EVENTS
- 1170 – Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury is assassinated.
- 1845 – Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
- 1860 – The HMS Warrior, the first British iron-clad warship, is launched.
- 1890 – Members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry massacred more than 200 Native American (Sioux) men, women and children at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.
- 1891 – Thomas Edison patents the radio.
- 1911 – Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China.
- 1916 – In the waning days of the Romanov dynasty, Russian ‘monk’ Rasputin (Grigory Yefimovich Novykh) was assassinated. A group of conspirators had lured him to a private home then poisoned and shot him, although he did not die. They then tied him up and threw him into the Neva River, in which he drowned. Rasputin had gained enormous influence with Russian Emperor Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra, claiming Divine inspiration and the ability to perform miracles, especially in helping young Nicky, the Czar’s son who was a hemophiliac. He also urged severe measures in dealing with the peasant masses and for a time had virtually dictated government policy.
- 1937 – Ireland established. A new constitution, established by a national referendum, changed the name of the Irish Free state to Ireland. The Irish Free State was a part of the British Commonwealth and was established in 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty singed in 1921.
- 1940 – During the Blitz, German aircraft dropped thousands of incendiary bombs on the center of London, causing the worst fire damage since the great fire of 1666. St. Paul’s Cathedral survived but eight other Wren churches along with the Guildhall and Old Bailey were badly damaged.
- 1965 – During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh rejected unconditional peace talks offered by the U.S.
- 1989 – Playwright and human rights activist Vaclav Havel was sworn in as president of Czechoslovakia. He had formerly been denounced by Czech Communists as an enemy of the state and had spent five years in jail for his beliefs.
- 1996 – Guatemalan civil war comes to an end. The 36-year long civil war fought between several leftist groups representing the indigenous people and poor and the government came to an end after Comandante Rolando Morán of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity and president Álvaro Arzú signed a peace treaty under the supervision of the UN. Morán and Arzú received the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in bringing peace to the country.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1800 – Charles Goodyear (Inventor and tire maker)
- 1808 – Andrew Johnson (17th US President)
- 1809 – William Ewart Gladstone (English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
- 1876 – Cellist Pablo Casals (1876-1973) was born in Venrdell, Spain (He was one of the most influential musicians of the 20th Century whose superb ability in playing the cello set new performance standards.
- 1923 – Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist)
- 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore (Actress)
- 1938 – Jon Voight (Actor – Angelina Jolie’s father)
- 1947 – Ted Danson (Actor)
- 1953 – Stanley Williams (American gang leader, co-founded the Crips)
- 1967 – Ashleigh Banfield (TV Journalist)
- 1970 – Kevin Weisman (Actor)
- 1972 – Jude Law (Actor)
DEATHS
- 1170 – Thomas Becket (English archbishop)
- 1916 – Grigori Rasputin (Russian monk)
- 1929 – Wilhelm Maybach (German businessman, founded Maybach)
- 1986 – Harold Macmillan (English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
- 2009 – Akmal Shaikh (Pakistani/English businessman, drug trafficker)