This Day in History
1399: King Richard II of England resigns his crown after being captured by Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV ) in Wales. Richard dies in captivity a few months later.
1630: One of the first pilgrims to land in America, John Billington, is hanged for murder—the first criminal execution carried out in the colonies.
1788: Pennsylvania becomes the first state to elect U.S. senators.
1946: The judgment of the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi leaders is handed down on Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Twelve defendants are sentenced to death.
1949: The U.S.-British airlift of food to West Berlin ends. Pres. Harry S. Truman invokes the Taft-Hartley Act in a strike of coal miners, but the strikers refuse to obey the injunction to return to work.
1965: A coup attempt in Indonesia leads to the massacre of Communists and the eventual downfall of President Sukarno, who is unable to control the military.
1993: An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale strikes Maharashtra in southern India, killing about 10,000 people, according to official estimates.
1998: Pres. Bill Clinton announces a budget surplus of $70 billion for fiscal year 1998; it is the first federal surplus since 1969.
2001: The Taliban say they are holding Osama bin Laden for his safety. A 10-member U.S. Congressional delegation visits Mohammed Zahir Shah, the deposed king of Afghanistan in exile near Rome.
Today's Birthdays
1207: Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, poet (Balkh, Ghurid empire--now in Afghanistan; died 1273)
1715: Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, philosopher (Grenoble, France; died 1780)
1732: Jacques Necker, finance minister of Louis XVI (Geneva, Switzerland; died 1804)
1870: Jean Baptiste Perrin, physicist and Nobel laureate (Lille, France; died 1942)
1882: Hans Geiger, physicist (Neustadt an der Haardt, Germany; died 1945)
1915: Lester Maddox, GA governor (Atlanta, GA; died 2003)
1921: Deborah Kerr, actress (Helensburgh, Scotland)
1924: Truman Capote, novelist/short-story writer(New Orleans, LA; died 1984)
1928: Elie Wiesel, scholar/author (Sighet, Romania)
1931: Angie Dickinson, actress (Kulm, ND)
1935: Johnny Mathis, singer (San Francisco, CA)
1939: Len Cariou, actor/singer (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)
1941: L. Paul Bremer III, diplomat, administrator (Hartford, CT)
1943: Marilyn McCoo, singer and member of the Fifth Dimension (Jersey City, NJ)
1945: Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel (Binyamina, Palestine--now Israel)
1948: Bob Lanier, basketball player (Buffalo, NY)
1950: Laura Esquivel, writer (Mexico City, Mexico)
1954: Barry Williams, actor (Santa Monica, CA)
1957: Fran Drescher, actress (Queens, NY)
1961: Eric Stoltz, actor (American Samoa)
1964: Crystal Bernard, actress (Dallas, TX)
1968: Monica Belluci, actress (Citta di Castello, Italy)
1971: Jenna Elfman, actress (Los Angeles, CA)
1980: Martina Hingis, tennis champion (Kosice, Slovakia)
1981: Dominique Moceanu, gymnast (Hollywood, CA)
