Cicero read the last of his Catiline Orations in 63 BC. Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, with passage of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution. Big day for modernisation in Britain in 1958: Subscriber Trunk Dialling was inaugurated by a phone call placed by Brenda, in Bristol, to the Lord Provost in Edinburgh and the Preston Bypass was opened. In 2007, a gunman armed with an AK-47 entered the Von Maur department store at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska. He killed eight people and injured four others before killing himself.
Born today: Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), Fritz Lang (1890-1976), Walt Disney (1901-1966), Otto Preminger (1906-1986), José Carreras (1946), Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards (1963) and John Rzeznik (1965).
It is National Day and the King's Birthday in Thailand.
