- 1307: William Tell shot an apple off his son's head.
               - 1477: William Caxton produced the first printed book in the English
                 language, "The Dictes and Sayengis of the Phylosophers."
               - 1497: Vasco da Gama reached the Cape of Good Hope.
               - 1805: Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean, becomming the
                 first Americans to cross the continent.
               - 1820: Antarctica was discovered by U.S. Navy Captain Nathaniel B.
                 Palmer.
               - 1865: Mark Twain catapulted to fame when his version of "Jim Smiley
                 and His Jumping Frog" (now known as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of
                 Calaveras County") is printed in the New York "Saturday Press."
               - 1883: The United States adopted standard time and divided the
                 country into four time-zones.
               - 1894: The first comic strip, "The Origin of a New Species," by
                 Richard Outcault, was printed in the N.Y. Sunday World.
               - 1902: Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton named the teddy bear after
                 President Theodore Roosevelt.
               - 1916: Gen. Douglas Haig finally called off the first Battle of
                 the Somme in Europe after five months of futile battle which
                 included the first use of tanks in battle. The Allied advance of
                 just 125 square miles claimed 420,000 British and 195,000 French
                 casualties. German losses were over 650,000.
               - 1928: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse made his first appearance at the
                 Colony Theater in New York in a film called "Steamboat Willie."
               - 1929: Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin demonstrated the "kinescope," an
                 early picture tube that produced images by scanning a fluorescent
                 surface with a stationary electron gun.
               - 1936: The main span of the Golden Gate Bridge was joined.
               - 1932: For the first time, a tie occurred for the Best Actor Academy
                 Award. Wallace Beery and Fredric March were only one vote apart, so
                 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled it a tie.
               - 1970: Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling declared large doses of
                 Vitamin C could ward off the common cold.
               - 1978: Jim Jones, a U.S. pastor, led 914 of his followers to their
                 deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit
                 drink. Cult members who refused to swallow the liquid were shot.
               - 1987: The Congressional committee's report on the Iran-Contra
                 affair blamed President Reagan for failing in his constitutional
                 duty and said he must take responsibility for the wrongdoing of his
                 aides.
               - 1989: Pennsylvania became the first state to restrict abortions
                 after the Supreme Court gave states the right to do so.
               - 1991: British peace envoy Terry Waite and U.S. academic Thomas
                 Sutherland were released from five years of captivity in Lebanon by
                 the Islamic Jihad.
               - 1992: Superman was killed by Doomsday in the comics. The death was
                 temporary.
               - 1993: Black and white leaders in South Africa approved the new
                 democracy constitution which gave blacks the vote and ended white
                 minority rule.

               *Happy Birthday*
               ----------------
               - Delroy Lindo, 46, actor, "Ransom"
               - Warren Moon, 42, NFL quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks
               - Kevin Nealon, 45, comedian/actor
               - Graham Parker, 48, singer
               - Jameson Parker, 48, actor, "Simon & Simon"
               - Elizabeth Perkins, 38, actress, "Big"
               - Katey Sagal, 42, actress, "Married...With Children"
               - Alan Shepard Jr. 75, first American in space
               - Susan Sullivan, 54, actress, "Dharma & Greg"
               - Brenda Vaccaro, 59, actress, "Midnight Cowboy"
               - Kim Wilde, 38, singer