1170: Thomas Beckett is murdered. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry II because he thought Beckett would be easy to control. But at some point Beckett had a religious epiphany and started taking his duties very seriously, including not bowing to the rule of the Crown. He felt that, as a man of the Church, the chain of command went from Beckett to the Pope to God. Notice Henry II isn't in that chain. Henry famously remarked, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" A few of his knights heard this and (probably correctly) interpreted it as meaning, "Will no one whack this mutt?" and they went and did it. They did it during Mass, while Beckett was leading services and sliced the top of his head off and then smeared his brains on the pulpit, all in front of a horrified congregation. Yikes!1808: Andrew Johnson, 17th president of the US is born. He was the first president to be impeached.
1813: British soldiers burn Buffalo, NY. If you've ever been there you can sympathize.
1721: Madame de Pompadour is born. She was the mistress of King Louis XV of France and also dallied with Doctor Who in the episode The Girl in the Fireplace.
1800: Charles Goodyear is born. He invented the process of vulcanizing rubber.1809: William Gladstone is born. He was the Punch to Disraeli's Judy in the arena of Victorian-era British politics.
1835: The Treaty of New Echota is signed. It ceded all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi to the US. It pretty much kicks off the Trail of Tears.1845: Texas is admitted as the 28th state.
1876: The Ashtabula Horror occurs when Train # 5 on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway crashes through a bridge over the Ashtabula River. 64 people are killed.
1890: US soldiers massacre more than 400 Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
1911: Mongolia gains independence from the Qiang dynasty.
1930: Sir Muhammed Iqbal introduces the Two-Nation Theory which leads to the creation of Pakistan 17 years later.
1934: Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty and the London Naval Treaty, which limit the size of battleships.
1935: Mary Tyler Moore is born.
1937: Barbara Steele is born. She was the scream queen of Italian horror movies. She once said, "I never want to climb out of a fucking coffin again."
1938: Jon Voight is born.
1939: The B-24 Liberator flies for the first time.
1947: Ted Danson is born.
1959: Paula Poundstone is born.
1972: Jude Law is born.
Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up
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