332 – Constantine the Great announced free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople.
1096 – First Crusade: Around 800 Jews are massacred in Worms, Germany
1291 – Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land
1565 – The Great Siege of Malta begins, in which Ottoman forces attempt and fail to conquer Malta.
1631 – In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North Americamaking slavery illegal.
1756 – The Seven Years’ War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
1812 – John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.
1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the “separate but equal” doctrine is constitutional.
1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Halley’s Comet
1917 – World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 is passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.
1965 – Israeli spy Eli Cohen was hanged in Damascus, Syria.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 is launched.
1974 – Nuclear test: under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates itsfirst nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.
1974 – Completion of the Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time. It collapsed on August 8, 1991.
The Warsaw Radio Mast was operated by Warsaw Radio-Television for long-wave radio broadcasting on a frequency of AM-LW (long wave) 227 kHz and AM-LW (long wave.) Designed by Jan Polak, as a mast radiator, its height of 2,120.7 feet was chosen in order to function as a half-wavelength antenna at its broadcasting frequency.
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Burj Khalifa at 2,722 feet |
Located in Gąbin, Poland, it was the world’s tallest structure until August 8th 1991, when an error made while exchanging the guy-wires on the highest part led to its collapse. Witnesses say it bent first then snapped at roughly half height.
Today, the world’s tallest structure is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at 2,722ft. The tallest structure in Poland today is a FM radio and TV transmission mast measuring 360 metres.
1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.
2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirms that Pluto has two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.
Births
1048 – Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet (d. 1131)
1777 – John George Children, English chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist (d. 1852)
1822 – Mathew Brady, American photographer and journalist (d. 1896)
1852 – Gertrude Käsebier, American photographer (d. 1934)
1872 – Bertrand Russell, British mathematician, historian, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
1883 – Walter Gropius, German-American architect, designed the John F. Kennedy Federal Building (d. 1969)
1946 – Reggie Jackson, American baseball player
Deaths
526 – Pope John I (b. 470)
1675 – Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer, historian, and theologian (b. 1623)
1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (b. 1738)
1980 – 57 Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption |
