This Day in History
1962: The Supreme Court backs "one-man one vote" apportionment of seats in state legislatures.
1979: Israeli Prime Min. Menachem Begin and Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat sign the Camp David peace accord.
1989: The Soviet Union holds its first nationwide parliamentary elections.
1993: The UN Security Council votes to send a peacekeeping force of 30,000 to Somalia.
1971: Leaders of East Pakistan declare the region independent as Bangladesh while in the midst of a savage war against the central Pakistani government.
1997: After an apparent mass suicide, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate religious cult are found dead in a large house in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.
1999: Dr. Jack Kevorkian is convicted of 2d-degree murder for injecting a fatal drug into a fatally ill man.
2003: U.S. forces kill 1,000 Iraqi troops in a 36-hour battle in Najaf.
Today's Birthdays
1850: Edward Bellamy, author (Chicopee Falls, MA; died 1898)
1874: Robert Frost, poet (San Francisco, CA; died 1963)
1911: Tennessee Williams, playwright (Columbus, MS; died 1983)
1914: William Westmoreland, U.S. Army general who commanded all U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968 (near Spartanburg, South Carolina; died 2005)
1925: Pierre Boulez, composer/conductor (Montbrison, France)
1930: Sandra Day O'Connor, Supreme Court justice (El Paso, TX)
1931: Leonard Nimoy, actor/director (Boston, MA)
1934: Alan Arkin, actor (New York, NY)
1939: James Caan, actor (New York, NY)
1942: Erica Jong, author/poet (New York, NY)
1943: Bob Woodward, journalist (Geneva, IL)
1944: Diana Ross, singer/actress (Detroit, MI)
1948: Steven Tyler, singer (Boston, MA)
1950: Martin Short, actor/comedian (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)
1953: Elaine Chao, labor secretary (Taipei, Taiwan)
1957: Leeza Gibbons, TV personality (South Carolina)
1960: Marcus Allen, football player and sportscaster (San Diego, CA)
1962: John Stockton, basketball player (Spokane, WA)
