532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.
1887 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.
1903 – Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the US “in perpetuity”.
The U.S. pays Cuba about $4,085 every year for the lease of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. But Cuba refuses to accept it.
1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
1945 – World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is annihilated in a raid by 379 British bombers.
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Jonas Salk
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1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
2008 – A US Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2.
2010 – Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
Births
1583 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French mathematician, astrologer, and astronomer (d. 1656)
1685 – George Frideric Handel, organist and composer (d. 1759)
1744 – Mayer Amschel Rothschild, German banker and businessman (d. 1812)
1878 – Kazimir Malevich, Ukrainian painter and theorist (d. 1935)
1915 – Paul Tibbets, American general and pilot (d. 2007)
1929 – Elston Howard, American baseball player and coach (d. 1980)
1931 – Tom Wesselmann, American painter and sculptor (d. 2004)
1940 – Peter Fonda, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1965 – Michael Dell, American businessman
Deaths
1704 – Georg Muffat, French organist and composer (b. 1653)
1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795)
1848 – John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
1855 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, astronomer, physicist (b. 1777)