EVENTS
- 1864 – Ulysses S. Grant was commissioned as a Lieutenant General and became commander of the Union armies.
- 1935 – The cartoon character Porky Pig first appears in “I Haven’t Got a Hat”.
- 1931 – The electron microscope is invented. German physicist Ernst Ruska is credited with the invention of the microscope. His first instrument allowed a resolution of 50 nanometers (billionths of a meter).
Ernst Ruska Electron Microscope - 1957 – Aleutian Islands register a 9.1 magnitude earthquake.
- 1959 – The first Barbie doll debuts.
- 1961 – Ivan Ivanovich, a human dummy, travels into space. On its test flight on board the Soviet spacecraft Korabl-Sputnik 4 (also known as Sputnik 9), the mannequin was accompanied by a dog, reptiles, mice, and guinea pigs.
- 1964 – The first Ford Mustang is built
- 1976 – The deadliest cable car accident in history occurs in Italy. 43 people died when the cable car plunged 160 ft (50 meters) to the ground after the steel cable had snapped. 14-year-old Alessandra Piovesana was the only survivor.
- 1987 – U2 releases the album “The Joshua Tree”.
- 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes its final mission. The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida after its journey to the International Space Station (ISS).
BIRTHDAYS
- 1454 – Amerigo Vespucci (Italian explorer)
- 1890 – Vyacheslav Molotov (Soviet politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs fr the Soviet Union)
- 1915 – Johnnie Johnson (English pilot)
- 1934 – Yuri Gagarin (1st man in space)
- 1943 – Bobby Fisher (Chess Champion)
- 1959 – Barbie’s offical Birthday (the doll)
- 1964 – Juliette Binoche (French actress, dancer)
Juliette Binoche - 1971 – Emmanuel Lewis (Actor)
- 1984 – Julia Mancuso (Gold Medal skier)
- 1987 – Bow Wow (Singer and Rapper)
DEATHS
- 1825 – Anna Laetitia Barbauld (English poet, author, critic)
- 1992 – Menachem Begin (Israeli politician, 6th Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Prize laureate)
- 1994 – Charles Bukowski (American poet)
Charles Bukowski - 1996 – George Burns (American actor)
- 1997 – The Notorious B.I.G. (American rapper)
