| On this date in: |
| 1754 |
France’s King Louis XVI was born at Versailles. |
| 1775 |
Britain’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of open rebellion. |
| 1912 |
Actor and dancer Gene Kelly was born in Pittsburgh. |
| 1926 |
Silent film star Rudolph Valentino died at age 31. |
| 1927 |
Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1960 |
Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein II died at age 65. |
| 1979 |
Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York. |
| 1989 |
Yusuf Hawkins, an African-American teenager, was shot dead by white youths in Brooklyn. |
| 2000 |
The first season finale of the reality show “Survivor” aired on CBS, with contestant Richard Hatch winning the $1 million prize. |
| 2003 |
Former Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan, a convicted child molester, was killed by a fellow inmate in a Massachusetts prison. |
| 2005 |
Israeli forces evicted militant holdouts from two Jewish settlements, completing a historic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. |
| 2008 |
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced his choice of running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. |
| 2010 |
Golfer Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, divorced. |
| 2011 |
Judges in New York put an end to the sensational sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, setting him free after prosecutors questioned the credibility of the hotel housekeeper who’d accused the French diplomat. |
