868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book
1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City
1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London
1820 – HMS Beagle begins it trip with Charles Darwin onboard initiating his scientific voyage
1846 – President James K. Polk asked for and received a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican-American War
1862 – American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River northwest of Norfolk, Virginia
1894 – Pullman Strike: Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois. A wildcat strike is when unionized workers undertake a strike action without the union’s leadership approval or endorsement.
1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
Kim Philby on the 1990 USSR commemorative stamp
1942 – William Faulkner’s collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of its crew. Although badly damaged, the ship was able to return to the U.S. under its own power.
1949 – Israel joins the United Nations.
1953 – The 1953 Waco tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114
1960 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement
1970 – The Lubbock tornado, a F5 tornado, hits Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 and causing $250 million in damage
1973 – Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed
The Dali Museum in his home town of Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain
1987 – In Baltimore, the first heart-lung transplant takes place. The surgery is performed by Dr. Bruce Reitz of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
Births
1722 – Petrus Camper, Dutch physician, anatomist, and physiologist (d. 1789)
1801 – Henri Labrouste, French architect and academic, designed the Sainte-Geneviève Library (d. 1875)
Nobel Prize laureate
Richard Feynman,
American physicist and engineer
1852 – Charles W. Fairbanks, American journalist and politician, 26th United States Vice President (d. 1918)
1888 – Irving Berlin, Belarusian-American pianist and composer (d. 1989)
1904 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter and illustrator (d. 1989)
1918 – Richard Feynman, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1988)
1927 – Mort Sahl, Canadian-American comedian and actor
1928 – Yaacov Agam, Israeli sculptor
1940 – Herbert Müller, Swiss race car driver (d. 1981)
1946 – Robert Jarvik, American cardiologist, developed the Artificial heart
Deaths
912 – Leo VI the Wise, Byzantine emperor (b. 866)
1778 – William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, English soldier and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1708)
1871 – John Herschel, English mathematician, astronomer, and chemist (b. 1792)
1960 – John D. Rockefeller Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1874)
1963 – Herbert Spencer Gasser, American physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
1988 – Kim Philby, British double agent (b. 1912)
2006 – Floyd Patterson, American boxer and actor (b. 1935)