Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
1009 - The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, was completely destroyed by the "mad" Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacked out the Church's foundations down to bedrock
1767 - Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania completed
1851 - Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale
1867 - United States takes possession of Alaska (Alaska Day)
1898 - United States takes possession of Puerto Rico
1907 - Second Geneva Convention
1922 - The British Broadcasting Company was founded by a consortium to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.
1925 - The Grand Ole Opry opens
1954 - Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio

Births
1898 - Shin'ichi Suzuki, violin player and teacher, creator of the Suzuki method (d. 1998)
1918 - Bobby Troup, musician (d. 1999)
1927 - George C. Scott, actor (d. 1999)
1928 - Keith Jackson, American football commentator
1939 - Mike Ditka, American football player, coach, commentator
1961 - Wynton Marsalis, musician

Deaths
1545 - John Taverner, composer
1871 - Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor of computing machines
1893 - Charles Gounod, composer
2000 - Julie London, singer, actress

Holidays
Christianity - Feast of Saint Luke
Alaska: Alaska Day