TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1964

A jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, and sentenced him to death.

1794

Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America’s cotton industry.

1883

German political philosopher Karl Marx died in London at age 64.

1900

Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.

1951

During the Korean War, United Nations forces recaptured Seoul.

1962

Democrat Edward M. Kennedy officially launched in Boston his successful candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts once held by his brother, President John F. Kennedy.

1965

Israel’s cabinet formally approved establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany.

1967

The body of President John F. Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

1980

A LOT Polish Airlines jet crashed while attempting to land in Warsaw, killing all 87 people aboard, including 22 members of a U.S. amateur boxing team.

1990

The Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies held a secret ballot that elected Mikhail S. Gorbachev to a new, powerful presidency.

1991

A British court overturned the convictions of the “Birmingham Six,” who had spent 16 years in prison for a 1974 Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered them released.

2015

Robert Durst, a wealthy eccentric linked to two killings and his wife’s disappearance, was arrested by the FBI in New Orleans on a murder warrant a day before HBO aired the final episode of a serial documentary about his life.