This Day in History
1914: The Panama Canal opens.
1935: Humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post are killed in a plane crash in Alaska.
1944: In World War II, Allied forces begin landing on the south coast of France.
1947: India gains its independence from Britain.
1969: The Woodstock music festival begins near Bethel, NY, drawing hundreds of thousands of people.
2003: Libya admits responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 that killed 270, in a $2 billion settlement with victims' families.
Today's Birthdays
1769: Napoleon Bonaparte, French military/political leader (Corsica; died 1821)
1771: Sir Walter Scott, poet/novelist (Edinburgh, Scotland; died 1832)
1879: Ethel Barrymore, actress (Philadelphia, PA; died 1959)
1887: Edna Ferber, novelist/playwright/short-story writer (Kalamazoo, MI; died 1968)
1912: Julia Child, TV chef/cookbook author (Pasadena, CA; died 2004)
1924: Phyllis Schlafly, political activist/antifeminist (St. Louis, MO)
1925: Mike Connors, actor (Fresno, CA)
1935: Vernon E. Jordan Jr., attorney, former presidential adviser, civil rights leader (Atlanta, GA)
1938: Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court justice (San Francisco, CA)
1944: Linda Ellerbee, TV journalist (Bryan, TX)
1945: Gene Upshaw, football player/union leader (Robstown, TX)
1950: Princess Anne, British princess and equestrian, daughter of Queen Elizabeth (London, England)
1968: Debra Messing, actress (Brooklyn, NY)
1972: Ben Affleck, actor (Berkeley, CA)
