Today in history

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1792 Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major had its first public performance in London.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1775 Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” 1806 Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east. 1914 The first installment of “The Perils of Pauline,” the legendary silent film serial starring Pearl White, premiered in the greater New York City area. 1933 The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers. 1942 The first Japanese-Americans evacuated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp in Manzanar, California. 1956 Pakistan became an Islamic republic. 1965 America’s first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight. 1973 Before sentencing a group of Watergate break-in defendants, Chief U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica read aloud a letter he’d received from James W. McCord Jr. which said there was “political pressure” to “plead guilty and remain silent.” 1983 President Ronald Reagan first proposed developing technology to intercept incoming enemy missiles _ an idea that came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. Dr. Barney Clark, recipient of a Jarvik permanent artificial heart, died at the University of Utah Medical Center after 112days with the device. 1994 Aeroflot Flight 593, an Airbus A310, crashed in Siberia with the loss of all 75 people on board; it turned out that a pilot’s teenage son who was allowed to sit at the controls had accidentally disengaged the autopilot, causing the jetliner to go out of control. 2001 Russia’s orbiting Mir space station ended its 15-year odyssey with a planned fiery plunge into the South Pacific.