Today:
1187: Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, captures Jerusalem after an 88-year Crusader rule.
1780: British spy Major John André is hanged by the Continental Army in Tappan, New York, during the American Revolutionary War. He was discovered with papers revealing Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British.
1835: The Battle of Gonzales, the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution, occurs as Texan settlers resist Mexican forces who had come to seize a cannon.
1919: President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. His wife, Edith Wilson, would control access to him and manage his affairs for the remainder of his presidency.
1944: The Warsaw Uprising tragically ends as the Polish Home Army is forced to surrender to German forces after a 63-day struggle.
1950: The comic strip “Peanuts,” created by Charles M. Schulz, is published for the first time in seven U.S. newspapers, introducing characters like Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
1958: Guinea declares its independence from France, becoming the first of France’s West African colonies to do so.
1967: Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1985: Actor Rock Hudson dies from AIDS-related complications, becoming one of the first major celebrities to succumb to the disease and bringing significant public attention to the epidemic.
2002: The Beltway sniper attacks begin in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, sparking a three-week period of fear and a massive law enforcement investigation.