On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall's post-World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.
| 1996: | | Federal agents in Montana apprehended Theodore J. Kaczynski, an American terrorist known as the “Unabomber,” who had killed 3 persons and injured more than 20 with explosives sent through the U.S. postal system. |
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| 1946: | | The Japanese army general Homma Masaharu was executed for forcing the Bataan Death March. |
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| 1929: | | | Bangladeshi American civil engineer Fazlur R. Khan, whose many skyscraper projects included Chicago's Sears Tower (1973; then the world's tallest building), was born. |
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| 1924: | | American stage and motion-picture actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska. |
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| 1924: | | American singer and actress Doris Day was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. |
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| 1879: | | Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria. |
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| 1860: | | | The Pony Express mail delivery system, which used continuous horse-and-rider relays along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, was launched in the United States. |
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