1260 – Chartres Cathedral is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France. Constructed between 1194 and 1250, is the last of at least five which have occupied the site since the 4th century. The majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th century.
1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.
1901 – Annie Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
1911 – Orville Wright remains in the air nine minutes and 45 seconds in a Wright Glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.
1926 – Harry Houdini’s last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.
1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
1931 – The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.
1945 – Founding of the United Nations.
1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
1947 – Famed animator Walt Disney testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists. Link to the testimony of Walt naming names
1954 – Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam.
1990 – Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti reveals to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian “stay-behind” clandestine paramilitary NATO army, which was implicated in false flag terrorist attacks implicating communists and anarchists as part of the strategy of tension from the late 1960s to early 1980s.
2002 – Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks around Washington, D.C.
2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
2014 – The China National Space Administration launches an experimental lunar mission, Chang’e 5-T1, which will loop behind the Moon and return to Earth.
Births
1936 – Bill Wyman, English singer-songwriter
1939 – F. Murray Abraham, American actor
Deaths
1260 – Qutuz, Egyptian sultan
1725 – Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer and educator (b. 1660)
1852 – Daniel Webster, 14th United States Secretary of State (b. 1782)
1935 – Dutch Schultz, American mob boss (b. 1902)
1944 – Louis Renault, French engineer and businessman, co-founded the Renault Company (b. 1877)
1971 – Jo Siffert, Swiss race car driver and motorcycle racer (b. 1936)
1972 – Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1919)
1979 – Carlo Abarth, Italian automobile designer (b. 1908)
1991 – Gene Roddenberry, American captain, screenwriter, and producer, created Star Trek (b. 1921)
2005 – Rosa Parks, American activist (b. 1913)
