This Day in History
1776: Thomas Paine's Common Sense, calling for independence from Britain, is published.
1861: Florida secedes from the Union and joins the Confederacy.
1901: Texas has its first significant oil strike.
1920: The League of Nations is founded.
1946: The UN General Assembly meets for the first time. The first man-made contact with the moon is made when a radar signal beamed at it "bounces" back in 2.4 seconds.
1984: The United States resumes full diplomatic relations with the Vatican after more than 100 years.
2003: North Korea announces its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
2006: Iran restarts research at an unknown number of nuclear facilities; the European Union and the U.S. condemn the move.
Today's Birthdays
1750: Thomas Erskine, British statesman (Edinburgh, Scotland; died 1823)1887: Robinson Jeffers, poet/playwright (Pittsburgh, PA; died 1962)
1908: Paul Henreid, actor/director (Trieste, Austria; died 1992)
1913: Gustav Husak, president of Czechoslovakia (Bratislava, Czechoslovakia; died 1991)
1935: Sherrill Milnes, opera singer (Downers Grove, IL)
1936: Stephen Ambrose, historian (Decatur, IL; died 2002); Robert Woodrow Wilson, American radio astronomer and Nobel laureate (Houston, TX)
1939: David Horowitz, writer/political activist (New York, NY)
1945: Rod Stewart, singer/musician (London, England)
1949: George Foreman, champion boxer (Marshall, TX)
1953: Pat Benatar, singer (Brooklyn, NY)
1973: Glenn Robinson, basketball player (Gary, IN)
