This Day in History
1790: Pres. George Washington signs legislation naming the District of Columbia as the permanent capital of the United States.
1918: In Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by a firing squad on the order of the Bolsheviks.
1945: The first atomic bomb, produced at Los Alamos, NM, is tested in an explosion at a desert site in Alamogordo, NM.
1969: Apollo 11, the mission to land the first men on the Moon, is launched.
1988: At the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Florence Griffith Joyner runs the 100 meters in a record-smashing 10.49 seconds.
1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette die in a plane crash off Martha's Vineyard, MA, in a private plane piloted by Kennedy.
Today's Birthdays
1486: Andrea del Sarto, painter (near Florence, Italy; died 1530)
1723: Sir Joshua Reynolds, portrait painter (Plympton, Devon, England; died 1792)
1796: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, landscape painter (France; died 1875)
1821: Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science (near Concord, NH; died 1910)
1872: Roald Amundsen, polar explorer (near Oslo, Norway; disappeared 1928)
1907: Barbara Stanwyck, actress (Brooklyn, NY; died 1990)
1911: Ginger Rogers, dancer/actress (Independence, MO; died 1995)
1915: Barnard Hughes, actor (Bedford Hills, NY)
1942: Margaret Court Smith, tennis champion (Australia)
1943: Jimmy Johnson, football coach (Port Arthur, TX)
1947: Alexis Herman, former labor secretary (Mobile, AL)
1948: Ruben Blades, singer/actor (Panama City, Panama). Pinchas Zukerman, violinist (Tel Aviv, Israel)
1963: Phoebe Cates, actress (New York, NY)
1967: Will Ferrell, actor (Irvine, CA)
1968: Barry Sanders, football player (Wichita, KS)
