MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2018: American evangelist Billy Graham—whose large-scale preaching missions, known as crusades, and friendship with numerous U.S. presidents brought him to international prominence—died at age 99. [Take our Christianity quiz.]

1995: American businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon. It was the first of his many aviation records. [Take our quiz about the history of flight.]

1936: American lawyer and politician Barbara Jordan, the first African American congresswoman to come from the Deep South, was born in Houston, Texas. [ Read about seven female firsts in U.S. politics.]

1916: The Battle of Verdun, one of the most devastating engagements of World War I, began. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War I quiz.]

1907: W.H. Auden, one of the foremost English-language poets of his era, was born. [Test your knowledge of the opening lines of famous poems.]

1903: Author Anaïs Nin , whose literary reputation rests on the eight published volumes of her personal diaries, was born in France. [Discover how well you know famous authors.]