Today in History

The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align – Earth’s moon is also almost in this alignment – leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a ‘grand confluence’ occurs about once in every century.

Congress opens Iran-Contra hearings.

Pulitzer Prize awarded to Norman Mailer for his ‘nonfiction novel’ Armies of the Night, an account of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War march on the Pentagon.

U.S. Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam in support of attacking infantrymen.

173rd Airborne Brigade arrives in Bien Hoa-Vung, Vietnam, the first regular U.S. Army unit deployed to that country.

Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

Holland and Denmark are liberated from Nazi control.

Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter (Monty Python’s Flying Circus).

General Joseph Stilwell learns that the Japanese have cut his railway out of China and is forced to lead his troops into India.

American Jesse Owens sets the long jump record.

Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested for murder.

Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earns a flying certificate with the French Air Service.

U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic.

Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing.

Carlos Baker, biographer.

Freeman F. Gosden, radio comedy writer and performer (Amos ‘n’ Andy).

Christopher Morley, writer (Kitty Foyle).

A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers’ strike in Chicago.

Charles Albert “Chief” Bender, baseball player.

Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.

Peter Cooper Hewitt, electrical engineer, inventor of the mercury-vapor lamp.

The first mainland railway line opens in Belgium.

John B. Stetson, American hat maker.

Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.

Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital).

British attack the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.

Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher.

Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.