Today in History

Konstantin Chernenko is selected to succeed Yuri Andropov as Party General Secretary in the Soviet Union.

Enemy attacks in Vietnam decline for the third day as the United States continues its intensive bombing strategy.

General Motors is reportedly redesigning automobiles to run on unleaded fuel.

The United States sends 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam.

The Pope asks the United States to grant clemency to convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

At the Battle of Chipyong-ni, in Korea, U.N. troops contain the Chinese forces’ offensive in a two-day battle.

A mob burns a radio station in Ecuador after the broadcast of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.“

The Royal Air Force Bomber Command devastates the German city of Dresden with night raids by 873 heavy bombers. The attacks are joined by 521 American heavy bombers flying daylight raids.

First social security checks are put in the mail.

Kim Novak, actress.

Charles “Chuck” Yeager, American test pilot, the first man to break the sound barrier.

Harold “Hal” Moore Jr., US Army lieutenant general, author; led 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment at 1965 Battle of Ia Drang Valley; his best-known book, co-authored with combat journalist Joe Galloway, is “We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,” an account of that battle.

The Negro National League, the first black baseball league, is established by Rube Foster.

Tennessee Ernie Ford, country and gospel singer.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is founded.

William B. Shockley, physicist, co-inventor of the transistor.

Georges Simenon, novelist.

Grant Wood, painter (American Gothic).

Feodor Chaliapin, opera singer.

Jesse James holds up his first bank.

The Confederacy approves the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, as long as the approval of their owners is gained.

The four day Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, begins.

Lord Randolph Churchill, English politician, Winston Churchill‘s father and member of Parliament.

Charles de Talleyrand, Napoleon‘s foreign minister.

In the Glen Coe highlands of Scotland, thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan are murdered by soldiers of the neighboring Campbell clan for not pledging allegiance to William of Orange. Ironically the pledge had been made but not communicated to the clans. The event is remembered as the Massacre of Glencoe.

British Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.

Giovanni Piazzetta, painter (Fortune Teller).

Alexander VII, Roman Catholic Pope.

Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded for adultery.

Polycarp, a disciple of St. John and Bishop of Smyrna, is martyred on the west coast of Asia Minor.