This Day in History
1824: The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is created within the War Department.
1888: A huge blizzard begins to pound the eastern United States, eventually dumping 40-50 inches of snow and causing more than 400 deaths.
1918: The first U.S. cases of the great influenza pandemic occur, afflicting 107 soldiers at Fort Riley, KS.
1941: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act, maintaining U.S. neutrality but providing $7 billion in military credits for the British.
1985: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union.
2004: Terrorists reportedly linked to al-Qaeda bomb four commuter trains during the morning rush hour in Madrid, Spain , killing 191 people and injuring hundreds.
Today's Birthdays
1903: Lawrence Welk, bandleader/TV personality (Strasburg, ND; died 1992)
1916: Harold Wilson, British prime minister (Yorkshire, England; died 1995)
1931: Rupert Murdoch, publisher/media executive (Melbourne, Australia)
1934: Sam Donaldson, TV journalist (El Paso, TX)
1936: Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice (Trenton, NJ)
1950: Bobby McFerrin, jazz musician/signer/songwriter (New York, NY). Jerry Zucker, film director/producer/writer (Milwaukee, WI):
1952: Douglas Adams, writer (Cambridge, England; died 2001)
1954: Gale Norton, interior secretary (Wichita, KS)
1956: Dana Delaney, actress (New York, NY)
1968: Lisa Loeb, singer (Bethesda, MD)
1974: Bobby Abreu, baseball player (Aragua, Venezuela)
