1637 – During the Pequot War, an allied Mohegan and English force under Capt. John Mason attacked a Pequot village in Connecticut and massacred some 500 Indian adults and children.
1799 – Poet Aleksandr Pushkin was born in Moscow.
1864 – President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation creating the Montana Territory.
1868 – At the end of a 2-month trial, the U.S. Senate narrowly failed to convict President Andrew Johnson of impeachment charges levied against him by the House of Representatives 3 months earlier.
1886 – Singer – actor Al Jolson (The Jazz Singer) was born in Srednik, Russia.
1895 – Actress Norma Talmadge was born in Jersey City, NJ. (Some sources also list her birth year as 1894.)
1896 – Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov was crowned Czar Nicholas II of Russia in Moscow.
1897 – Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, went on sale in London.
1907 – Actor John Wayne was born in Winterset, IA.
1913 – The Actors’ Equity Association was organized in New York City.
1977 – The man called “The Human Fly,” George Willig, scaled the World Trade Center in New York City, by affixing himself to a window washer mechanism and walking straight up until falling into police custody when he reached the top.
Chief Writing Wolf 