Today:
1. 1809: Edgar Allan Poe, the American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
2. 1937: Howard Hughes set a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds.
3. 1977: President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino, better known as Tokyo Rose, an American-born woman accused of being a Japanese wartime broadcaster.
4. 2006: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched on a mission to Pluto, providing valuable information about the distant dwarf planet.
5. 2012: The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in the deaths of 32 people and leading to the ship’s partial sinking.