Today in History

• 1723 Sir Joshua Reynolds, English portrait painter.
• 1746 Giuseppe Piazzi, discovered 1st asteroid, Ceres.
• 1819 S. Aronhold --1884
• 1821 Mary Baker Eddy
• 1872 Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer, discoverer of South Pole.
• 1888 Frits Zernike, inventor of phase-contrast microscope (Nobel 1953)
• 1907 Barbara Stanwyck
• 1911 Ginger Rogers, danced beautifully with Fred Astaire
• 1924 Bess Myerson
• 1948 Pinchas Zukerman, violinist.
• 1958 Michael Flatley
• 1968 Barry Sanders
• 1971 Corey Feldman

• the National Blueberry Festival
• Start of SPACEWEEK.
• 1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; end of Moslem power in Spain.
• 1548 La Paz, Bolivia is founded.
• 1769 Father Serra founds Mission San Diego, 1st mission in Calif.
• 1790 Congress establishes the District of Columbia.
• 1861 1st major battle of the Civil War -- Bull Run.
• 1935 1st automatic parking meter in US installed: Oklahoma City, OK
• 1945 1st atomic blast, Trinity Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico.
• 1969 Apollo 11, first manned ship to land on the moon is launched with astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins.