1327: King Edward II of England dies under mysterious circumstances. Some say it was from having a red-hot iron poker thrust into his hinder, but there's really no evidence one way or another.
1745: At the Battle of Prestonpans, A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
1765: Antoine de Beauterne announces he had killed the Beast of Gévaudan, but was later proved wrong by more attacks.
1780: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
1827: According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Joseph translated into The Book of Mormon.
1866: H.G. Wells is born.1897: The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" letter is published in the New York Sun.
1898: Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.
1912: Chuck Jones is born. Here's his classic short Duck Amuck.
1931: Larry Hagman is born.
1934: Leonard Cohen is born.1935: Henry Gibson is born.
1937: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.
1938: The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.
1942: On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis sent over 1.000 Jews of Pidhaytsi (west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp.
1942: The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
1945: Jerry Bruckheimer is born.1947: Stephen King is born.
1950: George Marshall is sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States.1950: Bill Murray is born.
1957: Ethan Coen is born. I'll admit it - I'm a total fanboy for the Coen brothers. Here's a scene from the classic Barton Fink.
1961: Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.
1962: Rob Morrow is born. He was the uptight New York doctor on Northern Exposure. I never understood what Maggie saw in him.1970: The New York Times starts the first modern op-ed page.
1970: NFL Monday Night Football debuts on ABC.
1981: Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female supreme court justice.
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.
