Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1621

The first sermon was delivered in New England, at Plymouth, Massachusetts, by Robert Cushman.

1792

America's first formal cremation took place near Charleston, South Carolina.

1793

Noah Webster established New York City's first daily newspaper, "The American Minerva."

1854

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, ''The Charge of the Light Brigade,'' was published in England.

1884

Ball-bearing roller skates were patented by Levant M. Richardson.

1907

Christmas seals went on sale for the first time, at the Wilmington, Del., post office. Proceeds went to fight tuberculosis.

1940

British troops opened their first major offensive in North Africa during World War II.

1941

China declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy.

1949

Chiang Kai-shek lost control of Peking, and his Nationalist forces fled the Chinese mainland, settling on the island of Formosa, which would later become the independent Chinese republic of Taiwan.

1958

Robert H.W. Welch Jr. and 11 other men met in Indianapolis to form the anti-Communist John Birch Society.

1975

President Ford signed a .3 billion seasonal loan authorization that officials of New York City and state said would prevent a city default.

1987

In Israel, the first riots of the Palestinian intifada erupted on the occupied Gaza Strip in protest of Israeli occupation of former Arab territory in the Middle East.

1990

Slobodan Milosovic (Serbian Socialist Party) was elected president in Serbia's first free elections in 50 years.

1990

In Poland, Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity trade union, won a landslide victory over transitional Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, becoming the first democratically-elected Polish leader in over six decades.

1992

Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.

1992

American forces land in Somalia to begin humanitarian operation in famine-stricken country.

1993

The Air Force destroyed the first of 500 Minuteman II missile silos marked for elimination under an arms control treaty.

1994

President Clinton fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after learning she'd told a conference that masturbation should be discussed in school as a part of human sexuality.

1995

Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., was chosen to head the NAACP.

2002

United Airlines filed the biggest bankruptcy in aviation history after losing $4 billion in the previous two years.

1608

Poet John Milton was born in London.

1886

Clarence Birdseye, American inventor of the deep-freezing process.

1898

Emmett Kelly, American clown.

1899

Jean de Brunhoff, French illustrator and author, creator of the Babar series.

1918

Kirk Douglas, American film actor.

1930

Buck Henry, American actor, writer and director.

1957

Donny Osmond, singer, musician, actor and former teen idol.

1641

Anthony Van Dyck, 17th century Flemish painter.

1979

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the religious broadcaster, died in New York City at age 84.

1996

Archaeologist and anthropologist Mary Leakey died in Kenya at age 83.

2003

United States senator Paul Simon, American politician.