Also on this date
what’s believed to be the first electric traffic light system was installed in Cleveland, Ohio, at the intersection of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue.
Jesse Owens of the United States won the 200-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics, collecting the third of his four gold medals.
Operation Big Switch began as remaining prisoners taken during the Korean War were exchanged at Panmunjom.
movie star Marilyn Monroe, 36, was found dead in her Los Angeles home; her death was ruled a probable suicide from “acute barbiturate poisoning.”
South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela was arrested on charges of leaving the country without a passport and inciting workers to strike; it was the start of 27 years of imprisonment.
U.S. Navy pilot Everett Alvarez Jr. became the first American flier to be shot down and captured by North Vietnam; he was held prisoner until February 1973.
the Beatles’ “Revolver” album was released in the United Kingdom on the Parlophone label; it was released in the United States three days later by Capitol Records.
the federal government began firing air traffic controllers who had gone out on strike.
actor Richard Burton died in Geneva, Switzerland, at age 58.
Democratic congressional leaders formally launched an investigation into whether the 1980 Reagan campaign had secretly conspired with Iran to delay release of American hostages until after the presidential election, thereby preventing an “October surprise” that supposedly would have benefited President Jimmy Carter. (A task force concluded there was “no credible evidence” of such a deal.)
Thirty-three workers were trapped in a copper mine in northern Chile after a tunnel caved in (all were rescued after being entombed for 69 days).
Actor Jennifer Aniston secretly married actor-director Justin Theroux at their home in Bel Air, California.
Toni Morrison, the first Black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, died at 88 in New York.