., is named the first Miss America.

Germany begins a new offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.

Robert Turner invents the automatic typewriter return carriage.

Between 30,000 and 50,000 Bulgarian men, women and children are massacred in Monastir by Turkish troops seeking to check a threatened Macedonian uprising.

Claude Pepper, Democratic senator and congressman from Florida, champion of senior citizens rights.

Robert A. Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio who unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination from the 1940s until 1952.

Siegfried Sassoon, British author and poet famous for his anti-war writing about World War I.

Confederate Lieutenant Dick Dowling thwarts a Union naval landing at Sabine Pass, northeast of Galveston, Texas.

A French column surrenders at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.

Antonin Dvorak, composer and violinist.

The French surrender the city of Montreal to the British.

British forces under William Johnson defeat the French and the Indians at the Battle of Lake George.

The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British fleet that sails into its harbor. Five years later, the British change the name to New York.

John Endecott arrives with colonists at Salem, Massachusetts, where he will become the governor.

Spanish explorers found St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States.

The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman re-enters Budapest and establishes John Zapolya as the puppet king of Hungary.

Michelangelo’s 13-foot marble statue of David is unveiled in Florence, Italy.