Betsy Ross(American seamstress and upholsterer)β
Orville Wright(American aviator
)β
Mahatma Gandhi(Indian spiritual and political leader)β
John Bardeen(physicist)β
Pierre Boulle(author)β
Coretta Scott King(civil rights activist; widow of Martin Luther King Jr.)β
Wendy Wasserstein(Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright)β
Sidney Sheldon(author & producer)β
Chita Rivera(singer, actress, and dancer)β
Born
Walter J. Damrosch(composer)β
Franklin Delano Roosevelt(32nd U.S. president)β
David Wayne(actor)β
Dick Martin(comedian)β
Dorothy Malone(actress)β
Gene Hackman(actor)β
Vanessa Redgrave(actress)β
Boris Spassky(chessmaster)β
Dick Cheney(former secretary of defense and U.S. vice president)β
Marty Balin(singer)β
Lynn Harrell(cellist)β
Phil Collins(musician)β
Christian Bale(actor)β
Olivia Colman (actress)β
Events
Funds were approved to purchase Thomas Jefferson’s library in order to rebuild the Library of Congress, which had been destroyed by the British during the War of 1812β
Yerba Buena, a U.S. town of 200 people, was renamed San Franciscoβ
Great Britain and Japan signed the Anglo-Japanese Allianceβ
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band released Darktown Struttersβ Ball, the first commercial jazz recordingβ
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germanyβ
The Lone Ranger made its radio debutβ
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinatedβ
30 millionth customer added to U.S. electrical utilitiesβ
President Kennedy and Aleksei I. Adzhubei, editor of Izvestia, principal Russian newspaper, held conversations at the White Houseβ
The Beatles gave their last public performance on the roof of their Apple Corps headquartersβ
Pakistan became independent of Great Britainβ
31-lb. 12-oz. bluefish caught, Hatteras, North Carolinaβ
Andrew Young was sworn in as the first African American ambassador to the United Nationsβ
David Bradley, the man who wrote the computer code CtrlAltDelete (forces computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands), retired from IBM after 28.5 years with the companyβ
A buffalo escaped from an auction in South Dakota and ended up in a Grand Rapids department store dressing room where it spent a couple of hours staring into a mirrorβ
Weather
Two-day storm brought Birmingham, Alabama 11 inches of snowβ
Great Buffalo Blizzard abated after 3 days: 75 mph winds caused whiteouts and huge drifts that paralyzed the cityβ
An avalanche shut down a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway along the B.C.-Alberta borderβ
In northern Ohio, a train traveling in high winds derailed on a bridge over Sandusky Bay, sending several freight cars into the waterβ