1184 BC – The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse
1066 – Halley’s Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed
1800 – Library of Congress established with $5,000 allocation
In 1800, as part of an act of Congress providing for the removal of the new national government from Philadelphia to Washington, President John Adams approved an act of Congress providing $5,000 for books for the use of Congress-the beginning of the Library of Congress. ( Library of Congress website)
1833 – Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent first soda fountain
1872 – Volcano Vesuvius erupts
1888 – Eastman Kodak forms
1907 – Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened.
1908 – Mr and Mrs Jacob Murdock become first to travel across US by car, they leave LA in a Packard and arrive in NYC in 32d-5h-25m, still married!
1913 – The skyscraper Woolworth Building is opened.
In 1998 the Witkoff Group bought the ‘Cathedral of Commerce’ for $155 million from the Woolworth company. Until recently the Woolworth Company keep a presence in the building with a retail FootLocker store which was the successor to Mr. Woolworth’s original company.
1923 – General harbor strike begins in NYC
1929 – First non-stop England to India flight takes-off
1950 – Harry Truman denies there are communists in US government
1953 – Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1961 – JFK accepts “sole responsibility” following Bay of Pigs
1962 – MIT sends TV signal by satellite for first time: California to Massachusetts
1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”
1968 – Students take over Columbia University
1969 – Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumors he is dead
1980 – US military operation to save 52 hostages in Iran, fails, 8 die
1981 – IBM-PC computer introduced
1990 – Security law violator Michael Milken pleads guilty to 6 felonies
2004 – The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
2007 – Iceland announces that Norway will shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.
Birthdays
1874 – John Russell Pope, US, architect (Jefferson Memorial)
1904 – Willem De Kooning, Rotterdam Netherland, artist
Anniversaries
1558 – Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland marries French crown prince Francois
1575 – William (the Silent) of Orange marries 3rd wife Charlotte de Bourbon and former French nun
Deaths
1731 – Daniel Defoe, English novelist (Robinson Crusoe), dies at about 70
1779 – Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College (b. 1711)
1942 – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian author (b. 1874)
1947 – Willa Cather, American writer (b. 1873)
1967 – Vladimir M Komarov, cosmonaut (Voshkod I), dies in Soyuz 1 at 40
1974 – Bud Abbott, comedian (Abbott & Costello), dies at 78
1986 – Wallis Simpson [Duchess of Windsor], British King Edward VIII abdicated for her, dies at 89
2004 – Estée Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur (b. 1906)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com and many other Google searches