Today in History
- 1865 Congress passes, by a vote of 121-24, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States except as punishment for a crime [1] [2]
- 1934 FDR devalues the US dollar relative to gold to $35 per ounce
- 1943 German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to Soviet troops at Stalingrad
- 1950 US President Harry Truman publicly announces support for the development of a hydrogen bomb
- 1985 South African President P. W. Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence
Today in Film & TV
- 1949 1st US daytime soap on TV "These Are My Children" (NBC in Chicago)
Today in Music
- 1679 Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera "Bellerophon" premieres at the Palais-Royal in Paris
Today in Sport
- 2015 17-year-old Lydia Ko of New Zealand becomes the youngest golfer in men's or women's golf history to be ranked No. 1 in the world
Did You Know?
Colonization of the America's in the late 1500s killed so many people it cooled the planet and led to a "Little Ice Age", according to a scientific report published in "Quaternary Science Reviews"
Famous Birthdays
Tokugawa Ieyasu
1543 - 1616
Franz Schubert
1797 - 1828
Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
1800 - 1842
Henri Desgrange
1865 - 1940
Jersey Joe Walcott
1914 - 1994
Lorraine Warren
1927 - 2019
Celebrity Birthdays
Ernie Banks
1931 - 2015
Nolan Ryan
79th Birthday
John Lydon
70th Birthday
Justin Timberlake
45th Birthday
Fun Fact About Today
Ham the chimpanzee becomes the first primate in space, traveling 158 miles aboard Mercury-Redstone 2
Famous Weddings
- 1560 Spanish King Philip II (10) marries Elisabeth of Valois (13), daughter of Henry II of France
- 1842 10th US President John Tyler's daughter Elizabeth marries in the White House
- 1960 American songwriter Adolph Green (45) weds (for 3rd and final time) American actress and singer Phyllis Newman (24) in NYC, until his death in 2002
Famous Divorces
- 1957 English-American actress Elizabeth Taylor's 2nd divorce from English actor Michael Wilding, after almost 5 years of marriage
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists