1472 – Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.
1547 – Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington.
1816 – Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
1933 – Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party’s upcoming election campaign.
1935 – Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
1943 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
1944 – World War II: The “Big Week” began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
1962 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes.
“As mission control performed its final system checks, test conductor Tom O’Malley initiated the launch sequence, adding a personal prayer, “May the good Lord ride all the way,” to which Carpenter, the backup astronaut for the mission, added, “Godspeed, John Glenn.”Carpenter later explained that he had come up with the phrase on the spot, but its did hold significance for most test pilots and astronauts: “In those days, speed was magic…and nobody had gone that fast. If you can get that speed, you’re home-free.” The phrase soon became part of the public consciousness, but Glenn himself didn’t hear Carpenter’s comment until he had returned to Earth. Due to a glitch in Glenn’s radio, Carpenter’s microphone wasn’t on his frequency.” (history.com)
1965 – Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
1986 – The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years.
Births
1633 – Jan de Baen, Dutch painter (d. 1702)
1848 – E. H. Harriman, businessman and philanthropist (d. 1909)
1899 – Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1992)
1901 – Louis Kahn, American architect, designed the Salk Institute, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Bangladesh Parliament Building (d. 1974)
1902 – Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (d. 1984)
1918 – Leonore Annenberg, businesswoman and diplomat (d. 2009)
1924 – Gloria Vanderbilt, American actress and fashion designer
1927 – Roy Cohn, American lawyer and political activist (d. 1986)
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Alexander Haig
post Reagan assassination attempt
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1934 – Bobby Unser,American race car driver
1937 – Roger Penske, American race car driver and businessman
1949 – Ivana Trump
1954 – Patty Hearst, American actress and author
1967 – Kurt Cobain, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1994)
Deaths
1194 – Tancred, King of Sicily (b. 1138)
1762 – Tobias Mayer, German astronomer and academic (b. 1723)
1862 – William Wallace Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1850)
1895 – Frederick Douglass, American author and activist (b. 1818)
1920 – Robert Peary, American admiral and explorer (b. 1856)
1993 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian businessman, founded Lamborghini (b. 1916)
2005 – Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (b. 1937)
2010 – Alexander Haig, American general and politician, 59th United States Secretary of State (b. 1924)