1697 – Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe
1788 – Fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana
1826 – Beethoven’s Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna
1857 – Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die
1871 – Journalist Henry M Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa
1907 – US invades Honduras
1924 – Mass Investors Trust becomes first mutual fund set up in US
1934 – Fire destroys Hakodate Japan, killing about 1,500
1935 – Persia officially renamed Iran
1943 – Assassination attempt on Hitler fails
1947 – President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have allegiance to the United States
1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of espionage
1962 – A bear becomes the first creature to be ejected at supersonic speeds
1965 – US Ranger 9 launched; takes 5,814 pictures before lunar impact
1974 – Attempt made to kidnap Princess Anne in London’s Pall Mall
1975 – Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years
1979 – Egyptian Parliament unanimously approve peace treaty with Israel
2012 – Five former Guatemalan paramilitaries are sentenced to 7,710 years in jail for their role in the Plan de Sanchez massacre in 1982
2013 – The European Space Agency reveals new data that indicates that the universe is 13.82 billion years old
Birthdays
1869 – Albert Kahn, architect, originated modern factory design
1880 – Hans Hofmann, German/US painter
1904 – Forrest Mars Sr., American candymaker (d. 1999)
1906 – John D Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil)
Anniversaries
1891 – A Hatfield marries a McCoy, ends long feud in West Virginia it started with an accusation of pig-stealing that lasted 20 years
Deaths
1556 – Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, burned at stake at 66
1617 – Pocahontas, Native American, daughter of Powhatan (b. 1595)
1991 – Leo Fender, inventor (Fender guitar), dies
2013 – Chinua Achebe, Nigerian poet and novelist, dies at 82