Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1649

A week after having been found guilty for treason, King Charles I is beheaded.

1781

Maryland became the last of the 13 original states to adopt the Articles of Confederation.

1797

Congress refuses to accept the first recorded petitions from African Americans.

1798

A brawl broke out in the House of Representatives in Philadelphia, as Matthew Lyon of Vermont spat in the face of Roger Griswold of Connecticut.

1835

President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, survived the first attempt against the life of a U.S. President, when shots were fired in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1862

1862 - The ironclad USS Monitor was launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.

1933

The first episode of the ''Lone Ranger'' radio program was broadcast on station WXYZ in Detroit.

1933

Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg.

1948

Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.

1957

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly calls on South Africa to reconsider its apartheid policies.

1964

The United States launched Ranger 6, an unmanned spacecraft carrying television cameras that was to crash-land on the moon.

1968

The Tet Offensive began as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals.

1969

The Beatles made their last public appearance together, on the roof of their Apple Studios in London.

1972

Thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers were shot to death by British soldiers in Northern Ireland on what became known as ''Bloody Sunday.''

1979

The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who'd been living in exile in France, to return.

1996

Gino Gallagher, the reputed leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was shot and killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.

2000

A Kenya Airways jet bound for Lagos, Nigeria, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, killing all but 10 of the 179 people on board.

2003

Richard Reid, also known as the "shoe bomber," was found guilty on terrorism charges in a federal court in Boston.

2005

Iraqis voted in their country's first free election in a half-century.

1882

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States (1933-1945), was born in Hyde Park, New York.

1930

Gene Hackman, actor.

1937

Boris Spassky, chess player.

1937

Vanessa Redgrave, English actress.

1941

Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President of the United States, neo-conservative, liar, schemer, draft-dodger, so called "power behind the throne" of the George Bush Presidency.

1951

Phil Collins, English rock and pop musician, member of the rock group Genesis.

1649

King Charles I, beheaded for treason. The Commonwealth of England was established.

1948

Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer.

1948

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.

1962

Two members of the "Flying Wallendas" high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit.

1995

Gerald Durrell, English zoologist, traveller, writer, and broadcaster, born in Jamshedpur, India.

1999

Huntz Hall, radio, theatrical, and motion picture performer perhaps best known for his acting roll in the "Dead End Kids" movies.

2006

Coretta Scott King, wife of the assassinated civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. She was 78.