This Day in History
1787: Pennsylvania enters the Union as the second state.
1870: Joseph Rainey of South Carolina is sworn in, becoming the first black in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1913: Italian authorities announce that the Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in Paris in 1911, has been recovered.
1917: Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town in Omaha, NE.
1963: Kenya's independence is proclaimed.
1985: Pres. Ronald Reagan signs the Gramm-Rudman bill to reduce the federal budget deficit. An Arrow Air charter airplane crashes after taking off from Gander, Newfoundland, killing 256 people, including 248 American soldiers.:
2000: The Supreme Court ends the 5-week U.S. presidential election deadlock by voting 5-4 to block further recounts in the contested Florida election, giving the election to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
2001: Prosecutors charge French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui in connection with the terrorist attacks of September 11 .
2002: The European Union opens its doors to 10 new members — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta — who are to join in 2004.
2003: Liberal Party leader Paul Martin becomes Canada's 21st prime minister.
Today's Birthdays
1745: John Jay, statesman/diplomat and first chief justice of the Supreme Court (New York, NY; died 1829)
1786: William Learned Marcy, American politician (Southbridge, MA; died 1857)
1795: Leopold von Ranke, German historian and educator (Wiehe, Germany; died 1886)
1821: Gustave Flaubert, novelist (Rouen, France; died 1880)
1863: Edvard Munch, artist (Løten, Norway; died 1944)
1893: Edward G. Robinson, actor (Hungary; died 1973)
1905: Mulk Raj Anand, Marxist writer (Peshawar, then in India but now part of Pakistan; died 2004)
1915: Frank Sinatra, singer/actor (Hoboken, NJ; died 1998)
1923: Bob Barker, TV personality (Darrington, WA)
1924: Ed Koch, former New York City mayor (New York, NY)
1927: Robert Norton Noyce, co-inventor of the silicon microchip (Iowa; died 1990)
1932: Bob Pettit, basketball player (Baton Rouge, LA)
1938: Connie Francis, singer (Newark, NJ)
1941: Dionne Warwick, singer (East Orange, NJ)
1952: Cathy Rigby, Olympic gymnast and actress (Long Beach, CA)
1959: Sheila E (Sheila Escoveda), singer/musician (San Francisco, CA)
1970: Jennifer Connelly, actress (Catskill Mountains, NY)
1975: Mayim Bialik, actress (San Diego, CA)
