This Day In History
- 1863 Federal batteries and ships bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., harbor during the Civil War.
- 1790 The location of the capital city of the United States moved from New York City to Philadelphia on this day.
- 1807 Fulton’s Folly, the "Clermont" (although it wasn’t named at the time), made its first journey. Robert Fulton’s steamboat traveled between Albany, New York and New York City, a 150-mile journey. The trip took 32 hours.
- 1815 Napoleon arrived at Saint Helena for the beginning of his exile.
- 1896 A prospecting party discovered gold in Alaska, a finding that touched off the Klondike gold rush.
- 1943 The Allied conquest of Sicily was completed as U.S. and British forces entered Messina.
- 1945 Indonesian nationalists declared independence from the Netherlands.
- 1948 Former State Department official Alger Hiss faced his chief accuser, Whittaker Chambers, during a closed-door meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee in New York. Hiss repeated his denial that he'd ever been a Communist agent.
- 1962 East German border guards shot and mortally wounded 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who had attempted to cross over the Berlin Wall into the western sector.
- 1969 Hurricane Camille slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing 248 people.
- 1987 Steffi Graf replaced Martina Navratilova as the number one tennis player in the Women’s International Tennis Association. The 18-year-old had won eight tournaments in 1987, including the French Open.
- 1987 Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, died at a Berlin hospital near Spandau Prison at age 93, having apparently committed suicide by strangling himself with an electrical cord.
- 1992 Actor-director Woody Allen admitted being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his longtime companion, actress Mia Farrow.
- 1993 Allegations of child abuse prompted Los Angeles police to investigate entertainer Michael Jackson. This, after the 13-year-old son of a Beverly Hills dentist told his therapist that Jackson had sexually abused him. Jackson claimed the allegations followed a failed attempt by the dentist to extract 20 million dollars from the singer. No criminal charges were filed against Jackson, but a civil suit was. It was settled out of court in January 1994. Michael Jackson, meanwhile, cancelled or postponed several dates on his "Dangerous" world tour, citing illness or exhaustion.
- 1998 President Bill Clinton underwent grand jury questioning in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
- 1998 Russia devalued the ruble.
- 2000 The Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman for vice president.
- 2002 Pope John Paul II arrived in Krakow, Poland, for the ninth visit to his native country during his papacy.
- 1786 Davy Crockett (frontiersman, soldier, defender of the Alamo; killed Mar 6, 1836 at the Alamo)
- 1882 Samuel Goldwyn (Schmuel Gelbfisz) (movie pioneer: the ‘G’ of MGM; Academy Award-winning producer: The Best Years of Our Lives [1946]; All Quiet on the Western Front; died Jan 31, 1974)
- 1893 Mae (Mary Jane) West (playwright, actress)
- 1920 Maureen O’Hara (FitzSimons) (actress)
- 1929 Francis Gary Powers (pilot: U-2 flight over Soviet Union; CIA agent; killed in helicopter crash Aug 1, 1977)
- 1943 Robert De Niro (actor: Academy Award-winning actor)
- 1960 Sean Penn (Academy Award-winning actor)
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