1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded.

1922 – Jack Kerouac, American writer (d. 1969) He lived with his mother. And repeated himself.

1925 - Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died at age 58.

1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This was also the first of his "fireside chats". They were not held by a fireplace, nor were they chats. Discuss.

1946 - Liza Minnelli Original Gansta. Here she is in Cabaret.

1955 – Charlie Parker, American jazz saxophonist (b. 1920)

1969 - Police raid George Harrison’s casa for drugs. He is reported to have told the officers "You needn't have turned the whole bloody place upside down. All you had to do was ask me and I would have shown you where I keep everything." Oh that Georgie, always so helpful. He had hash, like a shit load. Harrison and his wife Pattie Boyd are arrested, and missed Paul and Linda McCartney's wedding. On this day too. Same police guy raided Lennon the year before and was later arrested, himself, for planting drugs.

1980 - A Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys. As if clowns weren’t scary enough already.

1993 - Janet Reno was sworn in as the nation's first female attorney general.

2000 - Pope John Paul II asked God's forgiveness for the sins of Roman Catholics through the ages, including wrongs inflicted on Jews, women and minorities. So are we cool?

2008 - New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned two days after reports had surfaced that he was a client of a prostitution ring. #9