Today In History

1707
The Act of Union joined England and Scotland to form Great Britain.

1931
The Empire State Building opened in New York City. At 102 stories, it would be the world’s tallest building for the next 41 years. .

1941
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, considered by many the greatest film ever made, premiered in New York.

1948
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established with Kim Il Sung as president.

1960
The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane over Soviet territory.

1967
Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu. (They divorced in 1973.)

1991
44-year-old Texas fireballer Nolan Ryan hurled his seventh and final no-hitter in a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. That same day, Oakland’s Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock’s stolen base record.

2003
President Bush made a speech aboard an aircraft carrier proclaiming “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

2009
For the first time in 341 years, a woman is appointed as poet laureate of the United Kingdom. Carol Ann Duffy, 53, will take over the post from current poet laureate Andrew Motion.

Birthdays

Joseph Addison
writer (1672)

Arthur Wellesley
British soldier, statesman, Duke of Wellington (1769)

Mary Harris Jones
labor agitator (1830)

Calamity Jane
American frontier character (1852)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
philosopher (1881)

Joseph Heller
writer (1923)

Wes Anderson
filmmaker (1969)