Today in History July 18

390 BC – Roman-Gaulic Wars: Battle of the Allia – a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome

64 – Great Fire of Rome begins under the Emperor Nero

1334 – The bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone

1536 – Pope’s authority declared void in England

1743 – First half-page newspaper ad is published in the NY Weekly Journal

1870 – Pontifical infalliability proclaimed

1931 – First air-conditioned ship (Mariposa) launched

1942 – Test flight of German Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time

1963 – Failed military coup in Syria

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” Carl Sagan

1966 – Carl Sagan turns 1 billion seconds old

Sagan assembled the first physical messages that were sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminium plaques which were placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either Pioneer 10 or 11 is intercepted by extraterrestrial life. The plaques show the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. (wiki)

1972 – Egyptian president Anwar Sadat throws 20,000 Russian military aids out

1986 – Videotapes released showing Titanic’s sunken remains

1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy collides with Jupiter

2013 – Detroit, Michigan, files for bankruptcy to become the largest US municipal bankruptcy at $18.5 Billion

1635 – Robert Hooke, Isle of Wight, Scientist (Micrographia)

1871 – Giacomo Balla, Italian painter (Dog at a Rope)

1890 – Charles Wilson, President of General Motors (1940-53)/Secretary of Defense (1953-57)

1895 – George Machine Gun Kelly [Georgio Barnes], Memphis Tennessee, American gangster, (d. 1954)

1897 – E. A. D. Eldridge, British racing driver (d. 1935)

1918 – Nelson Mandela, Qunu South Africa, political prisoner who became president and won the Nobel Peace Prize

1921 – John H Glenn Jr,  The Mercury astronaut who first orbited the earth three times.

1937 – Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) (d. 2005)

1950 – Richard Branson, enterperneur (Virgin Atlantic)

1817 – Jane Austen, English novelist, dies at 41

1958 – Henry Farman, French aviation pioneer, dies at 84

1997 – Eugene Shoemaker, astronomer (Shoemaker-Levy comet), dies at 69