332 – Constantine the Great announced free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople.
1565 – The Great Siege of Malta begins, in which Ottoman forces attempt and fail to conquer Malta.
1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North America making 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 Comet Halley.
1917 – World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 is passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.
1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 is launched.
1974 – Nuclear test: under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first 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 for long-wave radio broadcasting on a frequency of AM-LW (long wave) 227 kHz and AM-LW (long wave.) Designed by Jan Polak, its height of 2,120.7 feet was chosen in order to function as a half-wavelength antenna at its broadcasting frequency.
Located in Gąbin, Poland, it was the world’s tallest structure until August 8th 1991 when an error was made in exchanging the guy-wire on the highest part and that led to its collapse. Witnesses say it bent first then snapped at roughly half height.
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photo of General Custer
by Mathew Brady
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1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, 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)
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)
1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (b. 1738)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com and many other Google searches