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This Day In History

Activism

1957 Violating a federal order to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus enlists the National Guard to prevent nine African American students - Thelma Mothershed Wair, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, and Melba Pattillo Beals - from the school. The armed Arkansas militia troops surrounded the school while an angry crowd of some 400 whites jeered, booed, and threatened to lynch the frightened African American teenagers, who fled shortly after arriving. The conflict set the stage for the first major test of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in educational facilities is unconstitutional.

Arts

1970 Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova defects to from the Soviet Union while on tour with the Kirov Ballet in London and is granted political asylum.

2002 Kelly Clarkson, a 20-year-old cocktail waitress from Texas, wins the first season of American Idol in a live television broadcast from Hollywood’s Kodak Theater.

Sports

1994 Chinese diver Fu Mingxia wins 10m platform gold medal at World Swimming Championships in Rome, Italy, becoming the first female athlete to win back-to-back world titles in the event.