1763 – King George III issues the Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing Indigenous lands in North America north and west of the Alleghenies to white settlements.

1826 – The Granite Railway begins operations as the first chartered railway in the U.S.

1868 – Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the highest at any American university to that date.

1916 – Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.

1950 – Mother Teresa establishes the Missionaries of Charity.

1988 – A hunter discovers three gray whales trapped under the ice near Alaska; the situation becomes a multinational effort to free the whales.

1996 – Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.

1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming. He died five days later.

1870 – Uncle Dave Macon, American old-time country banjo player, singer-songwriter, and comedian (d. 1952)

1879 – Joe Hill, Swedish-born American labor activist and poet (d. 1915)

1885 – Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)

1888 – Henry A. Wallace, American agronomist and politician, 33rd Vice President of the United States (d. 1965)

1897 – Elijah Muhammad, American religious leader (d. 1975)

1900 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician (d. 1945)

1927 – R. D. Laing, Scottish psychiatrist and author (d. 1989)

1931 – Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop and activist, Nobel Prize laureate

1934 – Amiri Baraka, American poet, playwright, and academic (d. 2014)

1934 – Ulrike Meinhof, German far-left terrorist, co-founder of the Red Army Faction, journalist (d. 1976)

1939 – Clive James, Australian television host, author, and critic (d. 2019)

1943 – Oliver North, American colonel, journalist, and author

1946 – Catharine MacKinnon, American lawyer, activist, and author

1951 – John Mellencamp, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor

1952 – Vladimir Putin, Russian colonel and politician, 4th President of Russia

1955 – Yo-Yo Ma, French-American cellist and educator

1964 – Dan Savage, American LGBT rights activist, journalist and television producer

1966 – Sherman Alexie, American novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker

1967 – Michelle Alexander, American law professor, author and activist

Almanac - Wednesday 10/7/20

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