640 – Battle of Heliopolis: The Muslim Arab army under ‘Amr ibn al-‘As defeat the Byzantine forces near Heliopolis (Egypt).
1348 – Pope Clement VI issues a papal bull protecting the Jews accused of having caused the Black Death.
1415 – Jan Hus is condemned as a heretic and then burned at the stake.
1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.
1557 – King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I of England, sets out from Dover to war with France, which eventually resulted in the loss of the City of Calais, the last English possession on the continent, and Mary I never seeing her husband again.
1854 – In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States Republican Party is held.
1865 – The first issue of The Nation magazine is published.
1885 – Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
1892 – Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.
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Louis Pasteur |
1919 – The British dirigible R34 completes the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship. R34, became the first aircraft to make an east to west transatlantic flight in July 1919 and by the return flight, completed successfully the first two-way crossing, and was decommissioned two years later after being damaged during a storm.
1944 – The Hartford circus fire, one of America’s worst fire disasters, kills approximately 168 people and injures over 700 in Hartford, Connecticut.
1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles.
1988 – The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires. One hundred sixty-seven oil workers are killed, making it the world’s worst offshore oil disaster in terms of direct loss of life.
2013 – A 73-car oil train derails in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and explodes into flames, killing at least 47 people and destroying more than 30 buildings in the town’s central area.
Births
1832 – Maximilian I of Mexico (d. 1867)
1865 – Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Swiss composer and educator (d. 1950)
1921 – Nancy Reagan, 42nd First Lady of the United States (d. 2016)
1925 – Merv Griffin, American actor, singer, and producer, created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (d. 2007)
1925 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bill Haley & His Comets) (d. 1981)
1930 – Ian Burgess, English racing driver (d. 2012)
1937 – Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russian-Icelandic pianist and conductor
1946 – George W. Bush, American businessman and politician, 43rd President of the United States
1946 – Jamie Wyeth, American painter
1975 – 50 Cent, American rapper, producer, and actor (G-Unit)
Deaths
1189 – Henry II of England (b. 1133)
1249 – Alexander II of Scotland (b. 1198)
1553 – Edward VI of England (b. 1537)
1835 – John Marshall, American captain and politician, 4th United States Secretary of State (b. 1755)
1946 – Horace Pippin, American painter (b. 1888)
1962 – William Faulkner, American author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)
1971 – Louis Armstrong, American singer and trumpet player (b. 1901)
2009 – Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, 8th United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1916) |
