Today In History

In 1929: Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd radioed that he’d made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.

In 1947: The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

In 1952: President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower kept his campaign promise to visit Korea to assess the ongoing conflict.

In 1963: President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

In 1967: Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.

In 1981: Natalie Wood, 43, drowned in a boat accident off Santa Catalina Island, Calif.

In 1986: actor Cary Grant died in Davenport, Iowa, at age 82.