On this date in...

1895...Ocean Parkway opens in Brooklyn.

1904...More than 1,000 people are killed when the steamboat "General Slocum" catches fire in the East River near the Bronx. The ship, carrying 1,300 people on a church outing, is quickly engulfed in flames and 1,031 die – most of them women and children, and many from the area called "Little Germany" in the East Village. The captain and owners are blamed for not providing usable life jackets and fire hoses. It stands as the city's worst disaster until the terror attacks of 9/11.

1971...The Nixon administration obtains a court order halting The New York Times' publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of the Vietnam War.

Today's New Yorker birthdays include former Governor Mario Cuomo, born in Queens in 1932.