Events
* 1836 - Battle of the Alamo - Mexican troops defeat the volunteers defending the Alamo and the fort is captured.
* 1978 - Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shot and crippled by a sniper.
* 1981 - After 19 years presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.
Births
* 1475 - Michelangelo, Italian artist (d. 1564)
* 1972 - Shaquille O'Neal, American basketball player
Deaths
* 1973 - Pearl S. Buck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)