Today In History

In 1770: Capt. James Cook, commander of the British ship Endeavour, discovered the Great Barrier Reef off Australia by running onto it.

In 1776: The Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence from Britain.

In 1963: Buddhist monk Quang Duc set himself on fire on a Saigon street to protest the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.

In 1985: Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose patient whose case prompted a historic right-to-die court decision, died in Morris Plains, N.J., at age 31.