Today In History

1958 - The U.S. announced a plan to explore space near the moon. 1964 - An earthquake in Alaska killed 114 people and registered 8.4 on the Richter Scale. 1968 - Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth, died in a plane crash. 1976 - Washington, DC, opened its subway system. 1977 - About 570 people died when a KLM 747 and a Pan Am 747 collided with each other on a foggy runway on the Canary Island of Tenerife. 1985 - Billy Dee Williams received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 1988 - The U.S. Senate ratified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 1989 - The U.S. anti-missile satellite failed the first test in space. 1992 - Police in Philadelphia, PA, arrested a man with AIDS on charges that he may have infected several hundred teenage boys with HIV through sexual relations. 1993 - In China, Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin was appointed President. 1995 - Maurizo Gucci was shot to death outside his office in Milan. 1997 - Russian workers, nearly 2 million, held a nationwide strike to protest unpaid wages. 1997 - In Australia, Governor-General William Deane signed a bill to overturn a 1996 Northern Territory act to legalize assisted suicides. The 1996 act was the first in the world to permit assisted suicides. 1997 - Dexter King met with James Earl Ray. Ray was in prison for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dexter King believes that Ray had nothing to do with the assassination. 1998 - In the U.S., the FDA approved the prescription drug Viagra. It was the first pill for male impotence. 1998 - Top civilian aircraft makers in France, Spain, Germany and Britain agreed to create single European aerospace and defense company. 1998 - Ax-wielders killed at least 52 people in southern Algeria, most of which were toddlers. 2002 - Rodney Dangerfield received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 2004 - NASA successfully launched an unpiloted X-43A jet that hit Mach 7 (about 5,000 mph).