1794 – Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.
1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.
1859 – Acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place.
1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for “public use, resort and recreation”.
1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield.
1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity.
1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.
1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy’s invasion of his country.
1937 – The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London
1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.
1960 – Congo gains independence from Belgium.
1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.
2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona.
Births
1889 – Archibald Frazer-Nash, English motor car designer, engineer and founder of Frazer Nash (d. 1965)
1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2010)
1926 – Paul Berg, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1944 – Ron Swoboda, American baseball player and sportscaster
1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor
Deaths
1785 – James Oglethorpe, English general and politician, 1st Colonial Governor of Georgia (b. 1696)
2001 – Chet Atkins, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
2003 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and comedian (b. 1924)