Jesse Owens receives the Congressional Gold Medal
The African American athlete dominated the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, which were held during the reign of Adolf Hitler’s racist nazi regime.
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant experiences a partial meltdown and radioactive leak
The coolant leak was the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States. A continuous string of nuclear disasters, such as Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011) continue to raise doubts about the security and environmental benefit of nuclear power.
Greek poet Giorgos Seferis speaks out against the military junta
The Nobel Prize laureate issued his now famous statement against Greece’s repressive right-wing Regime of the Colonels on the BBC World Service.
Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds is released
The film about a swarm of birds wreaking havoc in Bodega Bay, California has become a classic of the horror movie genre.
- 1986 Lady Gaga
American singer-songwriter, producer, actress - 1955 Reba McEntire
American singer-songwriter, producer, actress - 1946 Alejandro Toledo
Peruvian politician, 48th President of Peru - 1936 Mario Vargas Llosa
Peruvian/Spanish journalist, author, Nobel Prize laureate - 1483 Raphael
Italian painter, architect
- 2004 Peter Ustinov
English actor, director, producer, screenwriter - 1969 Dwight D. Eisenhower
American general, politician, 34th President of the United States - 1943 Sergei Rachmaninoff
Russian pianist, composer, conductor - 1941 Virginia Woolf
English author, critic - 1584 Ivan the Terrible
Russian Tsar
