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Events

1298 - The Battle of Göllheim is fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg.

1561 - Menas, Emperor of Ethiopia defeats a revolt in Emfraz.

1578 - Martin Frobisher sights Baffin Island.

1613 - First English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia - led by Samuel Argall.

1644 - English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.

1679 - Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi - led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.

1776 - The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain, though a formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4.

1777 - Vermont becomes the first American state to abolish slavery.

1808 - Simon Fraser reaches Pacific near New Westminster.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.

1850 - The self-contained gas mask is patented by Benjamin J. Lane.

1853 - The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War.

1863 - American Civil War: Second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

 
 

1878 - The Brighton Beach Line (now the BMT Brighton Line) opens in the then-city of Brooklyn.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from infection on September 19.

1890 - The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

1900 - First zeppelin flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1917 - Forty-eight die in rioting in East St. Louis, Illinois, as lower-paid black laborers clash with whites.

1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator.

1947 - An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather balloon.

1950 - Henri Queuille becomes Prime Minister of France.

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places.

1966 - The French military explode their nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.

1969 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience break up.

1973 - Match Game begins its 1970s run.

 
 

1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1979 - The first U.S. coin to honor a woman, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, is introduced.

1982 - Larry Walters uses 45 helium balloons and a lawnchair to propel himself to 16,000 feet.

1983 - The Police release their final album, "Synchronicity", which would eventually spend 17 weeks at #1 on the U.S. album chart

1985 - Andrei Gromyko is appointed the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.

1990 - A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel leads to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims in Mecca during hajj.

2000 - Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

2002 - Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.

2003 - International Olympic Committee selects Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

2004 - ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) accepted Pakistan as the 24th member.

2005 - Ten Live 8 concerts are held around the world in an attempt to force G8 countries to address poverty.

 

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