- 1503: Parmigianino, Italian painter and one of the first to
rebel against High Renaissance art, born as Girolamo Francesco
Maria Mazzola.
- 1815: Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister
from 1867-73, born.
- 1843: Francis Scott Key, U.S. lawyer and poet who wrote the
words to the national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner," died.
- 1861: Alabama seceded from the Union and joined the
Confederacy.
- 1866: The steamship London sank in a storm off Land's End,
England, killing more than 220.
- 1891: Georges-Eugene Haussmann, French civil servant, died;
he was responsible for the modernization and rebuilding of Paris
during the Second Empire.
- 1904: The Herero people of South West Africa, now Namibia,
began an uprising against the German colonizers.
- 1922: A 14-year-old Canadian boy, Leonard Thompson, became
the first person to have his diabetes successfully treated with
insulin.
- 1928: Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet, died. Noted for
his books "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and "Tess of the
d'Urbervilles."
- 1943: The United States and Britain signed treaties with China,
renouncing their extra-territorial rights.
- 1946: Albania became a people's republic after King Zog was
overthrown.
- 1962: More than 3,000 people were killed in a landslide in
Huascaran, Peru.
- 1963: The first discotheque, the Whisky-A-Go-Go, opened in
Los Angeles.
- 1966: Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indian statesman, died. He became
prime minister after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964.
- 1974: The first sextuplets to survive were born to Sue
Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1976: A three-man military junta seized power from President
Guillermo Rodriguez Lara in Ecuador.
- 1981: Three-man British team led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes completed
the longest and fastest crossing of Antarctica, reaching Scott Base
after 75 days and 2,500 miles.
- 1990: Some 200,000 people demanded a return of Lithuania's
independence, ended by the Red Army in 1940, after visiting Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned that separatism could lead to
tragedy.
- 1991: Soviet troops stormed strategic buildings in the
Lithuanian capital Vilnius to block a bid for independence.
- 1992: Algeria's President Chadli announced his resignation
amid a political crisis following gains by the Islamic Salvation
Front in the first round of general elections.
- 1994: The Irish government announced the end of a 20-year
broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm, Sinn Fein.
- 1995: A 9-year-old girl escaped from a plane crash when she was
thrown clear of the jet as it plunged into a lake before it was due
to land in the Colombian Caribbean resort of Cartagena. All 51 other
passengers died.
- 1998: Gunmen massacred at least 22 Shiite Muslims and wounded 51
at a religious service in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
*Happy Birthday*
----------------
- Mary J. Blige, 28, singer
- Brett Bodine, 40, auto racer
- Tracy Caulkins, 36, Olymipic gold medal swimmer
- Jean Chretien, 65, Canadian Prime Minister
- Clarence Clemmons, 57, saxophonist with the E-Street Band
- Ben Crenshaw, 47, golfer
- Naomi Judd, 53, country singer
- Lee Ritenour, 47, guitarist