National Geographic published the first natural-color underwater photographs, taken by Dr. William Longley and Charles Martin off the Florida Keys.

Fidel Castro, who would lead the Cuban Revolution and rule Cuba for nearly five decades as a one-party communist state, was born on a farm in Birán, Cuba.

Escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini dies of peritonitis in Detroit, a death fed by decades of legend involving a Montreal punch to the stomach.