EVENTS
- 1825 – John Quincy Adams becomes President of the USA.
- 1861 – Jefferson Davis becomes president of the Confederacy.
- 1895 – Volleyball is invented.
- 1943 – During World War II in the Pacific, U.S. troops captured Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands after six months of battle, with 9,000 Japanese and 2,000 Americans killed.
- 1950 – U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy launches his anti-communist campaign. On this day, McCarthy accused the U.S. State Department of being infiltrated by communists.
- 1959 – The world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile becomes operational in the USSR. The Soviet R-7 Semyorka missile had a range of 8800 km (5500 mi).
- 1960 – Hollywood Walk of Fame begins.
- 1964 – The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.
- 1965 – First US troops sent to Vietnam in the Vietnam War.
- 1969 – The Boeing 747 flies for the first time. The “Jumbo Jet” was the world’s largest passenger aircraft at the time.
- 1996 – The Irish paramilitary organization IRA ends an 18-month ceasefire by exploding a large bomb in London. The explosion in London’s Canary Wharf left 2 people dead and 39 injured.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1737 – Thomas Paine (US Revolutionary)
- 1773 – William Henry Harrison (9th US President)
- 1846 – Wilhelm Maybach (German businessman, founded Maybach)
- 1932 – Gerhard Richter (German painter)
- 1942 – Carole King (Singer and Songwriter)
- 1943 – Joe Pesci (Actor)
- 1945 – Mia Farrow (Actress)
- 1963 – Travis Tritt (Country Singer)
- 1987 – Magdalena Neuner (German biathlete)
DEATHS
- 967 – Sayf al-Dawla (Emir of Aleppo)
- 1857 – Dionysios Solomos (Greek poet)
- 1881 – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian author)
- 1957 – Miklós Horthy (Hungarian Admiral, regent)
- 1981 – Bill Haley (American singer-songwriter, musician)
