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Events

1499 - Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England.

1644 - Areopagitica by John Milton is published.

1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins - Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops.

1867 - The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England for rescueing two Irish men from jail.

1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched - one of the last clippers ever to be built, and the only one still surviving to this day.

1876 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.

1890 - King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to become Queen.

1903 - Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike.

1934 - An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, which lay well within Ethiopian territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.

1936 - The first edition of Life is published.

1943 - The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraÿe in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed. It will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

1954 - For the first time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the peak it reached just before the 1929 crash.

1955 - The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to Australia.

 
 

1959 - General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for a "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals."

1963 - The first episode of the science fiction television series Doctor Who debuts on the BBC.

1971 - The People's Republic of China is given Taiwan's seat on the United Nations Security Council. (See China and the United Nations)

1979 - In Dublin, Ireland, Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.

1980 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.

1981 - Iran-Contra scandal: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

1984 - Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie throws a game-winning 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan to defeat the University of Miami Hurricanes 45-41. It is one of the most famous plays in American college football history.

1985 - Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 while en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the hijacked jetliner, but 60 people die in the raid.

1990 - The first all woman expedition to the south pole (3 Americans, 1 Japanese and 12 Russians), sets off from Antarctica on the 1st leg of a 70 day, 1287 kilometre ski trek.

1993 - Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.

1996 - Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 123.

1996 - The Republic of Angola officially joins the World Trade Organization.

2003 - Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.

 
 

 

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