Today in History

In the Libyan civil war, rebels capture deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte, killing him soon afterward.

Oakland Hills firestorm destroys nearly 3,500 homes and apartments and kills 25 people.

Charter plane crashes in Mississippi, killing three members of popular Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, along with their assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot.

Arab oil-producing nations ban oil exports to the United States, following the outbreak of Arab-Israeli war.

Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus, Jr.), rapper, songwriter, actor; his debut album, Doggy style, came in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot R&B / Hip-Hop charts.

Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis.

Tom Petty, singer, songwriter, musician; lead singer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and a founder of the Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch bands; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2002.

The House Un-American Activities Committee opens public hearings on alleged communist infiltration in Hollywood. Among those denounced as having un-American tendencies are: Katherine Hepburn, Charles Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson. Among those called to testify is Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan, who denies that leftists ever controlled the Guild and refuses to label anyone a communist.

Elfriede Jelinek, Austrian playwright and novelist; awarded Nobel Prize in Literature, 2004.

Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon form the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

U.S. troops land on Leyte in the Philippines, keeping General MacArthur’s pledge “I shall return.”

German troops reach the approaches to Moscow.

Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate.

Czechoslovakia, complying with Nazi policy, outlaws the Communist Party and begins persecuting Jews.

Michael McClure, beat poet.

Mickey Mantle, baseball great who played for the New York Yankees

Art Buchwald, humorist.

Baseball’s first ‘colored World Series’ is held in Kansas City, Mo.

Bolivia and Chile sign a treaty ending the War of the Pacific. The treaty recognizes Chile’s possession of the coast, but provides for construction of a railway to link La Paz, Bolivia, to Arica, on the coast.

The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, rules in favor of the United States. The deciding vote is Britain’s, which embitters Canada. The United States gains ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

Adelaide Hall, cabaret singer.

Sir James Chadwick, physicist who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the neutron.

Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-born film actor famous for his portrayal of Count Dracula (1931).

Charles Ives, composer.

The Summer Palace in Beijing, China, is burnt to the ground by a Franco-British expeditionary force.

Arthur Rimbaud, poet.

The United States and Britain establish the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada and the United States.

Austrian general Karl Mac surrenders to Napoleon’s army at the battle of Ulm.

George I of England crowned.

Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy take Mons in the Netherlands.

Sir Christopher Wren, astronomer and architect.

In France, Huguenot Henri de Navarre routs Duke de Joyeuse’s larger Catholic force at Coutras.

Greeks defeat the Persians in a naval battle at Salamis.