On This Day in History

Korean War: A Korean People's Army unit massacred 31 prisoners of war of the U.S. Army on a mountain near the village of Tuman.

Uruguay won the decisive match of the FIFA World Cup against Brazil 2–1 at Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro.

The Catcher in the Rye, an American coming-of-age novel by J. D. Salinger, was first published (cover pictured).

South Vietnamese Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo (pictured)—an undetected communist spy—was reported dead due to injuries sustained during his capture, but it is generally assumed he was killed on the orders of military officials.

A Sikorsky S-61 helicopter operated by British Airways crashed in thick fog in the Celtic Sea, killing 20 of the 26 people on board.

A 7.8 MS earthquake struck the densely populated Philippine island of Luzon, killing an estimated 1,621 people.

Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 began colliding with the planet Jupiter , with the first impact causing a fireball that reached a peak temperature of 24,000 kelvin.

Millennium Park, a public park in Chicago, Illinois, and one of the world's largest rooftop gardens, opened to the public.

An earthquake of magnitude .mw-parser-output .tooltip-dotted{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}Mw 6.6 struck Niigata Prefecture, Japan, causing a leak of radioactive gases from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

A tainted milk powder scandal broke in China which ultimately involved an estimated 300,000 victims, the vast majority infants, with 54,000 hospitalized with kidney problems and six deaths.

At least 23 students died and dozens more fell ill at a primary school in the Indian state of Bihar after consuming a Midday Meal that was contaminated with pesticide.