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Events

608 - Saint Boniface IV becomes Pope.

668 - Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.

921 - Saint Ludmila is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law at Tetin.

1514 - Thomas Wolsey is appointed Archbishop of York.

1556 - Vlissingen ex-emperor Charles V returns to Spain.

1584 - San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.

1590 - Giambattista Catagna is elected as Pope Urban VII.

1644 - Giambattista Pamphilj becomes Pope Innocent X, succeeding Pope Urban VIII.

1656 - England & France sign peace treaty.

1683 - Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by 13 immigrant families.

1749 - According to mathematical calculations, Pluto moves outside Neptune's orbit to remain the outermost planet until 1979.

1776 - American Revolutionary War: British land at Kip's Bay during the New York Campaign.

1789 - The United States Department of State is established (formerly known as Department of Foreign Affairs).

 
 

1812 - The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.

1821 - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua jointly declare independence from Spain.

1830 - The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens (see also deaths, below).

1831 - The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

1835 - The HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands.

1851 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1857 - Timothy Alder patents the typesetting machine.

1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1873 - Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.

1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society is founded in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.

1894 - First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats China in the Battle of Ping Yang.

1914 - World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.

1916 - World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.

 
 

1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

1928 - Tich Freeman becomes the only bowler to take 300 wickets in an English cricket season.

1931 - In Scotland, the two-day Invergordon Mutiny against Royal Navy pay cuts begins.

1935 - Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.

1935 - Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag with the swastika.

1940 - World War II: The Battle of Britain ends with a Royal Air Force victory over the Luftwaffe.

1941 - The U.S. Attorney General rules that the Neutrality Act is not violated when U.S. ships carry war materiel to British territories, opening the door for the Lend-Lease Act.

1942 - World War II: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.

1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.

1945 - A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond.

1946 - Baseball: The Brooklyn Dodgers are beating the Chicago Cubs, 2-0, in the 5th inning when a swarm of gnats causes the game to be postponed.

1947 - RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube.

1948 - The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 1080 km/h.

1949 - The television series The Lone Ranger premieres on the ABC.

1950 - Korean War: United States forces land at Incheon, Korea.

1951 - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes closes on Broadway in New York City after 740 performances.

1952 - United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia.

1954 - The U.S. Postal Service issues its 2¢ Thomas Jefferson Liberty Series stamp.

1955 - Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.

1957 - West Germany holds its third parliamentary election. Konrad Adenauer remains chancellor.

1958 - A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.

1959 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

1961 - Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.

1962 - The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1963 - The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four children at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.

1964 - The Sun newspaper launches, replacing the Daily Herald.

1966 - The spaceship Gemini XI, with astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon aboard, returns to earth.

1967 - Former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to the United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.

1968 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

1969 - Baseball: St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Steve Carlton sets a record by striking out 19 New York Mets in a single game.

1972 - A magnitude 4.5 earthquake shakes Northern Illinois.

1972 - An SAS domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm was hijacked and flown to Malmö-Bulltofta Airport.

1974 - Air Vietnam flight 727 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board.

1975 - The French department of Corse (the entire island of Corsica) is divided into two: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.

1976 - Soyuz 22 carries two cosmonauts into earth orbit for eight days.

1978 - Muhammad Ali beats Leon Spinks for the world heavyweight boxing title.

1981 - The United States Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.

1981 - The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, DC.

1982 - The first issue of USA Today is published by Gannett.

1983 - Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns.

1985 - Willie Nelson's Farm Aid concert begins.

1987 - U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sign a treaty to establish centers to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

1989 - The U.S. Congress recognizes Terry Anderson's continued captivity in Beirut.

1990 - France announces it will send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf.

1993 - Liechtenstein Prince Hans-Adam II disbands parliament.

1994 - Muslim fundamentalists kidnap & behead 16 people in Algeria.

1997 - Hastings Wise murders four at the R.E. Phelon Company lawn mower parts manufacturing factory in Aiken, South Carolina. The only possible motive for the murders was Hastings' dismissal from his job eleven weeks earlier.

1998 - WorldCom and MCI Communications finish their landmark merger, forming MCI WorldCom which would later be renamed WorldCom and become the largest bankruptcy in United States history.

2001 - Alex Zanardi, driving in a CART race is injured in Germany, resulting in both legs being amputated below the knee.

 

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