Category Archives: History

1928 – MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time.  He introduced MGM’s first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas.  Leo’s dialogue was more extensive than the film’s, whose only spoken word was, “Hello.”

1964 – Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up images of the moon.

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin became the first men to ride in a LRV (lunar rover vehicle) on the moon.  They rode for about 5 miles on the lunar surface.  Their first stop at the rim of Elbow Crater was televised back to Earth to millions of viewers.

1975 – Former labor leader Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from a parking lot in a Detroit restaurant and has never been seen since.  His disappearance remains unsolved.

1619 – In Jamestown, VA, the first European elected legislative assembly in the Western Hemisphere convened in the town church.

1818 – Author Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights) was born in Thornton, England.

1863 – Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was born in Greenfield, MI.

1932 – The Games of the X^th Summer Olympiad opened in Los Angeles, CA.

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation creating the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES), an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy.

1945 – The U.S.S Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sank into shark-infested waters near Guam.  Only 317 of the 1,196 men aboard survived.

1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law.

1869 – Author Booth Tarkington (The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams) was born in Indianapolis, IN.

1900 – Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born American citizen, assassinated Italy’s King Umberto I.

1905 – Actress Clara Bow (Hula, Dancing Mothers, Mantrap, Free to Love, Down to the Sea in Ships) was born in New York City.

1958 – The United States space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1976 – David Berkowitz (“The Son of Sam”) began his murder rampage in New York City.  He killed 6 people and wounded 7 others, before he was arrested in August 1977.

1866 – Author Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit books) was born in Kensington, England.

1868 – The 14^th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted.

1896 – The city of Miami, Florida, was incorporated.  It had a population of 260 at the time, but now, boasts population more than 2,000,000 people.

1945 – A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79^th floor of the fog-shrouded Empire State Building in New York City, killing 14 people.

1976 – An earthquake estimated to be as high as magnitude 8.2 struck Tangshan, China, killing about 242,000 people in and around the city.

1789 – The Department of Foreign Affairs was established by the U.S. Congress and President George Washington.  The agency later was named the Department of State, or the State Department.

1953 – The armistice agreement that ended the Korean War was signed at Panmunjon, Korea. The war lasted three years and 32 days.  The truce negotiations between North Korean and U.S. delegates representing South Korea lasted two years and seventeen days.

1974 – The U.S. House Judiciary Committee began impeachment proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon over the Watergate affair.

1995 – The Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. opened to the public on the 42^nd anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.  U.S. President Bill Clinton and President Kim Young Sam of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) dedicated the memorial.  A plaque at the flagstaff reads, “Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered a call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.”

1996 – An early-morning pipe-bomb blast in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, killed 2 people and injured more than 100 others, as an overnight celebration erupted into chaos.  Eric Robert Rudolph, who eluded police until his capture May 31, 2003, pleaded guilty to the bombing on April 13, 2005.

1775 – The U.S. Congress established the U.S. Post Office and named Benjamin Franklin as its first Postmaster.

1788 – New York entered the U.S. as the 11^th state.

1796 – Artist George Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

1856 – Playwright George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion, Man and Superman, Saint Joan) was born in Dublin, Ireland.

1894 – Author – philosopher Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, Crome Yellow, Point Counter Point) was born in Surrey, England.

1908 – U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte ordered the creation of a federal agency later called the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

1909 – Actress Vivian Vance (I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Lucy in Connecticut, The Lucy Show) was born in Cherryvale, KS.

1928 – Movie director Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange) was born in New York City.

1844 – Realist painter Thomas Eakins (Walt Whitman, The Thinker, The Clinic of Dr. Gross, The Clinic of Dr. Agnew, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull) was born in Philadelphia, PA.

1943 – Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was voted out of power by the Grand Council and later arrested.

1956 – The Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish-American liner Stockholm collided in heavy fog, some 45 miles south of Nantucket Island.  Of the 1,662 passengers and crew aboard the Andrea Doria, 52 died in the initial collision.  The remaining passengers and crew managed to board the Stockholm.  Everyone from both ships was rescued the next day, before the Stockholm sank.

Andrea Doria

1978 – The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England.  The daughter of Lesley and Gilbert Brown, she was the first baby conceived outside the mother’s body.

1783 – Simon Bolivar, Venezuelan military and political leader and South American liberator, was born in Caracas, Venezuela.

1802 – Novelist – playwright Alexandre Dumas was born in Soissons, France.

1847 – Richard M. Hoe of New York City patented the rotary-type printing press.

1897 – Aviator Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, KS.

1911 – American archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered the Incan city of Machu Picchu just north of Cuzco, Peru.

1715 – The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction at Little Brewster Island, MA.

1829 – William Burt of Mt. Vernon, MI, patented the first typewriter, or what he called a “typographer.”

1962 – The Telstar communications satellite sent the first live TV broadcast to Europe. The bird was used to send TV programs between the United States and Europe.

1984 – Vanessa Williams who, a year earlier, had become the first Black woman to win the Miss America title, became the first winner to resign, after Penthouse magazine announced plans to publish nude photos of her.

1996 – The U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team won its first-ever team gold at the Summer Games in Atlanta.  The team was composed of Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps and Kerri Strug.