1279 BC – Ramesses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Egypt.
455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.
1578 – King Henry III lays the first stone of the Pont Neuf (New Bridge), the oldest bridge of Paris, France.
1790 – The United States enacts its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
1859 – The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.
1879 – Gilmores Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
1889 – Johnstown Flood: Over 2,200 people die after a dam fails and sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
1911 – The hull of the ocean liner RMS Titanic is launched.
1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
1929 – The first talking Mickey Mouse cartoon, “The Karnival Kid“, is released.
1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia.
1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed.
2005 – Vanity Fair reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat.
Births
1683 – Jean-Pierre Christin, French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, invented the Celsius thermometer (d. 1755)
1819 – Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist(d. 1892)
1852 – Julius Richard Petri, German microbiologist, invented the Petri dish (d. 1921)
1923 – Ellsworth Kelly, American painter and sculptor (d. 2015)
1930 – Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, and producer
1938 – Peter Yarrow, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
Deaths
455 – Petronius Maximus, Roman emperor (b. 396)
1837 – Joseph Grimaldi, English comedian and actor, created the clown (b. 1779)
1983 – Jack Dempsey, American boxer (b. 1895) |
