TODAY IN HISTORY

1312:

England’s King Edward III was born at Windsor Castle.

1789:

Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, Jean-Baptiste Leroy: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

1911:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an unauthorized motion picture adaptation of the novel “Ben-Hur” by General Lew Wallace infringed on the book’s copyright.

1940:

The Walt Disney film “Fantasia,” featuring animated segments set to classical music, had its world premiere in New York.

1942:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.

1956:

The Supreme Court struck down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses.

1969:

Speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew accused network television news departments of bias and distortion, and urged viewers to lodge complaints.

1974:

Karen Silkwood, a 28-year-old technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, died in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter.

1982:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

1985:

Some 23,000 residents of Armero, Colombia, died when a volcanic mudslide buried the city.

2001:

President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the White House, where they pledged to slash Cold War-era nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.

2015:

Islamic State militants carried out a set of coordinated attacks in Paris on the national stadium, restaurants and streets, and a crowded concert hall, killing 130 people in the worst attack on French soil since World War II.