1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the River Somme, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
1540 – The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III.
1590 – Pope Urban VII dies 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, making his reign the shortest papacy in history.
1825 – The world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, is opened.
1854 – The steamship SS Arctic sinks with 300 people on board. This marks the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean.
1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
1928 – The Republic of China is recognized by the United States.
1938 – Ocean liner Queen Elizabeth launched in Glasgow.
1941 – The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more than 2,700 Liberty ships.
1954 – The nationwide debut of Tonight Starring Steve Allen on NBC.
1962 – Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.1996 – In Afghanistan, the Taliban capture Kabul after driving out President Burhanuddin Rabbani and executing former leader Mohammad Najibullah.
1998 – The Google internet search engine retrospectively claims this as its birthday.
Births
1544 – Takenaka Shigeharu, Japanese samurai (d. 1579)
1601 – Louis XIII of France (d. 1643)
1840 – Thomas Nast, German-American cartoonist (d. 1902)
1896 – Sam Ervin, American soldier and politician (d. 1985)
1922 – Arthur Penn, American director and producer (d. 2010)
1929 – Calvin Jones, American pianist, composer, and educator (d. 2004)
1942 – Dith Pran, Cambodian photographer and journalist (d. 2008)
Deaths
1735 – Peter Artedi, Swedish ichthyologist and zoologist (b. 1705) Ichthyology also known as fish science, is the branch of biology devoted to the study of fish. This includes bony fishes (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha).
1917 – Edgar Degas, French painter and sculptor (b. 1834)