Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include American statesman and orator Edward Everett in 1794; baseball Hall of Fame member Cap Anson in 1852; U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1862; statesman Dean Acheson, secretary of state under President Harry Truman, in 1893; fashion designer Oleg Cassini in 1913; Ethel Kennedy, wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in 1928 (age 86); actors Joel Grey in 1932 (age 82), Louise Lasser in 1939 (age 75) and Peter Riegert and Meshach Taylor, both in 1947 (age 67); and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman in 1941 (age 73).
On this date in history:
In 1881, the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, known now as Spelman College, was founded.
In 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany was liberated by Allied troops.
In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American player in major league baseball, signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In 1951, U.S. President Harry Truman relieved Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his command in Korea.
In 1970, the Apollo 13 spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the third U.S. moon-landing mission. (The attempt was aborted when an oxygen tank exploded but the astronauts safely returned to Earth.)
In 1983, Harold Washington was elected the first African-American mayor of Chicago.
In 1993, a riot that would last 11 days erupted at the maximum-security Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville. (Nine inmates and a guard were killed.)
In 1996, 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff, trying to become the youngest person to pilot a plane across the United States, her father and her flight instructor were killed when their plane crashed on takeoff from Cheyenne, Wyo.
In 2002, a jury in Cleveland convicted U.S. Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, of racketeering and corruption. (He served seven years in prison.)
In 2006, Ariel Sharon was officially relieved of his duties as prime minister of Israel when the Cabinet declared him to be permanently incapacitated. Sharon suffered a major stroke on Jan. 4, 2006, and fell into a coma a short time later. (He died in 2014.)
In 2007, all charges were dropped in a high-profile sexual assault case involving three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team.
In 2011, France became the first European nation to ban the wearing of full veils in public.
In 2012, Charles Manson, mastermind of a series of murders in the Los Angeles area, one of the most infamous killing sprees in U.S. history, was denied parole for a 12th time.
In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Honor posthumously to the Rev. Emil J. Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain. Kapaun died in a Korean War POW camp.
A thought for the day: Jerry Seinfeld said, "A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking."
