EVENTS
- 1431 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins.
- 1804 – The world’s first railway journey takes place in Wales. The first full-scale steam locomotive, built by Richard Trevithick, traveled from the Pen-y-darren ironworks near Merthyr Tydfil to Abercynon.
- 1842 – The sewing machine is invented by John Greenough.
- 1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish “The Communist Manifesto”. “Das Kommunistische Manifest” outlined the sociopolitical worldview today called “Marxism” and was translated from German into over 100 languages.
- 1878 – The world’s first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut. The directory consisted of a single piece of cardboard and comprised 50 numbers.
- 1948 – NASCAR is incorporated.
- 1953 – The DNA molecule is discovered.
- 1958 – The peace symbol is designed by Gerald Holtom. The symbol was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and combines the semaphore symbols for the letters N and D – an abbreviation of “Nuclear Disarmament”.
- 1972 – President Richard Nixon arrived in China for historic meetings with Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Premier Chou En-lai.
- 1994 – CIA agent Aldrich Ames was arrested on charges he spied for the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1791 – Carl Czerny (Austrian pianist, composer)
- 1924 – Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwean politician, 2nd President of Zimbabwe)
- 1927 – Erma Bombeck (Author)
- 1933 – Nina Simone (American singer-songwriter, pianist)
- 1943 – David Geffen (Record Exec)
- 1946 – Alan Rickman (English actor)
- 1955 – Kelsey Grammer (Actor)
- 1958 – Alan Trammell (Baseball Player)
- 1979 – Jennifer Love Hewitt (Actress)
- 1986 – Charlotte Church (Opera singer)
DEATHS
- 1677 – Baruch Spinoza (Dutch philosopher)
- 1934 – Augusto César Sandino (Nicaraguan rebel leader)
- 1941 – Frederick Banting (Canadian physician, Nobel Prize laureate)
- 1949 – Tan Malaka (Indonesian educator, activist)
- 1965 – Malcolm X (American minister, activist)