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gallons a week for non-essential vehicles.
• In 1963, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper blasted off aboard Faith 7 on the final mission of the Project Mercury space program. Weight Watchers was incorporated in New York.
• In 1970, just after midnight, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi, were killed as police opened fire during student protests.
• In 1972, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed by Arthur H. Bremer while campaigning in Laurel, Md., for the Democratic presidential nomination. (Bremer served 35 years of a 53-year sentence for attempted murder.)
• In 1975, U.S. forces invaded the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. (All 40 crew members had already been released safely by Cambodia; some 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the operation.)
• In 1988, the Soviet Union began the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, more than eight years after Soviet forces had entered the country.
• In 1991, Edith Cresson was appointed by French President Francois Mitterrand (frahn-SWAH' mee-teh-RAHN') to be France's first female prime minister.
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• Ten years ago: Emergency officials rushed to a series of mock catastrophes in the Chicago area on the busiest day of a national weeklong exercise. Runaway Texas Democrats boarded two buses and headed home after a self-imposed exile in Oklahoma that succeeded in killing a redistricting bill they opposed. The three-year championship reign of the Los Angeles Lakers came to a decisive end as the San Antonio Spurs overpowered the Lakers 110-82 to win the Western Conference semifinal series 4 games to 2. Country music star June Carter Cash died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 73.
• Five years ago: President George W. Bush, addressing the Israeli Knesset, gently urged Mideast leaders to "make the hard choices necessary for peace" and condemned what he called "the false comfort of appeasement." California's Supreme Court declared same-sex couples in the state could marry -- a victory for the gay rights movement that was overturned the following November by the passage of Proposition 8, now the focus of a legal battle. Emmy-winning composer Alexander "Sandy" Courage, who created the otherworldly theme for the original "Star Trek" TV series, died in Los Angeles at age 88.
• One year ago: Francois Hollande (frahn-SWAH' oh-LAWND') became president of France after a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in central Paris -- the country's first Socialist leader since Francois Mitterrand (frahn-SWAH' mee-teh-RAHN') left

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