193 – The Roman emperor Didius Julianus is assassinated.
1495 – A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.
1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.
1535 – Combined forces loyal to Charles V attack and expel the Ottomans from Tunis during the Conquest of Tunis.
1660 – Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1779 – Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, is court-martialed for malfeasance.
1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
1831 – James Clark Ross becomes the first European at the Magnetic North Pole.
1855 – The American adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua.
1879 – Napoléon Eugène, the last dynastic Bonaparte, is killed in the Anglo-Zulu War.
1890 – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine to count census returns.
1958 – Charles de Gaulle comes out of retirement to lead France by decree for six months.
1962 – Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.
1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is released.
1974 – The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine. Dr. Heimlich, was just in the news, for saving a person from choking using his own technique he developed more than 40 years ago.
1990 – George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign a treaty to end chemical weapon production.
2001 – Nepalese royal massacre: Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family including his father and mother, King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya.
2003 – The Peoples Republic of China begins filling the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam.
2009 – General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
Births
1633 – Geminiano Montanari, Italian astronomer and academic (d. 1687)
1637 – Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer (d. 1675)
1843 – Henry Faulds, Scottish physician and missionary, developed fingerprinting (d. 1930)
1907 – Frank Whittle, English soldier and engineer, developed the jet engine (d. 1996)
1924 – William Sloane Coffin, American minister and activist (d. 2006)
1926 – Andy Griffith, American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1926 – Marilyn Monroe, American model and actress (d. 1962)
1935 – Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, English architect
1947 – Jonathan Pryce, Welsh actor and singer
1953 – David Berkowitz, New York serial killer
Deaths
195 BC – Emperor Gaozu of Han (b. 256 BC)
1868 – James Buchanan, American lawyer and politician, 15th President of the US
1872 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr., American publisher, founded the New York Herald (b. 1795)
1927 – Lizzie Borden, American accused murderer (b. 1860)
1989 – Aurelio Lampredi, Italian engineer, designed the Ferrari Lampredi engine
2000 – Tito Puente, American drummer, composer, and producer (b. 1923) |
