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| On this date in: | |
| 1605 | The Gunpowder Plot failed when Guy Fawkes was seized before he could blow up the English Parliament. |
| 1872 | Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in a presidential election. |
| 1895 | George B. Selden of Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for an automobile. |
| 1912 | Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt. |
| 1940 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office, beating Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie. |
| 1956 | Britain and France landed troops in Egypt during fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces around the Suez Canal. |
| 1974 | Ella Grasso of Connecticut became the first woman elected governor in the United States without succeeding her husband. |
| 1989 | Pianist Vladimir Horowitz died at age 86. |
| 1994 | Former President Ronald Reagan disclosed he had Alzheimer's disease. |
| 1994 | George Foreman became boxing's oldest heavyweight champion at age 45 by knocking out Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas. |
| 1996 | President Bill Clinton won a second term over former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. |
| 1998 | A study showed strong genetic evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child by his slave, Sally Hemings. |
| 1999 | U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared Microsoft Corp. a monopoly, saying the software giant's aggressive actions were "stifling innovation" and hurting consumers. |
| 2006 | Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for crimes against humanity. (He was executed the following month.) |
| 2007 | Hollywood writers went on strike. |
| 2007 | Police in major Pakistani cities fired tear gas and clubbed lawyers protesting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. |
Article of the day
George Foreman becomes oldest heavyweight champ
On this day in 1994, George Foreman, age 45, becomes boxing's oldest heavyweight champion when he defeats 26-year-old Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas. More than 12,000 spectators at the MGM Grand Hotel watched Foreman dethrone Moorer, who went into the fight with a 35-0 record. Foreman dedicated his upset win to "all my buddies in the nursing home and all the guys in jail."
Born in 1949 in Marshal, Texas, Foreman had a troubled childhood and dropped out of high school. Eventually, he joined President Lyndon Johnson's Jobs Corps work program and discovered a talent for boxing. "Big George," as he was nicknamed, took home a gold medal for the U.S. at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. In 1973 in Kingston, Jamaica, after winning his first 37 professional matches, 34 by knockout, Foreman KO'd "Smokin'" Joe Frazier after two rounds and was crowned heavyweight champ. At 1974's "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasha, Zaire, the younger, stronger Foreman suffered a surprising loss to underdog Muhammad Ali and was forced to relinquish his championship title. Three years later, Big George morphed from pugilist into preacher, when he had a religious experience in his dressing room after losing a fight. He retired from boxing, became an ordained minister in Houston and founded a youth center.
A decade later, the millions he'd made as a boxer gone, Foreman returned to the ring at age 38 and staged a successful comeback. When he won his second heavyweight title in his 1994 fight against Moorer, becoming the WBA and IBF champ, Foreman was wearing the same red trunks he'd had on the night he lost to Ali.
Foreman didn't hang onto the heavyweight mantle for long. In March 1995, he was stripped of his WBA title after refusing to fight No. 1 contender Tony Tucker, and he gave up his IBF title in June 1995 rather than fight a rematch with Axel Schulz, whom he'd narrowly beat in a controversial judges' decision in April of that same year. Foreman's last fight was in 1997; he lost to Shannon Biggs. He retired with a lifetime record of 76-5.
Outside of the boxing ring, Foreman, who has five sons, all named George, and five daughters, has become enormously wealthy as an entrepreneur and genial TV pitchman for a variety of products, including the hugely popular George Foreman Grill.
Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=VideoArticle&id=52081
Today Birthdays
| Tilda Swinton turns 48 years old today. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 AP Photo/Miguel Villagran Actress Tilda Swinton turns 48 years old today.
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