Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include German painter Albrecht Durer in 1471; King Philip II of Spain, who launched the Spanish Armada, in 1527; English poet and satirist Alexander Pope in 1688; French painter Henri Rousseau in 1844; French diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leon Bourgeois in 1851; industrialist Armand Hammer in 1898; architect Marcel Breuer in 1902; composer and barrelhouse piano player Thomas "Fats" Waller in 1904; author Harold Robbins and singer Dennis Day, both in 1916; actor Raymond Burr in 1917; Soviet physicist-turned-humanitarian Andrei Sakharov in 1921; Hall of Fame football Coach Ara Parseghian in 1923 (age 91); actor Peggy Cass in 1924; former baseball Manager Bobby Cox and singer Ronald Isley, both in 1941 (age 73); romance novelist Janet Dailey in 1944 (age 70); comedian and U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., in 1951 (age 63); convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 1960; and actors Mr. T, born Lawrence Tureaud, in 1952 (age 62), Judge Reinhold in 1957 (age 57) and Lisa Edelstein in 1966 (age 48); and rapper The Notorious B.I.G. in 1972.
On this date in history:
In 1832, the first Democratic Party national convention convened in Baltimore.
In 1856, Lawrence, Kan., was burned by pro-slavery forces.
In 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed the "Spirit of St. Louis" in Paris, completing the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in 33 1/2 hours.
In 1932, five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh ended his historic flight, Amelia Earhart became the first pilot to repeat the feat, flying solo across the Atlantic from Newfoundland, Canada, to Ireland. She completed her flight in 13 1/2 hours.
In 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed "an unlimited state of national emergency," seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1991, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning.
In 1998, two students were killed and 25 wounded by a classmate who opened fire in a high school cafeteria in Springfield, Ore. The 15-year-old shooter, Kipland "Kip" Kinkel, had also killed his parents. (He was sentenced to 111 years in prison.)
In 2003, an earthquake near Algiers, Algeria, killed more than 2,200 people and injured another 10,000.
In 2006, the FBI accused U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and said agents found $90,000 of the money in a freezer at his home. (Jefferson was eventually sentenced to 13 years in federal prison.)
In 2009, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his second term after a coalition led by his Congress Party scored a resounding victory in parliamentary elections.
In 2011, Mexican drug lord Barragan Gilberto Balderas, a major leader of the Gulf Cartel and wanted in the United States for alleged drug smuggling, was arrested in the border town of Reynosa near McAllen, Texas.
In 2012, a New Jersey judge sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail, 300 hours of community service, three years' probation and ordered him to contribute $10,000 to an organization that helps victims of bias crimes. Ravi had been convicted of invasion of privacy and other charges for using a webcam to spy on his gay college roommate, Tyler Clementi, who later committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. In 2013, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down an Arizona law banning abortions after 20 weeks unless there's a medical emergency. The court said, "Arizona may not deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at any point prior to viability."
A thought for the day: "[Women] ... get more glory than men for comparable feats. But also, women get more notoriety when they crash." -- Amelia Earhart
