350 – General Magnentius deposes Roman Emperor Constans and proclaims himself Emperor.
1562 – Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session.
1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the “Sandwich Islands”.
1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.
1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.
1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.
2005 – The Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France
Births
1782 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)
1850 – Seth Low, 92nd Mayor of New York City (d. 1916)
1854 – Thomas A. Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell (d. 1934)
Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1854, Thomas Watson was a carpenter before taking on work in a machine shop in Boston. Hired by Professor Alexander Graham Bell of Boston University, they worked together and as such, he is noted as the recipient of the first telephone call and became famous with these words, “Mr. Watson – come here- I want to see you”.
At the age of 27, flush with the royalties he shared from the telephone invention, he tried his hand at farming and then acting, before founding the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company which became one of the biggest shipyards in the country. It was eventually sold to Bethlehem Steel corporation.
In addition to his fame as the first local-call recipient, (Mr. Bell was in a nearby room,) Mr. Watson was in San Francisco in 1915 when he received the first transcontinental phone call from Mr. Bell who was at 15 Dey Street in Lower Manhattan.
1882 – A. A. Milne, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1956)
1892 – Oliver Hardy, American actor and comedian (d. 1957)
1904 – Cary Grant, English-American actor (d. 1986)
Deaths
474 – Leo I, Byzantine emperor (b. 401)
1862 – John Tyler, 10th President of the United States (b. 1790)
1952 – Curly Howard, American actor (b. 1903)
1980 – Cecil Beaton, English fashion designer and photographer (b. 1904)
2010 – Robert B. Parker, American author and academic (b. 1932)
2011 – Sargent Shriver, 21st United States Ambassador to France (b. 1915)
