Today in History

Earthquakes in Sumatra kill more than 1,115 people.

Japan’s second-worst nuclear accident occurs at a uranium processing facility in Tokaimura, killing two technicians.

Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground transit system closes after 88 years.

The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter makes its first flight.

Daniel Wu, Chinese-American actor, director, producer (City of Glass).

Pro baseball great Roberto Clemente hits his 3,000th—and final—hit of his career.

Bechuanaland ceases to be a British protectorate and becomes the independent Republic of Botswana.

The 30 September Movement unsuccessfully attempts coup against Indonesian government; an anti-communist purge in the aftermath results in over 500,000 deaths.

U.S. Marshals escort James H. Meredith into the University of Mississippi; two die in the mob violence that follows.

Fifteen African nations are admitted to the United Nations.

Marty Stuart, singer, songwriter, musician (“Hillbilly Rock”); joined the renowned Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass bluegrass group at age 14; at this writing he hosts The Marty Stuart Show on RFD-TV.

Andy Bechtolsheim, engineer; co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

NATO nations agree to arm and admit West Germany.

U.N. forces cross the 38th parallel separating North and South Korea as they pursue the retreating North Korean Army.

The Berlin Airlift is officially halted after 277,264 flights.

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps becomes the Women’s Army Corps, a regular contingent of the U.S. Army with the same status as other army service corps.

Samuel F. Pickering Jr., unconventional professor of English at the University of Connecticut in Storrs who was the inspiration for the character of Mr. Keating in the movie Dead Poets Society.

The French Army is called back into France from its invasion of Germany. The attack, code named Operation Saar, only penetrated five miles.

Under German threats of war, Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign an accord permitting Germany to take control of Sudetenland–a region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a German-speaking minority.

Johnny Mathis, singer.

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, writer, best known for his first book Night about his own experiences in concentration camps.

W.S. Merwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

Truman Capote, author and playwright whose works include Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood.

Bulgaria pulls out of World War I.

Italy declares war on Turkey over control of Tripoli.

David Oistrakh, violinist.

Confederate troops fail to retake Fort Harrison from the Union forces during the siege of Petersburg.

Reinhard von Scheer, German admiral who commanded the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland.

William Wrigley, Jr., founder of the Wrigley chewing gum empire and owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

The first anesthetized tooth extraction is performed by Dr. William Morton in Charleston, Massachusetts.

Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute is performed for the first time in Vienna

The French, at Hochstadt in the War of the Spanish Succession, suffer only 1,000 casualties to the 11,000 of their opponents, the Austrians of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I.

John Billington, one of the original pilgrims who sailed to the New World on the Mayflower, becomes the first man executed in the English colonies. He is hanged for having shot another man during a quarrel

Eric XIV, king of Sweden, is deposed after showing signs of madness.

Richard II is deposed.