AD 41 – Roman Emperor Caligula, known for his eccentricity and sadistic despotism, is assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. The Guard then proclaims Caligula’s uncle Claudius as Emperor
1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento.
1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the Supreme Court of the United States declares the federal income tax constitutional.
1939 – The deadliest earthquake in Chilean history strikes Chillán, killing approximately 28,000 people.
1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina.
1972 – Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth’s atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada’s Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.
1984 – Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.
2011 – At least 35 die and 180 are injured in a bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.
Births
AD 76 – Hadrian, Roman emperor (d. 138)
1712 – Frederick the Great, Prussian king (d. 1786)
1862 – Edith Wharton, American author and poet (d. 1937)
1915 – Robert Motherwell, American painter and academic (d. 1991)
He was an painter and printmaker and of the New York School, which also included Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.
From Motherwell’s own words, the reason he went to Harvard was that he wanted to be a painter, while his father urged him to pursue a more secure career: “And finally after months of really a cold war he made a very generous agreement with me that if I would get a Ph.D. so that I would be equipped to teach in a college as an economic insurance, he would give me fifty dollars a week for the rest of my life to do whatever I wanted to do on the assumption that with fifty dollars I could not starve but it would be no inducement to last. So with that agreed on Harvard then-it was actually the last year-Harvard still had the best philosophy school in the world. And since I had taken my degree at Stanford in philosophy, and since he didn’t care what the Ph.D. was in, I went on to Harvard.” (wikipedia)
1928 – Desmond Morris, English zoologist, ethologist, and painter
1949 – John Belushi, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1982)
Deaths
AD 41 – Caligula, Roman emperor (b. 12)
1920 – Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1884)
1965 – Winston Churchill, English colonel and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874)
1986 – L. Ron Hubbard, American religious leader and author, founded the Church of Scientology (b. 1911)
