TODAY IN HISTORY
In 1775, during the American Revolution, the Continental Army captured Montreal.
In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, in a letter to a friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
In 1909, 259 men and boys were killed when fire erupted inside a coal mine in Cherry, Illinois.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.
In 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.
In 1971, the U.S. space probe Mariner 9 went into orbit around Mars.
In 1974, Karen Silkwood, a 28-year-old technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.
In 1979, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in New York.
In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
In 1985, some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city.
In 2015, Islamic State militants carried out a set of coordinated attacks in Paris at the national stadium, in a crowded concert hall, in restaurants and on streets, killing 130 people in the worst attack on French soil since World War II.
In 2017, the Oakland Raiders broke ground on a 65,000-seat domed stadium in Las Vegas.
In 2019, the House Intelligence Committee opened two weeks of public impeachment hearings, with a dozen current and former career foreign service officials and political appointees scheduled to testify about efforts by President Donald Trump and others to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals.
In 2020, speaking publicly for the first time since his defeat by Joe Biden, President Donald Trump refused to concede the election.
BIRTHDAYS
Journalist-author Peter Arnett is 89.
Actor Jimmy Hawkins is 82.
Blues singer John Hammond is 81.
Country singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard is 77.
Actor Joe Mantegna is 76.
Actor Sheila Frazier is 75.
Actor Tracy Scoggins is 70.
Actor Chris Noth is 69.
Actor-comedian Whoopi Goldberg is 68.
Actor Rex Linn is 67.
Actor Caroline Goodall is 64.
Actor Neil Flynn is 63.
Former NFL quarterback and College Football Hall of Famer Vinny Testaverde is 60.
Rock musician Walter Kibby (Fishbone) is 59.
Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is 56.
Actor Steve Zahn is 56.
Actor Gerard Butler is 54.
Writer-activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali is 54.
Actor Jordan Bridges is 50.
Actor Aisha Hinds is 48.
Rock musician Nikolai Fraiture is 45.
Former NBA All-Star Metta Sandiford-Artest (formerly Ron Artest and Metta World Peace) is 44.
Actor Monique Coleman is 43.
Actor Rahul Kohli is 38.
Actor Devon Bostick is 32.
