*AD 64 – The Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.
*1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
*1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days on the throne.
*1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
*1843 – Brunel’s steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
 |
| The fire started at about 2:30 a.m. on the third floor of J. L. Van Doren, Oil Merchant and Stearin Candle Manufacturer, known as a seller of whale oil, at 34 New Street, and spread quickly to adjoining buildings |
*1845 – Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon. The fire killed four firefighters, 26 civilians, and destroyed 345 buildings.
*1900 – The first line of the Paris Metro opens for operation.
*1943 – World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.
*1977 – The world’s first Global Positioning System (GPS) signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41 a.m. Eastern time (ET).
*1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
*1981 – In a private meeting with President Ronald Reagan, French President Francois Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development.
*1983 – The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
Births
*810 – Muhammad al-Bukhari, Persian scholar (d. 870)
*1789 – John Martin, English painter, engraver, and illustrator (d. 1854)
*1814 – Samuel Colt, founded the Colt’s Manufacturing Company (d. 1862)
*1860 – Lizzie Borden, tried and acquitted for the murders of her parents in 1892 (d. 1927)
*1922 – George McGovern, American lieutenant, historian, and politician (d. 2012)
*1956 – Mark Crispin, American computer scientist, designed the IMAP (d. 2012)
Deaths
*1374 – Petrarch, Italian poet and scholar (b. 1304)
*1965 – Syngman Rhee, journalist and politician, 1st President of South Korea (b. 1875)
*2009 – Frank McCourt, American author and educator (b. 1930)
*2012 – Mohammad Hassan Ganji, Iranian meteorologist and academic (b. 1912)
*2016 – Garry Marshall, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1934)