Important Events

1633 Battle of Liaoluo Bay: Dutch East India Company defeated by Chinese Ming naval forces in southern Fujian sea

1721 Tsar Peter the Great becomes “All-Russian Imperator”

1879 Thomas Edison perfects carbonized cotton filament light bulb

1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide, creating 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich meridian

1907 Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock leads to US wide run on banks

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy addresses TV about Russian missile bases in Cuba and imposes a naval blockade on Cuba, beginning the missile crisis

Today In Film & TV

1942 “Now, Voyager” film directed by Irving Rapper starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rain premieres in New York

Today In Music

1883 New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House has its grand opening with a performance of the opera “Faust”

Today In Sports

1978 8th NYC Women’s Marathon won by Grete Waitz in her first appearance in world record time 2:32:30