On this date

1831 — Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

1892 — The cornerstone was laid for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

1904 — James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London. 1932 — New York City’s Radio City Music Hall first opened.

1945 — The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were formally established.

1947 — The original version of the puppet character Howdy Doody made his TV debut on NBC’s “Puppet Playhouse.”

1949 — Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed an act recognizing Indonesia’s sovereignty after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.

1968 — Apollo 8 and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.

1970 — The musical play “Hello, Dolly!” closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.

1979 — Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.

1985 — Palestinian guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; 19 victims were killed, plus four attackers who were slain by police and security personnel.

1995 — Israeli jeeps sped out of the West Bank town of Ramallah, capping a seven-week pullout giving Yasser Arafat control over 90 percent of the West Bank’s one million Palestinian residents and one-third of its land.

Thought for today

‘Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.’

Gertrude Stein American author (1874-1946)