Today in History

Military contractors in the employ of Blackwater Worldwide allegedly kill 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, further straining relations between the US and the people of Iraq.

Britain’s government lifts the 1988 broadcasting ban against member of Ireland’s Sinn Fein and Irish paramilitary groups.

The trial of Manuel Noriega, deposed dictator of Panama, begins in the United States.

An earthquake estimated to be as strong as 7.9 on the Richter scale kills 25,000 people in Iran.

Administrators for Rhodes Scholarships announce the decision to begin offering fellowships to women.

Limited amnesty is offered to Vietnam-era draft resisters who would now swear allegiance to the United States and perform two years of public service.

South Vietnamese troops recapture Quang Tri province in South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese Army.

David Copperfield, magician.

Earl Klugh, jazz guitarist.

Mickey Rourke, actor, screenwriter, professional boxer; won Golden Globe (The Wrestler, 2009).

Henry Louis Gates Jr., critic and scholar.

Rosemary Casals, pro tennis player whose efforts to gain greater equality for women in the sport led to many changes.

Japan surrenders Hong Kong to Britain.

James Alan McPherson, author; first African American to win Pulitzer Prize for fiction (Elbow Room, 1978).

The Japanese base at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands is raided by American bombers.

Congress passes the Selective Service Act, which calls for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

Anti-Nazi Lutherans stage protest in Munich.

Peter Falk, actor, best known for his role as detective Columbo in the TV series of the same name.

John Knowles, writer; won first-ever William Faulkner Foundation Award (A Separate Peace, 1961).

B.B. King, blues guitarist.

Thirty people are killed in a terrorist bombing in New York’s Wall Street financial district.

General Motors files papers of incorporation.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, biochemist who isolated vitamin C.

Karl Doenitz, German Admiral who succeeded Adolf Hitler in governing Germany.

Robert Younger, in Minnesota’s Stillwater Penitentiary for life, dies of tuberculosis. Brothers Cole and Bob remain in the prison.

Karen Horney, psychoanalyst who exposed the male bias in the Freudian analysis of women.

James Cash Penney, founder and owner of the J.C. Penny Company department stores.

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest leads 4,500 men out of Verona, Miss. to harass Union outposts in northern Alabama and Tennessee.

James J. Hill, railroad builder.

A revolution for independence breaks out in Mexico.

Jean-Paul Marat sets up a new newspaper in France, L’Ami du Peuple.

The French capture Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.

King John Casimer V of Poland abdicates the throne.

The Pilgrims sail from England on the Mayflower.