455 – King Gaiseric and the Vandals sack Rome – Rome looted for 14 days
1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later.
1615 – First Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged.
1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas captured Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
1774 – Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.
1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
1851 – First US alcohol prohibition law enacted in Maine
1857 – James Gibbs of Virgina, patents the chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine
1863 – Harriet Tubman leads Union guerrillas into Maryland, freeing slaves
1875 – Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission
1886 – Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom are first to wed during presidency
1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
1901 – Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday
1904 – Professor Schron finds microbe that causes photosynthesis
1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.
1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
It was fifty years ago today that Sgt Pepper taught the Band to Play
1935 – Babe Ruth, 40, announces his retirement as a player
1946 – Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum, King Umberto II of Italy is exiled.
1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.
1966 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is released in the United States.
1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.
Births
1840 – Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet (d. 1928)
1926 – Chiyonoyama Masanobu, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 41st Yokozuna (d. 1977)
1936 – Volodymyr Holubnychy, Ukrainian race walker
Deaths
657 – Pope Eugene I
1292 – Rhys ap Maredudd, Welsh nobleman and rebel leader
1982 – Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 5th President of Pakistan (b. 1904)
2005 – Melita Norwood, English civil servant and spy (b. 1912)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com
Wikipedia and other internet searches