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Events

711 - Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by their king Roderic.

1333 - Battle of Halidon Hill: the final battle of the Wars of Scottish Independence.

1544 - The Siege of Boulogne began.

1553 - Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having that title for just nine days.

1588 - The Spanish Armada was sighted in the English Channel.

1760 - The formal request to found the later city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico is filed by its founders.

1848 - Women's rights: The two day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" are introduced at the feminist convention.

1862 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid - At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.

1870 - Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.

1873 - William Gosse becomes the first European to discover Ayers Rock (Uluru) and names it in honour of South Australian Premier Sir Henry Ayers.

1879 - Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up Holliday's New Mexico saloon.

1912 - A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg exploded over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.

1940 - World War II: Battle of Cape Spada between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualities.

 
 

1940 - World War II: Army order 112 comes into effect forming the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.

1942 - World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.

1945 - Montgomery Ward is seized by United States Army troops at the direction of Attorney General Francis Biddle because of its refusal to obey National War Labor Board orders. Montgomery Ward chairman Seward Avery is carried out of his office by troops

1947 - Burmese nationalist Aung San and 6 of his cabinet members were assassinated.

1963 - Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.

1964 - Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.

1967 - A Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727 and a Cessna 310 collided in mid-air over Hendersonville, North Carolina killing 82

1976 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.

1979 - The Sandinista rebels overthrow the US-backed government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.

1985 - US Vice President George H. W. Bush announces that New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe will become the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the Space Shuttle (see Space Shuttle Challenger).

1985 - 268 people are killed after a dam collapse in Val di Stava, Italy.

1989 - A Douglas DC-10 carrying 296 aboard crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 but due to extraordinary efforts by the pilot and his crew, 184 on board survive. (See United Airlines flight 232)

2001 - UK politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer, Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare, is sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

 
 

2005 - Death Valley, California registers a temperature of 53.9°C (129°F). A total of 12 days of 50°C (122°F) or higher was reported. Overnight temperatures of 37.8°C (100°F) or higher were also observed.

 

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