Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
1346 - Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland was captured by Edward III of England at Calais, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years
1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile. Their marriage leads to the unification of Aragon and Castile in a single country, Spain
1604 - Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed that an exceptionally bright star had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus, which turned out to be the last supernova to have been observed in our own galaxy, the Milky Way
1662 - Charles II of England sold Dunkerque to France for 40,000 pounds
1777 - American troops defeat the British in the Battle of Saratoga
1781 - General Charles Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, Virginia
1931 - Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion
1933 - Albert Einstein, fleeing Nazi Germany, moves to the US
1937 - Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald Duck's three almost identical nephews, first appeared in a newspaper comic strip
1979 - Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area
1994 - Draft peace treaty between Israel and Jordan

Births
1912 - Pope John Paul I, religious leader (d. 1978)
1936 - Hiroo Kanamori, seismologist
1940 - James Seals, musician
1946 - Sir Cameron Mackintosh, stage producer, director
1956 - Mae Jemison, astronaut

Deaths
1849 - Frederic Chopin, musician, composer
1910 - Julia Ward Howe, composer
1931 - Alfons Maria Jakob, neurologist
1967 - Henry Pu Yi, last emperor of China
1979 - S. J. Perelman, writer

Holidays & observances
Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Antioch