Who was born on this date?

1565 - Spanish explorers led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine in Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America. St. Augustine was founded 42 years before the English settlement of Jamestown in Virginia.

1644 - The settlement of New Amsterdam was seized from Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant by the English under Colonel Richard Nicholls without a shot being fired. It was later renamed New York after James, Duke of York, the future King James II.

1755 - In the Seven Years War in North America, Col. William Johnson with his English militia defeated a combined French and Indian force in the Battle of Lake George.

1760 - British troops under Jeffrey Amherst defeated the French in the Battle of Montreal; after the loss, the French surrendered their arms throughout Canada.

1831 - Russians defeated 30,000 Poles in the battle for Warsaw in the second Polish rising. More than 9,000 Poles died in the three-day battle.

1847 - Americans under Gen. Winfield Scott defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of Molino del Rey in the Mexican War.

1866 - In Chicago, Illinois, James and Jennie Bushnell became the parents of sextuplets when their three boys and three girls were born. Two of the babies died, but the surviving four lived long lives. This was the first birth of sextuplets recorded.

1883 - The Northern Pacific Railroad across the U.S. was completed.

1888 - Annie Chapman was found disemboweled in an East London street, the second victim of "Jack The Ripper."

1892 - Written by Francis Bellamy, the original "Pledge of Allegiance" was first published in an issue of The Youth's Companion in Boston.

1900 - Galveston, Texas was hit by the worst hurricane in United States history. Twenty-three foot waves and winds up to 135 miles per hour killed 6,000 people. The storm lasted for 18 hours. The city, on an island connected to the mainland by a 2-mile long causeway, had to be rebuilt. When the renovations were completed, Galvestion was raised 15 feet above its old level and a new sea wall was built six feet higher than the former high-water mark.

1926 - The League of Nations Assembly voted unanimously to admit Germany as a member.

1935 - The Hoboken Four, featuring lead signer Frank Sinatra, appeared on WOR radio's "Major Bowes Amateur Hour". The group won the contest held at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.

1935 - Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long was shot while attending a session of the state House of Representatives in Baton Rouge. Fatally wounded, he died two days later.

1941 - In World War II, the blockade of Leningrad began as the German army encircled the city, cutting it off from the rest of the country. The siege lasted until January 1944 with nearly 1 million civilians being killed.

1941 - For Columbia Records, Harry James and his orchestra recorded "Miserlou".

1943 - New York Giant Ace Adams pitched his 62nd game, setting a major-league baseball record for number of games worked by one pitcher in one season.

1943 - United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the unconditional surrender of Italy in World War II.

1944 - Soviet troops crossed the border into Bulgaria, ostensibly because of Bulgaria's refusal to declare war on Germany.

1944 - After 7 years off air, Ed Wynn resumed his radio career. Wynn starred in NBC Blue network's "Happy Island".

1944 - Launched from The Hague, the first German flying V-2 bombs landed at Chiswick in London. Three people were killed.

1945 - Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister during most of World War II, attempted suicide rather than face a war crimes tribunal. The attempt failed and he was later convicted and hanged.

1945 - In Washington, DC, a bus equipped with a two-way radio was put in service for the first time.

1945 - Bess Myerson of New York was crowned Miss America. She was the first Jewish contestant to win the title.

1950 - Sandy Sadler took the world featherweight boxing title away from Willie Pep by a knockout, after Peps shoulder was dislocated while he was in a clinch with Sadler.

1951 - A peace treaty with Japan was signed by 48 other nations in San Francisco.

1952 - The Ernest Hemingway novel "The Old Man and the Sea" was published.

1954 - The South East Asia Defense Treaty was signed in Manila by representatives of eight nations including New Zealand, the United States and the Philippines. The treaty provided for collective response should any signatory be attacked.

1955 - The Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League pennant in the earliest time a team had done so.

1958 - Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates tied a major-league baseball record by hitting three triples. Clemente led the Bucs to a 4-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds.

1958 - The International Olympic Committee barred Communist China from the 1960 Olympic games.

1965 - Bert Campaneris of the Kansas City Athletics played all nine positions as his team lost to the California Angels, 5-3 in 13 innings. He gave up one run while pitching.

1965 - An ad in a Hollywood newspaper on this date requested four "insane boys, ages 17-21" to act in a television series about a rock and roll band. More than 400 hopefuls auditioned and those selected to be The Monkees were Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork. The show, The Monkees, was the brainchild of producers Bert Schneider and Robert Rafelson. Within the year following the show's premiere, the four young men became international prime time pop stars.

1966 - Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi TV classic, Star Trek, with William Shatner starring as Captain James T. Kirk, debuted on NBC. It became the number-one cult television show of all time, with seven movies, more than 500 fan publications, 100 novels, half a billion dollars in merchandise sales, and the spawning of the highest-rated weekly syndicated show in America, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

1967 - A new constitution came into effect in Uganda, making the country a republic.

1973 - Hank Aaron got home run #709 went into the record books. The Atlanta batter set a major league baseball record for most home runs hit in one league. In 1974, Aaron decimated Babe Ruth’s record of 714 homers.

1974 - In a controversial move, US President Gerald R. Ford pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he "committed or may have committed" while in office. Ford defended his decision by explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate Affair.

1979 - The body of film actress Jean Seberg was found wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her car. The autopsy disclosed that she had died of a pill overdose, and her body had been there over a week. Seberg had suffered from poor mental health for several years, which was brought on by a previous miscarriage and a harassing FBI investigation into her radical politics, which included befriending leaders of the Black Panther movement. Film credits for the attractive actress included Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, The Mouse That Roared, Breathless, Lilith, A Fine Madness, Paint Your Wagon, and Airport. Seberg was 40 years old.

1984 - 7,300 students from Notre Dame assembled what may have been the longest bus caravan ever when they traveled from South Bend to Indianapolis, Indiana, in 147 buses, to see the sold-out Notre Dame-Purdue football game.

1986 - Herschel Walker debuted in the National Football League. He took the Dallas Cowboys to beat the New York Giants a31-28. Walker played in the USFL for the New Jersey Generals previously.

1991 - The Yugoslav republic of Macedonia voted overwhelmingly to become an independent state.

1994 - 132 people were killed when A USAir Boeing 737 crashed as it was approaching Pittsburgh International Airport.

1995 - Major players in the Yugoslav crisis agreed in Geneva on the basic principles for peace in Bosnia; the agreement led to the signing of the Dayton peace accords in November.

1996 - Hundreds of panicked Spaniards flooded television and radio switchboards over the weekend when a newscaster broadcast a report showing space aliens hovering over New York. The purported news flashes on the Telecinco network were really ads for the film Independence Day, which was scheduled to open at theaters in Spain a few days later. A text warning on the TV's screen said "advertisement," but "apparently people can't watch footage, listen, and read at the same time," ad executive José Luis Andarias told the Associated Press.