- 1774: Warned by Paul Revere of a British plan to station troops at
                       Portsmouth, N.H., a group of Massachusetts militiamen successfully
                       attacked the arsenal of Fort William and Mary.
                     - 1793: The first state road was authorized, from Frankfurt, Ky., to
                       Cincinnati.
                     - 1798: David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a nut & bolt machine.
                     - 1799: George Washington died at his Mount Vernon home at age 67.
                     - 1819: Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd U.S. state.
                     - 1901: The first table tennis tournament was held at the London
                       Royal Aquarium.
                     - 1911: Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to
                       reach the South Pole.
                     - 1915: Jack Johnson became the first black world heavyweight boxing
                       champion.
                     - 1944: Congress established the rank of General of the Army
                       (five-star general).
                     - 1945: Josef Kramer, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others
                       were hanged in Hamelin for crimes committed at the Belsen and
                       Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.
                     - 1953: The Brooklyn Dodgers signed pitcher Sandy Koufax.
                     - 1961: Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John" became the first country music
                       song to get an official gold record from the Recording Industry
                       Association of America after hitting No. 1 on both the country and
                       pop charts.
                     - 1963: Singer Dinah Washington, 39, died of an overdose of sleeping
                       pills in Detroit.
                     - 1967: DNA was created in a test tube.
                     - 1969: The Jackson Five made their first appearance on "The Ed
                       Sullivan Show," singing their first hit, "I Want You Back."
                     - 1977: "Saturday Night Fever,"starring John Travolta, premiered in
                       New York City.
                     - 1981: Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it had seized from
                       Syria in the war in 1967.
                     - 1984: Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football.
                     - 1987: Chrysler pleaded no contest to federal charges of selling
                       several thousand vehicles as new even though they had been driven
                       by employees with the odometers disconnected.
                     - 1990: The Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her
                       feeding tube removed. She dies 12 days later.

                     *Happy Birthday*
                     ----------------
                     - Bill Buckner, 49, former MLB first baseman
                     - Patty Duke, 52, actress "The Miracle Worker"
                     - Michael Ovitz, 52, former president of the Walt Disney Co.
                     - Dee Wallace Stone, 49, actress, "E.T. the Extraterrestrial"