1178 BC – A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War
1705 – Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College
1777 – Battle of Bennington-New England’s Green Mountain Boys rout British
1853 – The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.
1862 – Slavery abolished in District of Columbia
1922 – Annie Oakley sets women’s record by breaking 100 clay targets in a row
1943 – Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD
1956 – First solar powered radios go on sale
1962 – Walter Cronkite begins anchoring CBS Evening News
1965 – Test flight of heavy Saturn S-1C-rocket
1986 – To dispel rumors he’s dead, Moammar Gadhafi appears on TV
2004 – The super liner Queen Mary 2 embarks on her first Trans-Atlantic crossing, linking the golden age of ocean travel to the modern age of ocean travel.
Births
778 – King Louis the Pious (d. 840)
1495 – Petrus Apianus, German mathematician (d. 1557)
1660 – Hans Sloane, England, physician/naturalist/founder (British Museum)
1867 – Wilbur Wright, of aeronautical fame (Wright Brothers)
1889 – Charles ‘Charlie’ Chaplin, London UK, actor/genius
1919 – Merce Cunningham, choreographer
1947 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, [Lew Alcindor], NBA center
Deaths
1446 – Filippo Brunelleschi, architect, dies
1756 – Jacques Cassini, Fr astronomer (Discoved rings of Saturn), dies at 79
1850 – Marie [Gresholtz] Tussaud, maker of wax figures, dies at 88
1859 – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian (b. 1805)
1946 – Arthur Chevrolet, Swiss-born race car driver and automobile designer (b. 1884)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com and many other Google searches