This Day in History
1937: Howard Hughes flies his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ, in 7 hrs., 28 min., 25 sec., setting a transcontinental air record.
1949: Congress raises the president's salary to $100,000, plus $50,000 tax-free for expenses.
1966: Indira Gandhi is elected prime minister of India.
1977: Pres. Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who broadcast as Tokyo Rose in World War II.
2004: Sen. John Kerry wins the Iowa caucuses, the first state Democratic contest in the 2004 presidential race.
Today's Birthdays
1736: James Watt, Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer (Greenock, Scotland; died 1819)
1798: Auguste Comte, French positivist philosopher and a founder of sociology (Montpellier, France; died 1857)
1807: Robert E. Lee, Confederate general (Westmoreland County, VA; died 1870)
1809: Edgar Allan Poe, poet and short-story writer (Boston, MA; died 1849)
1839: Paul Cézanne, painter (France; died 1906)
1905: Oveta Culp Hobby, second female cabinet member in U.S. history (Killeen, TX; died 1995)
1912: Leonid Kantorovich, Soviet mathematician, economist, and Nobel laureate (Saint Petersburg, Russia; died 1986)
1920: Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former UN secretary general (Lima, Peru)
1923: Jean Stapleton, actress (New York, NY)
1924: Jean-Francois Revel, author, philosopher, editor and political commentator (Marseille, France; died 2006)
1926: Fritz Weaver, actor (Pittsburgh, PA)
1931: Robert MacNeil, TV journalist (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
1935: Tippi Hedren, actress (New Ulm, MN)
1939: Phil Everly, singer (Chicago, IL)
1942: Michael Crawford, actor/singer (Salisbury, England). Shelley Fabares, actress (Santa Monica, CA
1943: Janis Joplin, singer (Port Arthur, TX; died 1970)
1946: Dolly Parton, singer (Sevierville, TN)
1949: Robert Palmer, singer (Bately, England; died 2003)
1953: Desi Arnaz Jr., actor/singer (Los Angeles, CA)
1961: Paul McCrane, actor (Philadelphia, PA)
