Birthdays

• 1475 Michelangelo, Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance (David, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), born in Caprese, Tuscany (d. 1564)
• 1926 Alan Greenspan, American economist, presidential advisor and Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States (1987-2006), born in NYC, New York
• 1937 Ivan Boesky, stockbroker inside trading, born in Detroit, Michigan
• 1972 Shaquille O’Neal, American Basketball Hall of Fame center (4-time NBA champion, 3-time NBA Finals MVP, Olympic gold 1996), born in Newark, New Jersey

Events

• 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte captures city of Jaffa, Palestine, after a 5 day siege, defeating the Ottoman Empire
• 1831 Edgar Allan Poe removed from West Point military academy
• 1836 Battle of the Alamo: After 13 days of fighting 1,500-3,000 Mexican soldiers overwhelm the Texan defenders, killing 182-257 Texans including William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett
• 1857 Dred Scott Decision: US Supreme Court rules Africans cannot be US citizens
• 1865 US President Abraham Lincoln‘s 2nd Inaugural Ball
• 1869 Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society
• 1889 German firm Bayer patents the medicine aspirin
• 1922 Babe Ruth signs 3 year contract with NY Yankees at $52,000 a year
• 1964 Boxing legend Cassius Clay joins the Nation of Islam and changes his name to “Muhammad Ali“, calling his former title a “slave name”
• 1967 Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Allilujeva asks for political asylum in US
• 1972 Jack Nicklaus, passes Arnold Palmer as golf’s all-time money winner
• 1981 Walter Cronkite signs off as anchorman of “CBS Evening News”
• 1983 Helmut Kohl’s CDU/CSU wins West German parliament elections