This day in history

In 1859, French acrobat Charles Blondin (blahn-DAN') walked back and forth on a tightrope above the gorge of Niagara Falls as thousands of spectators watched. In 1908, the Tunguska Event took place in Russia as an asteroid exploded above Siberia, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown-down trees. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding nominated former President William Howard Taft to be chief justice of the United States, succeeding the late Edward Douglass White. In 1934, Adolf Hitler carried out his "blood purge" of political and military rivals in Germany in what came to be known as "The Night of the Long Knives." In 1958, the U.S. Senate passed the Alaska statehood bill by a vote of 64-20. In 1960, Belgian Congo achieved independence. In 1963, Pope Paul VI was installed as 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1971, a Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 were found dead inside their spacecraft after it had returned to Earth. In 1984, John Turner was sworn in as Canada's 17th prime minister, succeeding Pierre Elliott Trudeau (troo-DOH'). (However, Turner held the post for less than three months.)