Today in History
1692 - The last person is hanged for witchcraft in the U.S.
1789 - Congress establishes the Office of Postmaster General of the U.S.
1817 - John Quincy Adams becomes Secretary of State.
1862 - President Lincoln announces the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in which he says he will free slaves in all states on January 1, 1863.
1868 - Race riots occur in New Orleans, LA.
1903 - Italo Marchiony is granted a patent for the ice cream cone.
1913 - A coal mine explosion kills more than 250 at Dawson, NM.
1944 - Boulogne is reoccupied by the Allies.
1949 - The U.S.S.R. detonates its first atomic bomb.
1950 - Omar N. Bradley is promoted to the rank of five-star general.
1960 - Mali gains independence from France.
1964 - "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." premiers on NBC-TV.
1968 - Zond-5 completes its flight.
1970 - President Nixon requests 1,000 new FBI agents for college campuses.
1973 - Henry Kissingeris sworn in as America's first Jewish Secretary of State.
1975 - Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco.
1978 - Israeli PM Menachem Begin returns home after the Camp David summit.
1980 - Iraqi troops seize part of Iran in a border dispute, beginning the Iraq-Iran war.
1983 - NASA launches Galaxy-B.
1990 - Saudi Arabia expells Jordanian and Yemeni envoys.
1991 - California University makes the Dead Sea Scrolls public.

Birthdays
1290 - Bilbo Baggins (Shire Reconning)
1694 - Lord Chesterfield, letter writer; introduced Gregorian calendar
1791 - Michael Faraday, discoverer of the principle of the electric motor
1822 – Confederate Brigadier General Eppa Hunton
1878 - Shigeru Yoshida, Japanese PM (1946-54)
1922 - Chen Ning Yang, physicist/disproved parity, Nobel Prize winner (1957)
1939 - Junko Tabei, first woman to climb Mount Everest; Mike Sullivan (Gov-WY)
1969 - Melissa Lynn Costello, Miss WV-America (1991)

Passings
1520 - Selim I, captured Baghdad
1989 - Irving Berlin, composer, (age 101)

Reported Missing in Action
1966
Knochel, Charles A., USN (IN); A1H shot down (pilot), KIA, body not recovered

1968
Kuhlmann, Charles F., USAF (CT); A1H shot down (pilot), remains identified September, 1995
Wright, Buddy, US Army; escaped October, 1968

Weather
Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Gitmo


National Hurricane Center