| 2012 | Twenty elementary school children and six adults are killed by a lone gunman in Newtown, Connecticut.
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| 2011 | Comic book artist Joe Simon (Captain America co-creator), dies at age 98.
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| 2008 | US President George W. Bush has a pair of shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist during a Baghdad news conference. (The shoes missed their intended target.)
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| 2004 | France's Millau Viaduct -- the world's tallest bridge -- officially opens.
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| 1998 | Actor Norman Fell (Three's Company) dies of cancer at age 74.
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| 1993 | Actress Myrna Loy dies at age 88.
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| 1991 | 476 people die when the ferry boat Salem Express sinks in the Red Sea.
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| 1989 | Movie actor Jock Mahoney (Dallas, Tarzan) dies at age 70.
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| 1989 | Andrei D. Sakharov, author and Nobel laureate, dies in Moscow, at age 68.
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| 1986 | The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager , takes flight from Edwards Air Force Base (CA) on the first non-stop, self-contained flight around the world.
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| 1985 | NY Yankees great Roger Maris dies of cancer at age 51.
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| 1981 | Israel annexes the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in 1967.
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| 1980 | Fans around the world pay their respects to former Beatle John Lennon, six days after he was assassinated in New York City.
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| 1970 | George Harrison, lead guitarist for The Beatles, receives a gold record for his 45-rpm solo single, My Sweet Lord.
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| 1967 | Southern Yemen (formerly Aden) joins the United Nations.
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| 1961 | The United Republic of Tanzania is admitted to the United Nations.
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| 1955 | Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sri Lanka all join the United Nations.
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| 1946 | The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish UN headquarters in New York.
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| 1939 | The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations.
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| 1934 | Turkish women are given the right to vote.
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| 1911 | Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his expedition of four companions, are the first to reach the South Pole and return safely.
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| 1861 | Prince Albert, husband of England's Queen Victoria, dies in London.
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| 1819 | Alabama becomes the 22nd state of the US.
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1799 | 
First US president George Washington dies at age 66.
(photo credit: NARA)
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