MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2004: Chechen rebels seized a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia; the siege, which ended two days later, resulted in the deaths of more than 330 people, the majority of them children. [ Test your knowledge of Russian history.]

1980: Due to poor health, Canadian activist Terry Fox, who had part of his leg amputated because of cancer, was forced to end his Marathon of Hope, a run across Canada to raise money for cancer research; it was later discovered that the cancer had spread to his lungs, and he died in 1981. [ Take our quiz about diseases and human health.]

1972: Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky to become the first native-born American to hold the title of world chess champion. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about chess.]

1952: Life magazine published Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, his last major work of fiction; it was also released as a book, and in 1953 it won a Pulitzer Prize. [ Test your knowledge of famous novels.]

1875: American novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, best known as the creator of Tarzan, was born. [Take our quiz about famous authors.]

1838: American frontiersman William Clark, who shared with Meriwether Lewis the leadership of the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition, died. [ Take our exploration and discovery quiz.]