EVENTS
- 1859 – The world’s first successful oil well is tapped in Pennsylvania.
- 1939 – First jet aircraft flight takes place.
- 1962 – NASA Launches Mariner 2. Part of NASA’s Mariner program, the unmanned space probe was the first man-made object to flyby another planet – it encountered Venus on December 14, 1962. The space probe made its last contact with scientists on Earth on January 3, 1963.
Mariner 2 - 1985 – Military coup in Nigeria. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida took over the government after overthrowing Muhammadu Buhari in a bloodless coup.
- 1991 – Moldova declares independence from the USSR.
- 2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years.
- 2003 – World’s biggest battery is plugged in. The battery, which takes up about 2,000 square metres of space and weighs about 1,300 tonnes is set up to provide emergency electricity to the residents of Fairbanks in Alaska, for about 7 minutes.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1770 – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (German philosopher)
- 1865 – Charles Dawes (1865-1951) was born in Marietta, Ohio
- 1908 – Lyndon B. Johnson (36th US President)
- 1908 – Donald Bradman (Australian cricketer)
- 1952 – Paul Reubens (American actor)
Paul Reubens - 1970 – Jim Thome (Baseball Player)
- 1975 – Johnny Moseley (Skier)
- 1976 – Mark Webber (Australian race car driver)
- 1979 – Aaron Paul (Actor)
- 1987 – Darren McFadden (NFL Football player)
DEATHS
- 1963 – W. E. B. Du Bois (American sociologist, historian, activist)
- 1967 – Brian Epstein (English talent manager)
- 1975 – Haile Selassie I (Ethiopian emperor)
Haile Selassie I - 1979 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (British statesman, naval officer)
- 1990 – Stevie Ray Vaughan (American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer)
