On this day in history —

• Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem, beginning the Babylonian Captivity (597 BCE)
• Caligula becomes emperor of Rome (37 CE)
• In response to Richard the Lionhearted’s decision to join the Crusades, a pogrom against Jews in the English city of York kills 150 (1190 CE)
• Samoset of the Wompanoag tribe greets the settlers at Plymouth Colony (1621 CE)
• The Long Parliament, begun in 1640, ends (1660 CE)
• The U.S. Corps of Engineers is founded (1802 CE)
• Sam Houston is removed from office as governor of Texas for refusing to swear an oath to the new Confederate government (1861 CE)
• Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid fueled-rocket (1926 CE) — Cover
• Gemini VIII, carrying Neil Armstrong and David Scott, lifts off (1966 CE)
• Soldiers under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Calley kill at least 347 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in what became known as the My Lai Massacre (1968 CE)
• Beirut CIA chief William Buckley is kidnapped by Hezbollah operatives; he would be killed after 15 months of torture (1984 CE)
• Journalist Terry Anderson is kidnapped by Hezbollah operatives; he would be held for six years and nine months before his release in 1991 (1985 CE)
• Oliver North and John Poindexter are indicted on charges related to the Iran-Contra affair (1988 CE)
• In the Halabja Poison Gas Attack (کیمیابارانی ھەڵەبجە), Saddam Hussein orders the use of chemical weapons against a Kurdish town, killing at least 3,200 and injuring at least 7,000 more (1988 CE)
• Mississippi becomes the last state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlaws slavery — but doesn’t turn in the final documentation for another 18 years (1995 CE)

It’s the birthday of —

• Todd McFarlane, comic artist (1961)
• Flavor Flav, rapper (1959)
• Ozzie Newsome, football player (1956)
• Hollis Stacey, golfer (1954)
• Joe DeLamielleure, football plyaer (1951)
• Erik Estrada, TV star (1949)
• Margaret Weis, fantasy writer (1948)
• Chuck Woolery, game show host (1941)
• Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut (1932)
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sociologist and politician (1927)
• Jerry Lewis, comic (1926)
• Leo McKern, TV star (1920)
• Mercedes McCambridge, Exorcist voice (1916)
• Pat Nixon, first lady (1912)
• Josef Mengele, angel of death (1911)
• Henny Youngman, comic (1906)
• Georg Ohm, electrical unit namesake (1789)
• James Madison, fourth president (1751)
• Caroline Herschel, astronomer (1750)

Deaths —

• Ivan Dixon, Hogan’s hero (2008)
• Arthur Godfrey, radio personality (1983)
• T. Bone Walker, musician (1975)
• Thomas E. Dewey, presidential candidate (1971)
• Sergeant Stubby, most decorated war dog of World War I (1926)
• Judge Roy Bean, law west of the Pecos (1903)
• Aubrey Beardsley, artist (1898)
• Nathaniel Bowditch, navigator (1838)
• Tiberius, emperor of Rome (37)

Holidays —

• First night of Bacchanalia (ancient Rome)
• Day of the Book Smugglers (Lithuania)
• Latvian Legion Day (Latvia)
• St. Urhu’s Day, celebrating the hero who drove the grasshoppers from Finland (Finnish-American communities in northern Minnesota)