2025: Sanae Takaichi becomes the first woman elected prime minister of Japan. Weeks after winning the leadership of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, she was chosen by the national parliament to succeed Shigeru Ishiba. Her election broke a barrier in a country where women had long been scarce at the top levels of politics.
2018: Julia Louis-Dreyfus receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The Kennedy Center presented her with its top comedy award at a ceremony in Washington. She was best known for playing Elaine Benes on Seinfeld and Vice President Selina Meyer on Veep.
2012: Former senator and presidential candidate George McGovern dies at 90. The South Dakota Democrat was a World War II bomber pilot before entering politics. As his party's 1972 nominee he challenged Richard Nixon and lost in one of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history.
1966: A coal-waste landslide buries a school in Aberfan, Wales, killing 144. After days of heavy rain, a mountainside tip of mining debris gave way and swept into the village, engulfing Pantglas Junior School just after classes began. Of those killed, 116 were children, and the disaster led to new laws on the safety of mine waste heaps.
1964: The film version of My Fair Lady premieres. Directed by George Cukor and adapted from the Lerner and Loewe stage hit, it starred Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle. The musical went on to win eight Academy Awards, including best picture.
1960: John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon hold their fourth and final debate. The last of the first televised general election debates focused heavily on foreign policy, including Cuba. Kennedy won the presidency in a very close race about two and a half weeks later.
1959: The Guggenheim Museum opens in New York City. Its spiraling design on Fifth Avenue was the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who died six months before the opening. The building, with its ramp winding up around an open center, became one of the most recognizable landmarks of modern architecture.
1940: Ernest Hemingway publishes For Whom the Bell Tolls. The novel follows an American, Robert Jordan, fighting alongside guerrillas during the Spanish Civil War on a mission to blow up a bridge. It became a bestseller and was made into a 1943 film starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.
1907: Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow opens in New York City. The Viennese hit, which first played in Austria in 1905, arrived on Broadway in an English version. It was a sensation, and its famous waltz and the fashions it inspired swept the country.
1805: Britain wins the Battle of Trafalgar, and Admiral Nelson is killed. Off Cape Trafalgar on Spain's southwest coast, 27 British ships under Horatio Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet of 33 ships commanded by Pierre de Villeneuve. Nelson was fatally shot during the fighting, but the victory ended Napoleon's hopes of invading Britain.
1797: The USS Constitution is launched in Boston. It was one of the six original frigates Congress authorized for the young U.S. Navy. The ship earned the nickname Old Ironsides during the War of 1812, and it remains the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.
1520: Ferdinand Magellan's fleet reaches the strait leading to the Pacific Ocean. The Portuguese explorer, sailing for Spain, found the passage near the southern tip of South America. His ships spent more than a month working through the treacherous channel, now called the Strait of Magellan, before reaching the Pacific in late November.
Born on This Day
1995: Doja Cat, American rapper and singer Turns 31. Grammy winner known for hits like “Say So,” “Kiss Me More,” and “Paint the Town Red.”
1993: Kane Brown, American country singer Turns 33. Country star behind hits like “Heaven” and “What Ifs.”
1988: Glen Powell, American actor Turns 38. Starred in Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone but You, and Twisters.
1983: Zack Greinke, American baseball player Pitcher who won the 2009 American League Cy Young Award with the Kansas City Royals.
1980: Kim Kardashian, American TV personality and businesswoman Turns 46. Rose to fame on Keeping Up with the Kardashians and built a fashion and beauty business.
1976: Jeremy Miller, American actor Played youngest son Ben Seaver on the sitcom Growing Pains.
1959: Ken Watanabe, Japanese actor Turns 67. Oscar nominee for The Last Samurai who also appeared in Inception.
1957: Steve Lukather, American rock guitarist Guitarist and singer for Toto, the band behind “Rosanna,” “Hold the Line,” and “Africa.”
1956: Carrie Fisher, American actress and writer Played Princess Leia in the Star Wars films and wrote the novel Postcards from the Edge.
1953: Charlotte Caffey, American rock guitarist and songwriter Lead guitarist of the Go-Go's who wrote their hit “We Got the Beat.”
1950: Ronald McNair, American astronaut Physicist and the second African American in space, he died in the 1986 Challenger disaster.
1949: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician Turns 77. The longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history.
1942: Judy Sheindlin, American judge and TV host Turns 84. Famous as the no-nonsense star of the courtroom show Judge Judy.
1942: Elvin Bishop, American blues and rock musician Guitarist and singer best known for the 1976 hit “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”
1941: Steve Cropper, American guitarist and songwriter Guitarist for Booker T. & the M.G.'s who co-wrote “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay” with Otis Redding.
1940: Manfred Mann, South African-born English keyboardist Led the bands behind “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and the chart-topping cover of “Blinded by the Light.”
1929: Ursula K. Le Guin, American author Science fiction and fantasy writer of the Earthsea books and The Left Hand of Darkness.
1928: Whitey Ford, American baseball player Hall of Fame pitcher who won six World Series titles with the New York Yankees.
1917: Dizzy Gillespie, American jazz trumpeter and bandleader A founder of bebop, famous for his puffed cheeks, bent trumpet, and “A Night in Tunisia.”
1833: Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and inventor Invented dynamite and left his fortune to create the Nobel Prizes.
