Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
533 - The Battle of Ticameron begins
687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed
1891 - James Naismith introduces basketball
1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A is launched
1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 is first released
2002 - BBC 7, digital radio station is launched in UK

Births
130 - Lucius Verus, Roman emperor (d. 169)
1802 - János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician
1832 - Gustave Eiffel, civil engineer (d. 1923)
1852 - Antoine Henri Becquerel, physicist and recipient of the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics (d. 1908)
1859 - L. L. Zamenhof, initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
1860 - Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician (d. 1904)
1861 - Charles Duryea, automobile pioneer (d. 1938)
1888 - Maxwell Anderson, writer (d. 1959)
1892 - J. Paul Getty, oil tycoon (d. 1976)
1912 - Stan Kenton, musician (d. 1979)
1916 - Buddy Cole, pianist (d. 1964)
1923 - Freeman Dyson, physicist
1933 - Tim Conway, actor, comedian
1939 - Cindy Birdsong, singer, member of the Supremes
1942 - Dave Clark, musician (“Dave Clark Five”)
1949 - Don Johnson, actor (Miami Vice)

Deaths
1025 - Basil II, Byzantine emperor (b. 958)
1263 - King Haakon IV of Norway (b. 1204)
1683 - Izaak Walton, writer (b. 1593)
1816 - Charles Stanhope, engineer, inventor of the calculator
1872 - Mary Anne Evans, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1792)
1890 - Sitting Bull, Sioux nation leader (b. c.1831)
1943 - Fats Waller, musician (b. 1904)
1944 - Glenn Miller, bandleader (presumed date) (b. 1904)
1958 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, physicist (b. 1900)
1966 - Walt Disney, animator, cartoonist (b. 1901)
1984 - Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
2001 - Rufus Thomas, musician (b. 1917)
2003 - Johnny Cunningham, Scottish musician, member of Silly Wizard

Holidays & observances
Feast day of St. Valerian, martyred in 457