MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2014: Canadian ice hockey player Jean Béliveau, considered one of the game's greatest centres, noted for his prolific scoring, died at age 83. [ See if Béliveau made our list of the 10 best hockey players of all time.]

2001: Following revelations of massive accounting fraud, Enron filed for bankruptcy protection; the energy-trading company was once the seventh largest corporation in the United States.

1993: Colombian criminal Pablo Escobar—who, as head of the Medellín cartel , was arguably the world's most powerful drug trafficker in the 1980s and early '90s—was killed during a shoot-out with authorities. [Discover eight interesting facts about Pablo Escobar.]

1983: The groundbreaking music video for Michael Jackson's song Thriller aired on MTV. [ Take our quiz about famous songs.]

1982: William C. DeVries implanted the first permanent artificial heart in Barney Clark; the aluminum and plastic device was called the Jarvik-7. [Test your knowledge of the human body.]

1981: American singer Britney Spears—who helped spark the teen-pop phenomenon in the late 1990s and later endured intense public scrutiny for her personal life—was born. [Test your knowledge of pop music.]