>It’s my birthday too, yeah! I’m 31 today!

On this day in history:

0362 – The prophet Mohammed died.

0452 – Italy was invaded by Attila the Hun.

0793 – The Vikings raided the Northumbrian coast of England.

1783 – Iceland’s Laki volcano erupted and continued to spew lava for eight months. 9,350 people were killed and famine started and lasted until 1790.

1786 – In New York City, commercial ice cream was manufactured for the first time.

1790 – The first loan for the U.S. was repaid. The Temporary Loan of 1789 was negotiated and secured on September 18, 1789 by Alexander Hamilton.

1861 – Tennessee voted to secede from the Union and joined the Confederacy.

1866 – Prussia annexed the region of Holstein.

1869 – Ives W. McGaffey received a U.S. patent for the suction vacuum cleaner.

1872 – The penny postcard was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1904 – U.S. Marines landed in Tangiers, Morocco, to protect U.S. citizens.

1915 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned in a disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania.

1947 – “Lassie” debuted on ABC radio. It was a 15-minute show.

1948 – Milton Berle hosted “Texaco Star Theater” NBC-TV. It was the show’s debut.

1953 – The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated restaurants in Washington, DC.

1961 – The Milwaukee Braves set a major league baseball record when four consecutive home runs in the seventh inning.

1965 – U.S. troops in South Vietnam were given orders to begin fighting offensively.

1967 – Israeli airplanes attacked the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean during the 6-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. 34 U.S. Navy crewmen were killed. Israel later called the incident a tragic mistake due to the mis-identification of the ship. The U.S. has never publicly investigated the incident.

1968 – James Earl Ray was captured at the London Airport. He was suspected of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

1969 – The New York Yankees retired Mickey Mantle’s number (7).

1969 – It was announced that there would be a single schedule for both the NFL and AFL.

1969 – U.S. President Richard Nixon met with President Thieu of South Vietnam to tell him 25,000 U.S. troops would pull out by August.

1978 – A jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled that the “Mormon will,” was a forgery. The work was supposedly written by Howard Hughes.

1982 – U.S. President Reagan became the first American chief executive to address a joint session of the British Parliament.

1986 – The Boston Celtics won their 16th NBA championship.

1987 – Fawn Hill began testifying in the Iran-Contra hearings. She said that she had helped to shred some documents.

1991 – A victory parade was held in Washington, DC, to honor veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

1994 – The warring factions in Bosnia agreed to a one-month cease-fire.

1995 – U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O’Grady was rescued by U.S. Marines after surviving alone in Bosnia after his F-16 fighter was shot down on June 2.

1996 – China set off an underground nuclear test blast.

1998 – The National Rifle Association elected Charlton Heston to be its president.

1998 – In the U.S., the FTC brought an antitrust complaint against Intel Corp., alleging its policies punished other developers of microprocessor chips.

1998 – Honda agreed to pay $17.1 million for disconnecting anti-pollution devices in 1.6 million cars.

1998 – The space shuttle Discovery pulled away from Mir, ending America’s three-year partnership with Russia.

2000 – The Dallas Stars and the New Jersey Devils played the NHL’s longest scoreless game in Stanley Cup finals history. The fifth game of the series lasted 106 minutes and 21 seconds. The game ended with a goal by Mike Madano that allowed the Stars to play a game six back in Dallas.

2001 – Marc Chagall’s painting “Study for ‘Over Vitebsk” was stolen from the Jewish Museum in New York City. The 8×10 painting was valued at about $1 million. A group called the International Committee for Art and Peace later announced that they would return the painting after the Israelis and Palestinians made peace.

2001 – In Japan, a knife-wielding man murdered eight children at an elementary school.

2004 – Nate Olive and Sarah Jones began the first known continuous hike of the 1,800-mile trail down the U.S. Pacific Coast. They completed the trek at the U.S.-Mexico border on September 28.