Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1502

Christopher Columbus left Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere.

1754

A cartoon in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, ''Join or die.''

1926

Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to make an airplane flight over the North Pole.

1936

Italy annexed Ethiopia as Benito Mussolini celebrated in Rome.

1945

U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1960

The Food and Drug Administration approved use of a birth control pill. (The pill, Enovid, was made by G.D. Searle and Co. of Chicago.)

1961

In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a ''vast wasteland.''

1974

The House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon.

1978

The bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, who'd been abducted by the Red Brigades, was found in an automobile in the center of Rome.

1980

A Liberian freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, killing 35 motorists and causing a 1,400-foot section of the bridge to collapse.

1994

Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire, was placed under quarantine after an outbreak of the Ebola virus.

1994

South Africa's newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country's first black president.

2000

Former four-term Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards was convicted of extortion schemes to manipulate the licensing of riverboat casinos. (Edwards was later sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $250,000.)