1898 – US President William McKinley signs a joint resolution in Congress declaring war on Spain, beginning the Spanish-American War. The hostilities began after the USS Maine blast in Havana, leading to US intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to US dominance in the Caribbean region and resulted in the purchase of Spanish Pacific properties.
1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride. Radium chloride (RaCl2) is a salt of radium and chlorine, and the first compound of radium isolated in a pure state. Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne used it in their original radium separation from barium. This was one of the many scientific inventions of Marie and Pierre Curie couple.
1912 – Bram Stoker, 64, dies. Stoker, was an Irish author best known today for his 1899 Gothic Dracula novel. During his lifetime, he was best known as the personal assistant to actor Sir Henry Irving and the business manager of the Lyceum Theater, which Irving possessed. He is considered one of the best horror novelists of all time.
1949 – Massimo D Alema is born in Rome. D Alema is an Italian politician who was the 53rd Prime Minister from 1998 to 2000. Later he was Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister from 2006 to 2008. He is also a journalist and served for a time as Party Secretary. Democratic Left. D Alema was a member of the Italian Communist Party, and he was the first former communist to become prime minister of a NATO country and, the only former communist prime minister of Italy.
1968 – British politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial speech on “Blood Rivers”. His speech sharply criticized mass immigration, particularly the United Kingdom’s immigration to the Commonwealth and the proposed racial bill. It became known as the “Blood Rivers” speech, although Powell always called it the “Birmingham Speech.”
1972 – The Apollo 16 lunar module, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, and Thomas Mattingly, lands on the moon. Apollo 16 was the tenth mission, in the Apollo space program of the United States, the second in the last place to descend to the Moon, and the second to descend to the lunar highlands. The mission lasted 11 days, 1 hour, and 51 minutes. Astronauts spent 72 hours on the moon’s surface.
1999 – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Colorado. At the time, it was the deadliest film shoot in school history in the United States. The motive remains unclear, but the couple planned the massacre for about a year and hoped the massacre would cause the biggest death in U.S. history, after that of Oklahoma.
2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 by becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy race. Patrick, is a former American professional racing driver. She is the most successful woman in the history of American racing with open wheels victory her 2008 Indy Japan 300 victory is the only victory by a woman in an IndyCar Series race.
