ROBERT STEWART, 2nd VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH, born, (d: 1822); Why did Britain’s nominal head of state slit his throat with a penknife on the night of August 12, 1822? Was it, in fact, because he had suffered a nervous breakdown after numerous political defeats, as was the official explanation for his death? Or was it the threat of public exposure as a homosexual?

If the latter, as many continue to believe, was Castlereagh actually same-sex oriented? Or was he the victim of an extraordinary scam by a gang of blackmailers who, knowing Castlereach’s weakness for whores, tricked him in to a rendezvous with a wench who was actually a boy in female attire? For the answers to these and other questions, don’t tune in tomorrow, but turn instead to J. Montgomery Hyde’s The Strange Death of Lord Castlereagh, a non-fiction mystery as absorbing as any detective novel.

JOHN CHEEVER, American author died (b. 1912); A novelist and short story writer, sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" or "the Ovid of Ossining." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, and old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy, Massachusetts, where he was born.

Cheever is perhaps best remembered for his short stories (including The Enormous Radio, Goodbye, My Brother, The Five-Forty-Eight, The Country Husband, and The Swimmer), but also wrote a number of novels, such as The Wapshot Chronicle (National Book Award, 1958), The Wapshot Scandal (William Dean Howells Medal, 1965), Bullet Park, and Falconer.

His main themes include the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both--light and dark, flesh and spirit. Two of Cheever's children, Susan and Benjamin, became writers. Susan Cheever's memoir, Home Before Dark (1984), revealed Cheever's bisexuality, which was confirmed by his posthumously published letters and journals.

PETER ALLEN, Australian singer and songwriter died (b. 1944); In the 1970s, Peter Allen gained recognition both as a composer of romantic ballads such as "I Honestly Love You" and "Don't Cry Out Loud" and, contrastingly, as a flamboyant stage performer. He married Liza Minelli. Enough said.

Thomas Jefferson prepared a draft of Virginia’s criminal statute, envisaging that the punishment for sodomy should be castration. The bill read: “Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.” Thanks Tom...you can go back to screwing the slaves, now.

The AIDS Epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco.

The McDonald Amendment passes the U.S. House of Representatives. The amendment would bar the Legal Service Corporation from assisting in any case which seeks to "promote, defend or protect" homosexuality.

The soap opera ONE LIFE TO LIVE airs the first openly Gay teen character. Billy Douglas, a high school student (played by no less a beauty than Ryan Phillippe), tells his best friend, Joey Buchanan, that he is Gay.