Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include Macedonian leader Alexander the Great in 356 B.C.; Austrian monk and pioneering botanist Gregor Johann Mendel in 1822; New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 reached the summit of Mount Everest, in 1919; Elliot Richardson, attorney general under U.S. President Richard Nixon, in 1920; actors Sally Ann Howes in 1930 (age 84) and Diana Rigg (age 76) and Natalie Wood, both in 1938; author Cormac McCarthy in 1933 (age 81); U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the longest serving woman in U.S. Congress history, in 1936 (age 78); singer Kim Carnes in 1945 (age 69); guitarist Carlos Santana in 1947 (age 67), and actors Donna Dixon in 1957 (age 57), Sandra Oh in 1971 (age 43) and Omar Epps in 1973 (age 41).
On this date in history:
In 1859, American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. About 1,500 spectators each paid 50 cents to see Brooklyn play New York.
In 1881, five years after U.S. Army Gen. George A. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrendered to the army, which promised amnesty for him and his followers.
In 1945, the U.S. flag was raised over Berlin as the first American troops moved in to take part in the post-World War II occupation.
In 1940, Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart," topped by "I'll Never Smile Again" by the Tommy Dorsey orchestra with Frank Sinatra.
In 1951, while entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.
In 1968, the first Special Olympics Games were contested at Soldier Field in Chicago.
In 1969, U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon -- Armstrong first and Aldrin about 20 minutes later.
In 1976, the Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, became the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.
In 1985, treasure hunter Mel Fisher located a Spanish galleon sunk by a 1622 hurricane off Key West, Fla. It contained $400 million worth of treasure.
In 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for the United States to organize a long-range space program to support an orbiting space station, a moon base and a manned mission to Mars.
In 1993, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster was found shot to death in a park in northern Virginia. (His death was ruled a suicide.)
In 2005, the U.S. Justice Department activated its online National Sex Offender Public Registry, linking the registries of 22 states.
In 2011, International Tribunal officials announced the arrest of Goran Hadzic, the last Serbian leader wanted for war crimes.
In 2012, a gunman set off tear gas grenades and opened fire at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a theater in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people and wounding 58. The accused killer, James E. Holmes, later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
In 2013, Helen Thomas, UPI White House reporter through the administrations of 10 presidents, died at age 92. President Bill Clinton called Thomas "a symbol of everything American journalism can and should be -- the embodiment of fearless integrity, fierce commitment to accuracy, the insistence of holding government accountable." Thomas left the news agency in 2000 and became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.
A thought for the day: "Beauty is only skin deep but ugly goes clean to the bone." -- Dorothy Parker
