1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
1830 – “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
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1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.
1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first single-rotor helicopter flight.
1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for “disturbing the peace” after disembarking from their bus.
1976 – The London to Washington, D.C., Concorde service begins.
1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
2001 – Mountaineering: Temba Tsheri, a 16-year-old Sherpa, becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.
Births
1819 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (d. 1901)
1868 – Charlie Taylor, engineer and mechanic (d. 1956) The Wright Brother’s mechanic
1911 – Barbara West, English survivor of the Sinking of the RMS Titanic (d. 2007)
1941 – Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter
Deaths
1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1473)
1959 – John Foster Dulles, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 52nd United States Secretary of State (b. 1888)
1981 – Herbert Müller, Swiss race car driver (b. 1940)
1995 – Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
1996 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist and author (b. 1908)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com and many other Google searches