474 – Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later.
1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Mingyi Swa of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.
1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the “Sandwich Islands”.
1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.
1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).
1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
2005 – The Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France
Births
1779 – Peter Mark Roget, physician, lexicographer, and theologian (d. 1869)
1782 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)
1850 – Seth Low, American academic and politician, 92nd Mayor of New York City (d. 1916)
1950 – Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian race car driver (d. 1982)
Deaths
474 – Leo I, Byzantine emperor (b. 401)
1253 – King Henry I of Cyprus (b. 1217)
1367 – Peter I of Portugal (b. 1320)
Rudyard Kipling
1936 – Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
1940 – Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, author, poet, and playwright (b. 1865)
1980 – Cecil Beaton, English fashion designer and photographer (b. 1904)
2011 – Sargent Shriver, 21st United States Ambassador to France (b. 1915)