917: At the Battle of Anchialus, Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out.
1000: Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary. This is the official founding of the Hungarian state.
1794: At the Battle of Fallen Timbers, American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.
1804: The Lewis and Clark Expedition suffers its only death when Sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.
1833: Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States is born.
1866: President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.1890: H.P. Lovecraft is born.
1907: Alan Reed, original voice of Fred Flintstone is born.1920: The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1938: Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam - a record that still stands.
1940: Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded in Mexico City by an assassin. He dies the next day. There is some question as to whether it was an ice axe or an ice pick that was used to do the deed. Either way, having one stuck into your head would pretty much ruin your day.
1940: Winston Churchill pays tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."1942: Isaac Hayes is born.
1943: Sylvester McCoy is born. He played the seventh, and last Doctor in the classic Doctor Who series.
1944: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet offensive.
1946: Connie Chung is born.
1946: Ralf Hutter, musician for Kraftwerk, is born.
1948: Robert Plant is born.
1953: The Soviet Union publicly acknowledges it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
1962: Sophie Aldred is born. She played Ace, the "punker from the future" companion during the Sylvester McCoy years of Doctor Who. Holy cats, they have the same birthday!
1962: James Marsters is born. He played Spike on Buffy and Angel.1968: 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.
1969: All four Beatles come together in the recording studio for the final time as they finish the Abbey Road LP.
1970: John D Carmack is born. He was the lead programmer of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake.
1974: Congress votes to reduce aid to South Vietnam from $1 Billion to $700 Million. Majority of the cuts are for military supplies.1971: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1998: The Supreme Court of Canada states Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.
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.
