This Day In History
- 1647 The first recorded American execution of a ''witch'' took place in Massachusetts.
- 1896 A tornado struck St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill., killing 255 people.
- 1926 The people of Hannibal, MO erected the first statue of literary characters. The bronze figures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were hoisted above a red granite base.
- 1935 The Supreme Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act.
- 1937 The Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, Calif., was opened to the public.
- 1941 The German battleship Bismarck sank off France, with a loss of 2,300 lives.
- 1963 The album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,'' which featured the song ''Blowin' in the Wind,'' was released.
- 1994 Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after spending two decades in exile.
- 1995 Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed when he was thrown from his horse during a jumping event in Charlottesville, Va.
- 1996 Russian President Boris Yeltsin negotiated a cease-fire to the war in Chechnya in his first meeting with the rebels' leader.
- 1997 The Supreme Court ruled Paula Jones could pursue her sex harassment lawsuit against President Clinton while he was in office.
- 1998 Michael Fortier, the government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after apologizing for not warning anyone about the deadly plot.
- 1999 A U.N. tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, holding the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.
- 1794 Cornelius Vanderbilt (capitalist: established ferry service between Manhattan & Staten Islands; turned a NY railroad into $$$; died Jan 4, 1877)
- 1837 Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok (U.S. Marshall, frontiersman, army scout, gambler, legendary marksman; shot [from behind] and killed Aug 2, 1876 while playing poker holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights [known since as the ‘dead man’s hand’])
- 1911 Hubert Humphrey (38th vice president of the U.S.; died Jan 13, 1978)
- 1911 Vincent (Leonard) Price
- 1923 Henry (Alfred) Kissinger (Nobel Peace Prize-winner [1973]; U.S. Secretary of State: Nixon Administration; political consultant: NBC News)
- 1935 Lee Ann Meriwether (Miss America [1955]; actress: Barnaby Jones, Batman)
- 1936 Lou Gossett Jr. (Academy Award-winning actor: An Officer and a Gentleman [1982]; Emmy Award winner: Roots-Part Two [1977]; Sadat, Enemy Mine, Iron Eagle series)
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