Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include French composer Gustave Charpentier in 1860; Broadway producer George Abbott in 1887; English novelist and critic George Orwell, author of "1984," in 1903; movie director Sidney Lumet in 1924; actor June Lockhart in 1925 (age 89); civil rights advocate James Meredith in 1933 (age 81); musician Harold Melvin in 1939; basketball Hall of Fame member Willis Reed in 1942 (age 72); actor Jimmie Walker in 1947 (age 67); and musicians Carly Simon in 1945 (age 69), Ian McDonald in 1946 (age 68) and George Michael in 1963 (age 51); U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 1954 (age 60); and actor/writer Ricky Gervais in 1961 (age 53).
On this date in history:
In 1788, Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution, the 10th state to do so.
In 1876, U.S. Army Gen. George Custer and his force of 208 men were killed by Chief Sitting Bull's Sioux warriors at Little Big Horn in Montana.
In 1942, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower took command of the U.S. World War II forces in Europe.
In 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea.
In 1951, CBS aired the first color television broadcast. At the time, no color TV sets were owned by the public.
In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision interpreted as barring prayer in public schools.
In 1973, White House attorney John Dean told a U.S. Senate committee that U.S. President Richard Nixon joined in a plot to cover up the Watergate break-in.
In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, sparking civil war.
In 1993, Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada's first woman prime minister.
In 1994, Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata resigned two months after taking office rather than face a no-confidence vote by Parliament.
In 1997, about half of Mir's power supply was knocked out when an unmanned cargo ship collided with the Russian space station and put a hole in it.
In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran.
In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by militants from the Gaza Strip. (He was released Oct. 18, 2011.)
In 2009, entertainment superstar Michael Jackson, known as "the king of pop," a vast influence on the music scene of his day, died of cardiac arrest at age 50 while preparing a comeback.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that mandatory sentencing of teenage killers to life without parole is unconstitutional.
In 2013, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass won a special election to fill out former Sen. John Kerry's term. Markey, who has served in Congress since 1976, defeated Republican Gabriel Gomez, a former Navy SEAL turned investment banker
A thought for the day: "You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing." -- Thomas Sowell
