This Day in History
1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the first president of the United States at Federal Hall in New York City.
1798: The U.S. Navy is created by act of Congress as the Department of the Navy, a separate executive department of the federal government.
1803: Representatives of the United States and France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase.
1812: Louisiana enters the Union as the 18th state.
1900: An act of Congress establishes Hawaii as a U.S. territory.
1945: German dictator Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker.
1948: The Organization of American States (OAS) is founded by 21 nations at the ninth Pan-American Conference, held in Bogotá, Colombia .
1967: Muhammad Ali is stripped of the world heavyweight boxing title for refusing military service.
1973: Three top aides to Pres. Richard Nixon --H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and John Dean--and Attorney Gen. Richard Kleindienst resign, amid charges of White House efforts to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.
1975: The South Vietnamese government officially surrenders to Communist forces.
1993: Tennis player Monica Seles is stabbed in the back by a spectator at a tournament in Germany .
2002: The U.S. deploys 1,000 more troops to Eastern Afghanistan to prevent elements of al-Qaeda and the Taliban from regrouping.
2003: A "road map" for peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine that would lead to Palestinian statehood in 2005 is published.
Today's Birthdays
1777: Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician (Braunschweig, Germany; died 1855)
1783: Washington Irving, American writer (New York City; died 1859)
1870: Franz Lehar, composer (Hungary; died 1948)
1888: John Crowe Ransom, American poet (Pulaski, TN; died 1974)
1908: Eve Arden, actress (Mill Valley, CA; died 1990)
1910: Al Lewis, actor (New York, NY; died 2006)
1916: Claude Elwood Shannon, American applied mathematician, electrical engineer, and computer scientist (Petoskey, MI; died 2001)
1917: Bea Wain, singer (Bronx, NY)
1924: Sheldon Harnick, lyricist (Chicago, IL)
1926: Cloris Leachman, actress (Des Moines, IA)
1933: Willie Nelson, country singer (Abbott, TX)
1938: Gary Collins, actor/TV personality (Boston, MA)
1940: Burt Young, actor/writer (New York, NY)
1944: Jill Clayburgh, actress (New York, NY)
1945: Michael J. Smith, astronaut who died in the Challenger explosion (Beaufort, NC; died 1986)
1948: Perry King, actor (Alliance, OH)
1955: Jane Campion, director (Wellington, New Zealand)
1956: Lars Von Trier, director (Copenhagen, Denmark)
1961: Isiah Thomas, basketball player (Chicago, IL)
1982: Kirsten Dunst, actress (Point Pleasant, NJ)
