by The Boston Globe

Today's birthdays: Singer Diana Trask is 69. Musical conductor James Levine is 66. R&B singer Rosetta Hightower (The Orlons) is 65. Actor Ted Shackelford is 63. Actor Bryan Brown is 62. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 61. ``American Idol'' judge Randy Jackson is 53. Actress Frances McDormand is 52. Rock musician Steve Shelley is 47. Actor Paul La Greca is 47. R&B singer Chico DeBarge is 39. Actress Selma Blair is 37. Singer KT Tunstall is 34. R&B singer Virgo Williams (Ghost Town DJs) is 34. Singer Jason Mraz is 32. New England Patriots tackle Matt Light is 31. San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson is 30. Rock singer Duffy is 25. Country singer Katie Armiger is 18.

In 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his ``Type-Writer.''

In 1931, aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on a round-the-world flight that lasted eight days and 15 hours.

In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.

In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.

In 1967, President Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin held the first of two meetings at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.

In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren.

In 1972, President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974.)

In 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, after a bomb widely believed to have been planted by Sikh separatists exploded.

In 1989, the Supreme Court refused to shut down the ``dial-a-porn'' industry, ruling Congress had gone too far in passing a law banning all sexually oriented phone message services.

In 1999, US Marines in Kosovo killed one person and wounded two others after coming under fire; no Marines were injured. Two months after his retirement, Wayne Gretzky was voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame along with former referee Andy Van Hellemond and Ian (Scotty) Morrison in the builder category.

In 2004, in a major retreat, the United States abandoned an attempt to win a new exemption for American troops from international prosecution for war crimes.

In 2008, outraged at the turmoil in Zimbabwe, the UN Security Council declared that a fair presidential vote was impossible because of a ``campaign of violence'' waged by President Robert Mugabe's government.

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