Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni(painter & sculptor)–
Elizabeth Barrett Browning(poet)–
Oscar Straus(composer)–
Lou Costello(comedian)–
Ed McMahon(TV personality)–
Sarah Caldwell(conductor)–
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez(author)–
Marion Barry(politician)–
Valentina Tereshkova(cosmonaut)–
David Gilmour(musician)–
Rob Reiner(actor & director)–
Connie Britton(actress)–
Moira Kelly(actress)–
Shaquille O'Neal(basketball player)–
Died
Davy Crockett and James Bowie(died defending the Alamo)–
Louisa May Alcott(author)–
John Philip Sousa(band leader, conductor, & composer)–
Georgia O'Keeffe(painter)–
Frances Dee(film star of the 1930s and 40s)–
Hans Bethe(nuclear physicist whose calculations explained how stars shine and laid the foundation for development of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs)–
Kirby Puckett(baseball player)–
Nancy Reagan(U.S. First Lady)–
Events
Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet reached Guam –
First machine patent issued in North America was granted to Joseph Jenckes of Massachusetts –
U.S. Supreme Court handed down landmark McCulloch v. Maryland decision –
The city of Toronto, Canada, incorporated; William Lyon Mackenzie was its first mayor –
After a 13-day siege, the Texas fort, the Alamo, was recaptured by Mexican general Santa Anna –
Verdi’s opera La Traviata premiered in Venice, Italy –
First U.S. magazine for nurses published –
Charles Brady King drove the first automobile on the streets of Detroit, Michigan –
Aspirin was patented on behalf of Friedrich Bayer & Co. –
Congress established a permanent Census Office (later, U.S. Bureau of the Census) –
Nora Stanton Blatch became the first woman to be elected to the American Society of Civil Engineers –
The first use of dirigibles in warfare took place in an Italian action against the Turks in Tripoli –
Clarence Birdseye’s first frozen food appeared in grocery stores in Springfield, MA –
A nationwide bank holiday declared by President Franklin Roosevelt went into effect to help save the nation’s faltering banking system –
In an Allied air offensive, over 600 planes bombed Berlin (WW II) –
Comedienne Phyllis Diller made her debut in San Francisco at the Purple Onion nightclub –
Ghana declared an independent nation –
Notre Dame star Austin Carr scored single-game NCAA basketball playoff record 61 points as the Irish beat Ohio University 112-82 in an NCAA tournament game –
CBS Evening News anchorman Walter Cronkite retired after 19 years. His final words: I’ll be away on assignment, and Dan Rather will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night! –
The U.S. Football League began its first season –
Soviet spacecraft, Vega I, entered the atmosphere of Halley’s Comet and sent back pictures of the comet’s icy nucleus –
A 5.4 earthquake shook Riviere-du-Loup, 250 miles northeast of Montreal –
A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia –
NASA launched a spacecraft as part of the Kepler Mission project in order to find habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy –
Weather
Sixteen tornadoes in Illinois and Indiana –
Twenty-eight cities in the north-central United States reported record high temperatures. Pickstown, South Dakota, led the country with 83F, and Saint Cloud, Minnesota, registered 71F, beating its previous record by 21 degrees. –
More than 90% of Lake Superior was covered with ice due to long stretches of unusually cold weather. –
