This Day in History
1848: Gold is discovered at John Sutter's mill in California.
1942: A special investigating commission reports to President Roosevelt that the Pearl Harbor disaster was due chiefly to the "dereliction of duty" and "errors of judgment" of two officers.
1965: British leader Sir Winston Churchill dies.
1966: Indira Gandhi is sworn in as India's prime minister.
1978: The Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 falls from space, most of it burning up over northern Canada.
1989: Serial killer Ted Bundy is executed in Florida.
1998: The space shuttle Endeavour docks with the Russian space station Mir, and Andrew Thomas becomes the 7th and last American astronaut to join the Mir crew.
2002: 20 year-old American John Walker Lindh appears in an Alexandria, VA court to face charges of treason after being captured in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban. Committees in both houses of Congress begin investigations into the spectacular and suspicious 2001 bankruptcy of the Enron Corp., the onetime stalwart of the New Economy.
Today's Birthdays
76: Hadrian, Roman emperor (either Italica, Spain, or Rome, Italy; died 138)
1670: William Congreve, dramatist (Bardsey, England; died 1729)
1712: Frederick II (the Great), king of Prussia (Berlin, Germany; died 1786)
1749: Charles James Fox, British statesman (Westminster, England; died 1806)
1862: Edith Wharton, author (New York, NY; died 1937)
1902: Oskar Morgenstern, a pioneer in mathematical economics and game theory (Görlitz, Germany; died 1977)
1915: Mark Goodson, TV game show producer/creator (Sacramento, CA; died 1992). Robert Motherwell, abstract expressionist painter (Aberdeen, WA; died 1991)
1917: Ernest Borgnine, actor (Hamden, CT)
1918: Oral Roberts, evangelist and educator (near Ada, OK)
1925: Maria Tallchief, ballerina (Fairfax, OK)
1941: Neil Diamond, singer/songwriter (Brooklyn, NY). Aaron Neville, singer/songwriter (New Orleans, LA)
1946: Michael Ontkean, actor (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
1950: John Belushi, comedian/actor (Chicago, IL; died 1982)
1960: Nastassja Kinski, actress (Berlin, West Germany)
1968: Mary Lou Retton, Olympic champion gymnast (Fairmont, WV)
