EVENTS
- 1829 – Goethe’s “Faust” (Part 1) is premiered. The work is considered one of the greatest works of German literature.
- 1915 – Georges Claude patents his neon discharge tube. Neon lighting soon became popular for outdoor advertising.
- 1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new cross country air record.
- 1953 – Lucy gives birth on “I Love Lucy”.
- 1955 – The Scrabble board game is invented.
- 1966 – Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India.
- 1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia. Barbie was known as the “Butcher of Lyon”.
- 2007 – Turkish journalist Hrant Dink is assassinated. The murderer was a 17-year old Turkish nationalist who disagreed with Dink’s view on the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1736 – James Watt (Inventor)
- 1807 – Robert E. Lee (Civil War General)
- 1809 – Edgar Allen Poe (Author and poet)
- 1839 – Paul Cezanne (Artist)
- 1943 – Janis Joplin (Singer)
- 1946 – Dolly Parton (Country Singer)
- 1971 – Shawn Wayans (Actor)
- 1992 – Shawn Johnson (Olympic Gold Medal Gymnast)
DEATHS
- 1865 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (French politician, philosopher, economist)
- 1874 – August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (German poet)
- 1990 – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Indian mystic, guru, educator)
- 2007 – Hrant Dink (Turkish/Armenian journalist)
- 2015 – Adam Yahiye Gadahn (American terrorist)