23 – Rebels kill and decapitate the Xin dynasty emperor Wang Mang two days after the capital Chang’an is sacked during a peasant rebellion.
1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his army enter the Apalachee capital of Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida) by force..
1600 – Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, receives its première performance in Florence, signifying the beginning of the Baroque period
1683 – German immigrant families found Germantown in the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America.
1723 – Benjamin Franklin arrives in Philadelphia at the age of 17.
1876 – The American Library Association was founded.
1889 – Inventor Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.
1927 – Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent “talkie” movie.
1973 – Egypt launches a coordinated attack with Syria against Israel leading to the Yom Kippur War.
1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists.
2007 – Jason Lewis completes the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.
Births
1744 – James McGill, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded McGill University (d. 1813)
1820 – Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano and actress (d. 1887)
Le Corbusier:
“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe
and 50 times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.”
1887 – Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect and painter, designed the Philips Pavilion and Saint-Pierre, Firminy (d. 1965)
1910 – Orazio Satta Puliga, Italian automobile designer (d. 1974)
Orazio Satta Puliga of Sardinian ancestry and armed with degrees in mechanical engineering and aeronautical engineering joined the design department of Alfa Romeo in 1938. He oversaw the 158 and 159, Alfa Romeo 1900, Alfa Romeo Giulietta, Giulia, Montreal and Alfetta.
1914 – Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnographer and explorer (d. 2002)
1949 – Leslie Moonves, American businessman
Deaths
836 – Nicetas the Patrician, Byzantine general, monk, and saint (b. 761)
877 – Charles the Bald, Roman emperor (b. 823)
1969 – Otto Steinböck, Austrian zoologist (b. 1893)
1989 – Bette Davis, American actress and singer (b. 1908)