Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1777

France recognized American independence.

1903

Orville and Wilbur Wright took the first successful man-powered airplane flights, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1939

The German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the Rio de la Plata off Uruguay.

1942

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden condemns the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.

1944

The U.S. Army announced the end of its policy of excluding Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

1944

German tanks, aircraft and paratroops cross the Luxembourg and Belgian borders in massive counter-offensive.

1957

The United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

1969

The U.S. Air Force closed its Project ''Blue Book'' by concluding there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.

1969

An estimated 50 million TV viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry Miss Vicky on NBC's ''Tonight Show.''

1975

Lynette Fromme was sentenced to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford.

1976

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reject Opec's recommended 15% oil price increase and choose to impose a lower price rise.

1979

In a case that aggravated racial tensions, Arthur McDuffie, a black insurance executive, was fatally beaten after a police chase in Miami. Four white police officers were later acquitted of charges stemming from McDuffie's death.

1986

Eugene Hasenfus, the American convicted by Nicaragua for his part in running guns to the Contras, was pardoned and released.

1992

President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies.

1996

Peruvian guerrillas took hundreds of people hostage at the Japanese embassy in Lima.

1996

Kofi Annan of Ghana was appointed United Nations secretary-general.

1996

Six Red Cross workers are shot dead as they sleep in a hospital in Chechnya.

1998

House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston shocked fellow Republicans by admitting he'd had extramarital affairs.

1778

Humphry Davy, English chemist and inventor.

1807

John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, abolitionist, reformer, and founder of the Liberal Party.

1894

Arthur Fiedler, American, conductor Boston Pops Orchestra.

1908

Willard Frank Libby, American chemist who won a Nobel Prize for his part in creating the carbon-14 method of dating artifacts.

1830

Simón Bolívar, South American patriot, revolutionary leader and statesman died in Columbia.