1947 – Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” opens on Broadway, starring Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy and Kim Hunter. The play and subsequent movie are immediately controversial for their frank depiction of sexuality and brutality.
1967 – The first human heart transplant operation is performed on 53-year-old Louis Washkansky in Cape Town, South Africa.
1984 – An explosion at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills at least 2,000 people and injures 200,000 when toxic gas envelops the city. It is the worst industrial accident in history.
1989 – Meeting off the coast of Malta, Pres. George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issue statements suggesting that the Cold War is coming to an end.
