This Day in History
1513: The Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and becomes the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas.
1781: In anticipation of the siege of Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, George Washington and Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, having joined forces, arrive near Williamsburg.
1918: The Battle of the Argonne, the last major battle of World War I, begins.
1950: In the Korean War, U.S. forces recapture Seoul.
1960: The first in a series of television debates takes place between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
1983: Australia II sails to victory off Newport, RI, over the American yacht Liberty to capture the America's Cup trophy--the first time in 132 years that the United States has lost the Cup.
1996: Astronaut Shannon Lucid completes a space voyage of 188 days, setting a record for women and for U.S. astronauts.
2001: With an announcement from Delta that it will reduce its capacity by 15% and lay off up to 13,000 workers, the airline industry's layoffs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks exceed 100,000. A pro-Taliban demonstration in the Afghan capital of Kabul destroys the U.S. embassy compound.
2002: More than 1,000 people die when a ferry capsizes off the coast of Senegal .
Today's Birthdays
1774: Johnny Chapman (""Johnny Appleseed""), orchard planter (Leominster, MA; died 1845)
1791: Théodore Géricault, painter (Rouen, France; died 1824)
1888: T. S. Eliot, poet/playwright/critic (St. Louis, MO; died 1965)
1889: Martin Heidegger, philosopher (Germany; died 1976)
1897: Pope Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978 (Concesio, Italy; died 1978)
1898: George Gershwin, composer (Brooklyn, NY; died 1937)
1930: Philip Bosco, actor (Jersey City, NJ)
1932: Dr. Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister (Gah, India--now in Pakistan)
1946: Andrea Dworkin, feminist writer (Camden, NJ; died 2005). Mary Beth Hurt, actress (Marshalltown, IA). Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA administrator, NJ governor (New York, NY)
1947: Lynn Anderson, singer (Grand Forks, ND). Olivia Newton-John, singer/actress (Cambridge, England)
1949: Jane Smiley, novelist (Los Angeles, CA)
1956: Linda Hamilton, actress (Salisbury, MD)
