Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1647

The first recorded American execution of a ''witch'' took place in Massachusetts.

1896

A tornado struck St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill., killing 255 people.

1935

The Supreme Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act.

1936

The Cunard liner Queen Mary left England on its maiden voyage.

1937

The newly completed Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, Calif., was opened to the public. Louis Reggiardo, who helped build the bridge.

1940

World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.

1941

Amid rising world tensions, President Roosevelt proclaimed an ''unlimited national emergency.''

1941

The German battleship Bismarck sank off France, with a loss of 2,300 lives.

1960

In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celâl Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office.

1962

The Centralia Pennsylvania mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine.

1967

Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.

1971

Pakistani forces massacre over 200 civilians, mostly Bengali Hindus, in the Bagbati massacre.

1980

The Gwangju Massacre: Airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207.

1994

Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia to the emotional cheers of thousands after spending two decades in exile.

1995

Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed when thrown from his horse during a jumping event in Charlottesville, Va.

1996

Russian President Boris Yeltsin negotiated a cease-fire to the war in Chechnya in his first meeting with the rebels' leader.

1997

The Supreme Court ruled Paula Jones could pursue her sex harassment lawsuit against President Clinton while he was in office.

1997

The 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak occurs, spawning multiple tornadoes in Central Texas, including the F5 that killed 27 in Jarrell.

1998

Michael Fortier, the government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after apologizing for not warning anyone about the deadly plot.

1999

A U.N. tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, holding the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.

2001

Members of the Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf seize 20 hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002

2006

The 6.4 Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.

2016

Barack Obama is the first president of United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha.

1964

Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died.