Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail is published
King used the open letter to defend his nonviolent resistance against racism and segregation. It became one of the central texts for the civil rights movement in the United States.
Marilyn Monroe performs her famous rendition of Happy Birthday
Monroe gave her sultry performance, which was to be her last, at a party for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The two are believed to have been engaged in an affair.
The North Vietnamese Army begins organizing the Ho Chi Minh trail
According to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the system of supply routes used by the “Vietcong” was “one of the greatest achievements of military engineering of the 20th century.”
Jean-Pierre Christin invents the Celsius thermometer
The centigrade temperature scale, which is based on the freezing and boiling point of water, is used by most countries around the world. Exceptions include the United State, Belize, and Palau.
- 1945 Pete Townshend
English singer-songwriter, guitarist - 1925 Malcolm X
American minister, activist - 1898 Julius Evola
Italian philosopher - 1893 H. Bonciu
Romanian author, poet, journalist - 1881 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Turkish army officer, politician, 1st President of Turkey
- 1994 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
American book editor, 37th First Lady of the United States - 1912 Bolesław Prus
Polish writer - 1898 William Ewart Gladstone
English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - 1895 José Martí
Cuban journalist, poet, theorist - 1536 Anne Boleyn
English wife of Henry VIII of England
