1962 – US promise Thailand assistance against communist aggression
1966 – Barry Sadlers’ “Ballad of the Green Berets” becomes #1 (13 weeks)
1980 – French Academy, founded in 1635, elects it 1st woman novelist (Marguerita Youcenar)
1983 – New Bedford, Mass woman charges she was gang-raped atop a pool table
1988 – Julie Krone becomes winningest female jockey (1205 victories)
1995 – 9th American Comedy Award: Rodney Dangerfield
1923 – Erhard Karkoschka, composer
1931 – John Smith, actor (Cimarron City, Laramie, 7 Angry Men), born in Los Angeles, California
1946 – Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry, Cameroon, astronaut (STS 18)
1949 – Martin Buchan, Scottish soccer player
1983 – Andranik Teymourian, Iranian soccer player
1996 – Savanah Stehlin, American actress
1959 – Fred Stone, actor (Hideaway, Westerner), dies at 85
1982 – Ayn Rand, Russian-born American author-philosopher (Atlas Shrugged), dies of heart failure at 77
1992 – Maria Vieira da Silva, Portuguese painter (Mirror Palace), dies at 83
1997 – Anthony Hopkins, clinical Neurologist, dies at 59
1998 – Adem Jasari, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader, killed
2005 – Hans Bethe, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)