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. 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. 2011 — Academy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor died in Los Angeles at age 79.