1761: George III is crowned King of England.
1776: Nathan Hale is hanged for spying.1784: Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.
1789: The position of United States Postmaster General is established.
1862: A preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released.
1888: The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.
1895: Paul Muni is born. He starred in the early prison drama I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang.
1896: Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather, King George III, as the longest reigning monarch in history.
1903: John Houseman is born.
1927: Tommy Lasorda is born.
1949: The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb.1958: Joan Jett is born.
1961: Scott Baio is born.
1970: Sarah Jane Moore tries to assassinate Gerald Ford.
1980: Iraq invades Iran.1982: Billie Piper is born. She played the companion Rose Tyler in the rebooted Doctor Who. She's not my all-time favorite Doctor Who companion (that honor is reserved for Barbara Wright), but she's definitely in the top five. She's smoking hot, sharp as a tack and not afraid to tell the Doctor when he's being a dink. What more can you ask?
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.
