TODAY’S HISTORY

1962: The Telstar 1 satellite transmitted the first live, transatlantic TV broadcast, featuring CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite.

1967: The 12th Street Riots began in Detroit, ending five days later and resulting in 43 people dead, hundreds injured and more than 1,400 buildings burned to the ground. 1999: With the launch of Columbia, Eileen Collins became the first woman to command a U.S. space shuttle flight.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Emil Jannings (18841950), actor; Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), author; Anthony M. Kennedy (1936-), Supreme Court justice; Woody Harrelson (1961-), actor; Eriq La Salle (1962-); actor/director; Slash (1965-), guitarist; Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014), actor; Alison Krauss (1971-), singer-songwriter; Marlon Wayans (1972-), actor; Michelle Williams (1979-), singer/actress; Daniel Radcliffe (1989-), actor.

TODAY’S FACT: Comet Hale-bopp, discovered on this day in 1995, was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, from May 1996 to December 1997. The previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811, was visible for about nine months.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1996, injured American gymnast Kerri Strug scored a 9.7 on the vault as the U.S. won its firstever Olympic gold medal in the women’s team gymnastics competition.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.” — Raymond Chandler, “Farewell, My Lovely”

TODAY’S NUMBER: 1,400 — the distance from Earth (in light years) of Kepler-452b, a potentially Earthlike exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of a star in the constellation Cygnus. NASA announced its discovery on this day in 2015.