Dustin Lee Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman is a renowned method actor who won the Academy
Award for Best Actor for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979 and Rain Man
in 1988. He had his breakthrough role as Benjamin Braddock in the
1967 classic The Graduate and also played leading roles in the films
Midnight Cowboy (1969), Tootsie (1982) and Outbreak (1996).
In an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces
his intention to become the first president in American history to resign.
With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement
in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public
and Congress to leave the White House.
“By taking this action,” he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office,
“I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which
is so desperately needed in America.”
Just before noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term as the 37th
president of the United States.
On this day in 1942, the U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands.
Explorer 6
From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S.
unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the
earth (above). The spacecraft, commonly known as the “Paddlewheel”
satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture
of the earth’s surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles
and was received in Hawaii after nearly 40 minutes.
The first image taken by Explorer 6 shows a sunlit area of the
Central Pacific Ocean and its cloud cover.
On May 3, 1783, General George Washington (above) awarded the
Badge of Military Merit to two brave Connecticut soldiers at the Continental Army headquarters in Newburgh, New York.
On this day in 1782, in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington,
the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the “Badge for
Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of
silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched
across the face in silver (above).
The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious
action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without
challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed in
a “Book of Merit.”
Washington’s “Purple Heart” was awarded to only three known soldiers
during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown and Daniel
Bissell, Jr. The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely
forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army
chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the
Badge of Military Merit.”
In 1931, Summerall’s successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the
cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington’s 200th birthday,
the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the “Order of the
Purple Heart” (below).
