This Day in History
1768: When British customs officials in Boston seize merchant John Hancock's sloop Liberty, thousands of Bostonians riot, threatening the customs commissioners' lives and forcing them to flee the city.
1788: New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify the Constitution, which thus can go into effect.
1791: French king Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette are apprehended at Varennes while attempting to escape from France.
1943: Race riots occur in Detroit, where 34 are killed and 700 injured, and in New York City's Harlem, where 6 are killed.
1945: During World War II, U.S. forces capture Okinawa after more than 2 months of fighting.
1982: John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot Pres. Ronald Reagan and 3 other men in 1981, is found not guilty by reason of insanity.
2004: For the first time, a privately owned craft carries a human being into space.
Today's Birthdays
1731: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, first First Lady of the United States (New Kent County, VA; died 1802)
1891: Pier Luigi Nervi, architect and engineer (Sondrio, Italy; died 1979)
1892: Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian (Wright City, MO; died 1971)
1903: Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist (St. Louis, Missouri; died 2003)
1905: Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher/novelist/playwright (Paris, France; died 1980)
1912: Mary McCarthy, novelist/memoirist (Seattle, WA; died 1989)
1921: Jane Russell, actress (Bemidji, MN)
1922: Judy Holliday, actress (New York, NY; died 1965)
1925: Maureen Stapleton, actress (Troy, NY; died 2006)
1933: Bernie Kopell, actor (New York, NY)
1935: Francoise Sagan, writer, author of Bonjour Tristesse (1954) (Cajarc, France; died 2004)
1940: Mariette Hartley, actress (New York, NY)
1947: Meredith Baxter, actress (Los Angeles, CA). Michael Gross, actor (Chicago, IL)
1953: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani political leader (Karachi, Pakistan)
1967: Derrick Coleman, basketball player (Mobile, AL)
1973: Juliette Lewis, actress (San Fernando Valley, CA)
1982: Prince William, older son of Prince Charles, crown prince of England, and Diana (London, England)
