Chile struck by earthquake and tsunami
2010 On this day a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile, causing widespread damage and triggering a tsunami that devastated coastal areas; it was the most powerful earthquake to strike the region since 1960.
MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY
2015 American actor Leonard Nimoy—who was best known for his portrayal of the stoic, cerebral Mr. Spock in the sci-fi TV and film franchise Star Trek—died in Los Angeles.
2008 American editor and author William F. Buckley, Jr.—who became an important intellectual influence in politics as the founder (1955) and editor in chief of the journal National Review, which he used as a forum for conservative views and ideas—died in Connecticut.
1991 U.S. President George Bush ordered a cease-fire effective at midnight and declared victory in the Persian Gulf War, a conflict triggered by Iraq‘s invasion and occupation of Kuwait in August 1990.
1973 Two hundred members of the American Indian Movement forcefully took the reservation hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
1967 Saint Kitts and Nevis (with Anguilla) became an independent state associated with the United Kingdom.
1933 In Berlin the Reichstag (parliament) building caught fire, a key event in the establishment of Nazi dictatorship.
1932 American actress Elizabeth Taylor—whose career, highlighted by award-winning portrayals of emotionally volatile characters, was often overshadowed by her highly publicized personal life—was born in London.
1902 American novelist John Steinbeck—who was best known for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which summed up the bitterness of the Great Depressiondecade and aroused widespread sympathy for the plight of migratory farmworkers—was born.
1886 American lawyer and politician Hugo Black—who, as a Supreme Courtjustice, was known for his support of the doctrine of total incorporation—was born.
1807 American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Massachusetts (now in Maine).
1884 Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic, signed a treaty in London that disavowed British authority over the Transvaal.
1776 At the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, North Carolinian revolutionaries defeated loyalists during the American Revolution.
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