This Day In History
- 1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.
- 1825 Uruguay declared its independence from Brazil.
- 1875 Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 22 hours.
- 1902 The first Arabic daily newspaper in the U.S., "Al-Hoda", began publication in New York City.
- 1916 The National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior.
- 1920 Ethelda Bleibtrey became the first woman to win an event for the United States in Olympic competition. She won the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition at Antwerp, Belgium.
- 1920 The first airplane to fly from New York to Alaska arrived in Nome on this day.
- 1921 The United States signed a peace treaty with Germany.
- 1932 Charles H. Calhoun, Sr. shot a hole in one on the third hole of the Washington, GA golf course. “Yeah, so?” Well, just moments later, Mr. Calhoun’s son, Charles Jr., playing in the same foursome, repeated the feat with an identical ace!
- 1939 Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter, the leader of Murder, Incorporated, gave himself up to columnist Walter Winchell in New York City. Winchell turned the underworld leader over to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
- 1943 U.S. forces overran New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World War II.
- 1950 President Harry S. Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
- 1975 The album ''Born to Run'' by Bruce Springsteen was released.
- 1981 The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn's cloud cover, sending back pictures and data about the ringed planet.
- 1984 Author Truman Capote was found dead at age 59.
- 1985 Samantha Smith, the schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her peace tour of the Soviet Union, was killed with her father in an airplane crash in Maine.
- 1989 Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, was out of baseball (banned for life). Rose signed a five-page agreement with A. Bartlett Giamatti, comissioner of baseball, who charged that Rose, as Cincinnati Reds manager, bet on baseball games.
- 1991 The day the Soviet Union began to break apart, and Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist party. (He resigned the presidency of the Soviet Union on Dec 25, 1991).
- 1991 The Russian Communist party issued a declaration of full independence for Belarus, the Soviet state that had declared its independence on July 27, 1991. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine formed the Commonwealth of Independent States to coordinate economic activities, defence and foreign relations.
- 1992 One of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States occurred on this day as Hurricane Andrew crashed into southern Florida. Andrew left a trail of destruction that killed at least 20 people, left over 50,000 without homes and caused billions of dollars in property damage.
- 1995 Microsoft officially rolled out their Windows 95 operating system. Midnight parties at retailers across the U.S. offered the new system for sale to those who just couldn’t wait any longer. NBC’s Jay Leno hosted the official launch party at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. The company lit up the Empire State Building with the Windows 95 logo colors, and licensed the Rolling Stones song, "Start Me Up", to use in its TV advertisements (for $12 million).
- 1996 Tiger Woods won his third U.S. Amateur Championship in a row. Steve Scott, a 19-year-old from the University of Florida, led from the third hole all the way to the next-to-the-last hole of the 36-hole final and lost on the second playoff hole. Woods is the only golfer to win three U.S. Amateurs in succession.
- 1997 The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida.
- 1998 Retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell died at age 90.
- 2001 R&B singer Aaliyah was killed with eight others in a plane crash in the Bahamas at age 22.
- 2003 Tennis champion Pete Sampras announced his retirement during a news conference at the U.S. Open in New York.
- 1819 Allan Pinkerton (created first private detective agency [1850], making him first private eye; hired by Abraham Lincoln as first Secret Service officer [foiled first attempt on Lincoln’s life]; died July 1, 1884)
- 1850 Charles Richet (Nobel Prize-winning physiologist [for his work on anaphylaxis: 1913]; died Dec 4, 1935)
- 1900 Sir Hans Adolf Krebs (Nobel Prize-winning biochemist [for his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism: 1953]; died in 1981)
- 1913 Bob Crosby (bandleader)
- 1913 Don DeFore (actor: Hazel, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Jumping Jacks, My Friend Irma, The Stork Club; died Dec 22, 1993)
- 1913 Walt Kelly (cartoonist: Pogo; animator: Fantasia [1940], The Reluctant Dragon [1941]; died Oct 19, 1973)
- 1918 Leonard Bernstein (conductor: New York Philharmonic Orchestra; composer: West Side Story, On the Town, My Sister Eileen, On the Waterfront, Jeremiah, The Age of Anxiety, Kaddish, Chichester Psalms, Mass, Songfest; died Oct 14, 1990)
- 1918 Richard Greene (actor)
- 1919 George Wallace (Governor of Alabama; candidate for U.S. President: paralyzed by gunshot wounds as subject of assassination attempt [1972]; died Sep 13, 1998)
- 1921 Monty Hall (Halparin) (TV host: Let’s Make a Deal, Keep Talking, NBC Comedy Playhouse)
- 1925 Donald O’Connor (dancer, singer, actor: Singin’ in the Rain, Francis the Talking Mule series, The Donald O’Connor Show, Call Me Madam, Walking My Baby Back Home, There’s No Business Like Show Business, The Buster Keaton Story, Toys, Out to Sea; died Sep 27, 2003)
- 1930 Sir Sean Connery (Academy Award-winning actor: The Untouchables [1987]; The Rock, First Knight, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Rising Sun, Outland, The Longest Day, Dragonheart, Entrapment; “Bond. James Bond.”: Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever)
- 1961 Billy Ray Cyrus (singer: Achy Breaky Heart)
- 1970 Claudia Schiffer (supermodel; actress)
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