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Events

1462 - Vlad III Dracula attempts to assassinate Mehmed II in the Night Attack, and the latter is forced to retreat from Wallachia.

1497 - Battle of Deptford Bridge - Forces under King Henry VII soundly defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.

1565 - Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.

1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.

1631 - Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years to build her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

1775 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill - The battle actually takes place on Breed's hill by mistake. British forces take Breed's Hill outside of Boston with heavy casualties.

1789 - In France, the Third Estate declares itself as a national assembly.

1839 - In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the Edict of Toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is later established as a result.

1863 - Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

1876 - Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud - 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

1898 - The US Navy Hospital Corps is established.

1930 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff into law.

 
 

1930 - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.

1933 - Union Station Massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.

1939 - Last public guillotining in France. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.

1940 - World War II: Operation Ariel begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.

1940 - World War II: Sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.

1940 - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.

1944 - Iceland becomes independent from Denmark and forms a republic.

1948 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

1953 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

1960 - Ted Williams becomes the fourth member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.

1961 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.

1963 - The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.

1971 - Representatives of Japan and the United States sign the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, setting out a plan where the U.S. would return control of Okinawa.

 
 

1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1982 - The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1987 - With the death of the last individual, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow becomes extinct.

1991 - Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required all racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

1992 - A 'Joint Understanding' agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).

1994 - Following a televised highway chase and a failed attempt at suicide, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

 

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