1951

The New York Giants captured the National League pennant by a score of 5-4 as Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer off Ralph Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the “shot heard ‘round the world.”

1974

Frank Robinson was named major league baseball’s first Black manager as he was placed in charge of the Cleveland Indians.

1990

West Germany and East Germany ended 45 years of postwar division, declaring the creation of a reunified country.

1995

The jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles found the former football star not guilty of the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was later found liable for damages in a civil trial).

2008

O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room. (Simpson was later sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison; he was granted parole in July 2017 and released from prison in October of that year.)

Birthdays

Rock and roll star Chubby Checker is 81. Former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan is 71. Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield is 71. Baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley is 68. Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton is 68. Actor Hart Bochner is 66.