Today in History

SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1.

Afghanistan’s former president (1986-92) Mohammad Najibullah tortured and murdered by the Taliban.

Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip.

Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art work Whaam!, depicting in comic-book style a US jet shooting down an enemy fighter, is exhibited for the first time; it will become one of the best known examples of pop art.

Military coup in Damascus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958.

Jennifer Rush, singer, songwriter (“The Power of Love”).

Explorer VI, the U.S. satellite, takes the first video pictures of earth.

France ratifies a new constitution.

Winston “Win” Percy, three-time British Touring Car Champion, regarded by many as the World’s Number One Touring Car Driver

Stuart Kauffman, theoretical biologist renowned for his work in studying the origin of life and origins of molecular organization.

Koko Taylor, blues singer.

Brigitte Bardot, French actress.

Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory; it remained for Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to isolate the active ingredient, allowing the “miracle drug” to be developed in the 1940s.