TODAY IN HISTORY

1939

The federal government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, New York.

1943

The nearly month-long Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the Great Synagogue.

1960

The first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, by physicist Theodore Maiman.

1966

China launched the Cultural Revolution, a radical as well as deadly reform movement aimed at purging the country of “counter-revolutionaries.”

1975

Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1997

President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed Black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis.

Birthdays

Actor Danny Trejo is 78. Actor Pierce Brosnan is 69. Actor Debra Winger is 67. Rock musician Boyd Tinsley is 58. Singer Janet Jackson is 56. Actor Tori Spelling is 49. DJ Alex Pall is 37. Actor Megan Fox is 36. Actor Thomas BrodieSangster is 32. Olympic bronze medal figure skater Ashley Wagner is 31.