1980 Airline Mishaps A Delta Airlines flight lands at MacDill Air Force base in Florida; the pilot thought he was in Tampa.

1967 Muhammad Ali The boxing legend is fined $10,000 and sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion.

1963 Red Phone The famous "hotline" between the U.S. and the Soviet Union is ordered in response to the Cuban missile crisis. It was originally a pair of teletypewriters, which was replaced with an actual phone in the mid 70s.

1960 First boxer to regain the world heavyweight title Floyd Patterson knocks out Ingemar Johansson.

1960 First black to win an Emmy Harry Belafonte wins for his variety special Tonight with Belafonte.

1955 Longest recorded eclipse of the Sun (7 min. 8 sec.) is seen in the Philippines.

1948 The Ed Sullivan Show debuts on CBS. It was originally called Toast of the Town.

1943 Detroit race riot Two days of violence begins in which 34 people are killed and 700 injured.

1939 First Rocket-Powered Airplane The first airplane powered solely by a liquid-fueled rocket makes its first flight. It was created by German scientist Ernst Heinkel.

1893 Lizzie Borden Lizzie is acquitted for the murder of her parents, who were axed to death the previous year.

1863 West Virginia becomes the 35th state.

1840 Telegraph Samuel F.B. Morse receives a patent for his telegraph.

1837 Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne. She would reign until her death in 1901.

1819 First steamboat to cross the Atlantic The Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England. It had left Georgia 25 days earlier.

1782 Great Seal The U.S. adopts the seal bearing a spread eagle with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of many, one).

1756 Black Hole of Calcutta 145 British men and a woman are forced to spend the night in this prison cell, during the war between Britain and France. It was 18 x 14 feet wide with only two small windows. Only 22 men and the woman survived the night.

1632 Maryland A Charter for Maryland Colony is granted to Cecilius Calvert (second Lord Baltimore).

1967 Nicole Kidman Australian Oscar-winning actress. Film: Batman Forever (1995, Dr. Chase Meridian).

1960 John Taylor English singer, with Duran Duran. Music: Hungry Like the Wolf (1982), Rio (1982), Union of the Snake (1983), and A View to a Kill (1985).

1954 Michael Anthony (Michael Anthony Sobolewski), American guitarist, with Van Halen. Music: Runnin' With the Devil (1976) and Jump (1984, #1).

1953 Cyndi Lauper American singer. Music: Time After Time (1983) and Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1983).

1952 John Goodman American actor. TV: Roseanne (Dan).

1949 Lionel Richie American singer. Music: Three Times a Lady (1978, #1) and Say You, Say Me (1985, #1).

1945 Anne Murray Canadian Grammy-winning singer. Music: You Needed Me (1979, #1, Grammy). She was the first female Canadian to vocalist to earn a U.S. gold record (1970, Snowbird).

1942 Brian Wilson American musician, with The Beach Boys. Music: Surfin' USA (1963), I Get Around (1964, #1), Help Me Rhonda, (1965, #1), and Good Vibrations (1966, #1).

1933 Danny Aiello American actor. Film: Do the Right Thing (1989, the pizzeria owner).

1931 Olympia Dukakis American Oscar-winning actress. Film: Moonstruck (1987, Oscar) and Steel Magnolias (1989).

1931 Martin Landau American actor. TV: Mission: Impossible (Make-up artist Rollin Hand).

1924 Chet Atkins d. 2001 American guitarist, Grammy-winning, Country Music and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. He has sold over 30 million records and is credited with creating the "Nashville sound."  He initially had difficulty learning the electric guitar because his childhood home didn't have electricity (according to his autobiography Country Gentleman).

1924 Audie Murphy d. 1971 American war hero, actor. He was the most decorated American hero of World War II; he received the Congressional Medal of Honor along with 27 other decorations.

1909 Errol Flynn d. 1959 American swashbuckling actor, known for both his on and off-screen performances.

1972 Howard Johnson b. 1897 American businessman. He founded the restaurant, ice-cream, and hotel chains.

1966 Father Georges-Henri Lemaître b. 1894 Belgian astronomer, Roman Catholic Priest. He first proposed what later became known as the Big Bang to explain the origin of the Universe (1931). Einstein initially derided his theories, but later stated that not accepting them was the greatest error of his life. He was the very first recipient of the Eddington Medal award of the Royal Astronomical Society.

1965 Bernard Mannes Baruch b. 1870 American stock broker. He was an advisor to every president from Wilson to Kennedy.

1933 Clara Zetkin b. 1857 German communist leader, women's rights activist. She created the International Women's Day, which has been celebrated March 8th since 1910.

1925 Josef Breuer b. 1842 Austrian physician whose work formed the foundation of modern psychoanalysis.

1920 Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky b. 1864 Russian biologist, discover of viruses. He was studying a tobacco crop disease when he found that an invisible parasite, much smaller than any known bacterium, was the cause. This newly-discovered life form was the virus.

1876 Santa Anna b. 1795 Mexican president (1833-35, 1841-45, 1846-47, 1853-55) and general. He led the Mexican army against the Alamo (1836).

1837 William IV b. 1765 King of England (1830-37).

1778 Pierre Laclède b. circa 1724 French-born American fur trader, founder of St. Louis (1764).

1773 Georg Christian Füchsel b. 1722 German geolgist. He originated the concept of statra, rock layers that each represent a certain epoch of time.

1597 Willem Barents b. ???? Dutch navigator, discoverer of Spitzbergen (1596) and for whom the Barents Sea is named.

840 Louis I b. 778 Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (814-840).

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