This Day in History
1603: England's Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I.
1882: German scientist Robert Koch discovers the tuberculosis bacillus.
1989: One of the largest oil spills in U.S. history--11 million gallons--occurs when the Exxon Valdez runs aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
1996: U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid begins what will be a 188-day stay on the Russian space station Mir , the first female U.S. astronaut to live on a space station. She broke the record for longest stay in space for a U.S. astronaut.
1998: Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, are arrested after allegedly killing 4 schoolgirls and a teacher outside a Jonesboro, AR middle school.
1999: NATO mounts its first military operation against a sovereign country, Yugoslavia , launching air attacks to induce a Serbian pullback from Kosovo.
2002: Actress Halle Berry makes history when she becomes the first African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress; she was nominated for her role in the prison drama Monster's Ball.
2005: Opposition protesters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan storm the central government compound, culminating their nationwide revolt against President Askar Akayev.
Today's Birthdays
1834: William Morris, poet/artist (Walthamstow, England; died 1896)
1855: Andrew Mellon, financier/industrialist (Pittsburgh, PA; died 1937)
1874: Harry Houdini, magician (Budapest, Hungary; died 1926)
1893: George Sisler, baseball player (Manchester, OH; died 1973)
1902: Thomas Dewey, politician (Owosso, MI; died 1971)
1919: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet/author (Yonkers, NY). Robert Lewis Heilbroner, economic historian best known for his book, The Worldly Philosophers (1953) (New York; died 2005).
1924: Normal Fell, actor (Philadelphia, PA; died 1998)
1930: Steve McQueen, actor (Beech Grove, IN; died 1980)
1940: Bob Mackie, costume/fashion designer (Monterey Park,CA)
1951: Tommy Hilfiger, fashion designer (Elmira, NY)
1954: Donna Pescow, actress (Brooklyn, NY)
1964: Star Jones, TV host (Badin, NC). Annabella Sciorra, actress (New York, NY)
1972: Elvis Stojko, champion figure skater (Newmarket, Ontario, Canada)
1970: Lara Flynn Boyle, actress (Davenport, IA)
1974: Alyson Hannigan, actress (Washington, D.C.)
1976: Peyton Manning, football player (New Orleans, LA)
