1935

United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis and other labor leaders formed the Committee for Industrial Organization.

1938

Nazis looted and burned synagogues as well as thousands of Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom or deliberate persecution that became known as “Kristallnacht.”

1965

The great Northeast blackout began with a series of power failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours, leaving 30 million people in seven states and part of Canada without electricity.

1989

Communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West for the first time in decades.

2007

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for a day and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass rally against his emergency rule.

Birthdays

Film director Bille August is 76. Actor-bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno is 73. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is 72. Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin is 65. TV writer-director-producer Ryan Murphy is 59. Rapper Scarface is 54. Blues singer Susan Tedeschi is 54. Golfer David Duval is 53. Actor Eric Dane is 52. Singer-TV personality Nick Lachey is 51. R&B singer Sisqo is 46. Actor-TV personality Vanessa Lachey is 44.