- 1649: King Charles I was beheaded in London for treason.
                      - 1790: The first purpose-built lifeboat, The Original, was launched
                        on the River Tyne in England.
                      - 1815: The United States purchased Thomas Jefferson's library as the
                        nucleus of the Library of Congress.
                      - 1835: President Andrew Jackson survived the first ever assassination
                        attempt on a U.S. president.
                      - 1862: The U.S. Navy's first ironclad warship, the Monitor, was
                        launched.
                      - 1882: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States
                        (1933-45), was born.
                      - 1931: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premiered at the Los Angeles
                        Theater.
                      - 1933: German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler
                        chancellor. Also: "The Lone Ranger" began its 21-year run on radio.
                      - 1937: Thirteen leading Communists were sentenced to death for
                        participating in a plot, allegedly led by Leon Trotsky, to overthrow
                        the Soviet regime and assassinate its leaders.
                      - 1939: Adolf Hitler called for the extermination of European Jews.
                      - 1948: Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Ghandi, who had
                        led his nation to independence from British rule through his
                        philosophy of nonviolent confrontation, was murdered by a Hindu
                        extremist in New Delhi, India. Also: The fifth Winter Olympic games
                        opened in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
                      - 1961: Bobby Darin became the youngest performer to headline a
                        television special on NBC.
                      - 1962: Two members of the Flying Wallendas' high-wire act were
                        killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a
                        performance in Detroit.
                      - 1968: Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers launched
                        the Tet (New Year) offensive, targeting more than 100 towns and
                        cities in South Vietnam. In Saigon, they invaded the grounds of the
                        U.S. Embassy.
                      - 1972: British soldiers shot dead 13 people in a banned Catholic
                        civil rights march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in a clash
                        known as "Bloody Sunday."
                      - 1973: G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted of burglary,
                        wire-tapping and attempted bugging of the Democratic headquarters
                        at the Watergate building. Also: KISS played their first show, at
                        the Coventry Club in Queens, N.Y.
                      - 1979: In a referendum, white Rhodesians vote by a majority of 85%
                        in favor of a new constitution aimed at black majority rule.
                      - 1992: Argentina opened the files on scores of Nazis who fled to
                        South America after World War II, a move Jewish leaders said would
                        help the hunt for war criminals.
                      - 1994: The U.S. granted Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams a visa to
                        attend a New York conference on Northern Ireland.

                      *Happy Birthday*
                      ----------------
                      - Christian Bale, 25, actor, "Little Women," "Empire Of The Sun"
                      - Marty Balin, 57, singer/musician, Jefferson Airplane
                      - Brett Butler, 41, actress/comedienne, "Grace Under Fire"
                      - Phil Collins, 48, singer/musician
                      - Charles S. Dutton, 48, actor, "Roc"
                      - Gene Hackman, 69, actor
                      - Davey Johnson, 56, ex-MLB player, manager L.A. Dodgers
                      - Dorothy Malone, 74, actress
                      - Vanessa Redgrave, 62, actress
                      - Curtis Strange, 44, golfer
                      - Jody Watley, 40, singer