0858 - Nicolaas I succeeds Benedict III as pope
1061 - Halley's Comet inspires English monk to predict that England will be destroyed (It wasn't)
1288 - Jews of Yroyes France are accused of ritual murder
1558 - Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland marries French crown prince Francois
1570 - Battles between Spanish troops & followers of Sultan Suleiman
1704 - The Boston News-Letter, the first continuously-printed newspaper in the
British colonies, was first published. John Campbell, its first editor,
published the weekly newspaper on a single, double-sided page.
1792 - "La Marseillaise"
the national anthem of France, was composed by Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de
Lisle for French Revolution armies.
1800 - President John Adams signed a law establishing the Library of Congress with $5,000 allocation [H]
1801 - 1st performance of Joseph Haydn's oratorio "Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons)"
1833 - Patent granted for 1st soda fountain
1863 - Skirmish at Okolona/Birmingham, Mississippi (Grierson's Raid)
1867 - Black demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond Va streetcars
1871 - Verdi's "Aida" is premiered (Cairo)
1872 - Mt. Vesuvius erupts
1877 - Last federal occupying troops withdraw from south (New Orleans), ending the North's military occupation of the South following the Civil War.
1888 - Eastman Kodak forms
1891 - Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Final Problem"
1898 - US fleet under commodore Dewey steams from Hong Kong to Philippines
1898 - Spain declared war on the United States after rejecting America's ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1915 - Massacre of Armenians by Turks starts; Over 200 Armenian intellectuals and cultural activists living in
Constantinople was arrested by the Turkish government, and most were eventually
executed. This massacre was part of the Ottoman Empire's larger effort to
annihilate the over two million Armenians living there. (Armenian Martyrs Day)
1916 - Some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The uprising was put down by British forces several days later.)
1920 - British Mandate over Palestine goes into effect (lasts 28 years)
1923 - Colonel Jacob Schick patents Schick razors
1928 - Fathometer, which measures underwater depth, patented
1932 - German national election (NSDAP/NAZI 36.3% in Prussia)
1941 - British army begins evacuation of Greece
1941 - Dutch Prince Bernhard becomes an RAF pilot
1944 - 1st Boeing B-29 arrives in China "over the Hump"
1949 - 3rd Tony Awards: Death of a Salesman & Kiss Me Kate win
1950 - "Peter Pan" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 320 performances
1950 - Pres Truman denies there are communists in US government
1953 - British statesman Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. [H]
1960 - 14th Tony Awards: Miracle Worker & Fiorello! win
1961 - JFK accepts "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs
1962 - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal, between Camp Parks, Calif., and Westford, Mass.
1968 - Leftist students at Columbia University in New York began a week-long occupation of several campus buildings.
1969 - Lebanese army in battle with Palestinians
1969 - Paul McCartney denies rumors he is dead
1969 - US B-52's drop 3,000 ton bombs at Cambodian boundary
1970 - The People's Republic of China launched its first satellite, which repeatedly transmitted a song, "The East is Red."
1980 - The United States launched an abortive attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.
1981 - US ends grain embargo against USSR
1981 - IBM introduced its first personal computer.
1982 - 150 Khomeini followers assault student dormitory in West Germany
1987 - Genetically altered bacteria, designed to prevent frost damage, was sprayed on a California strawberry field in the first test of such biotechnology in nature.
1989 - 10s of thousands of students strikes in Beijing China
1990 - Security law violator Michael Milken pleads guilty to 6 felonies
1990 - West and East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on July 1
1990 - Junk-bond king Michael Milken avoided trial on insider trading and racketeering charges by pleading guilty to six less serious felony violations, agreeing to pay fines and
penalties totaling $600 million.
1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
1991 - A Kurdish rebel leader announced the guerrillas had reached an agreement in principle with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to end the Kurds' two-week rebellion.
1991 - Greddie Stowers, a black World War I corporal, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to become the first black to receive the highest medal for valor in combat.
1991 - The first U.N. peacekeeping forces were deployed along the Kuwait-Iraq border.
1992 - President Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton made long-distance back-to-back appearances via satellite hookups before the National Association of Hispanic Journalists meeting in Albuquerque, N.M.
1992 - A car driven by an elderly New York woman careened through a crowded Greenwich Village park, killing four people and injuring 27.
1993 - An IRA bomb blast rocked London's financial district, injuring at least 35 people.
1995 - Dow Jones Index hits record 4303.98
1995 - The UNAbomber struck again: a mail bomb killed Gilbert Murray, president of the California Forestry Association, in Sacramento.
1996 - The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for its official commitment to the destruction of Israel.
1996 - Negotiators for Congress and the White House agreed on a permanent budget for fiscal year 1996.
1996 - President Clinton signed into law a bill to fight terrorism.
1997 - In Denver the prosecution and defense presented opening arguments in the
federal court trial of suspected Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
1997 - The Senate voted 74-to-26 to approve the chemical weapons treaty, five days before the pact was to take effect.
Becoming the 75th country to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention.
1998 - After threats from President Yeltsin and two negative votes, the Russian parliament approved Yeltsin's nomination of Sergei Kiriyenko as the nation's premier.
2000 - Concerned about the disappearance of a laptop computer with highly sensitive documents, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced a five-point plan to help guard against such lapses in the future.
2000 - A teen-age gunman opened fire at Washington's National Zoo, wounding seven children.
2001 - A New Zealand air force plane rescued four ailing Americans at an Antarctic research station.
2001 - Reformer Junichiro Koizumi was chosen president of Japan's ruling party, guaranteeing his election as the country's next prime minister.
2001 - The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that police can arrest and handcuff people for minor traffic offenses.
Birthdays
Today
1538 - Guglielmo Gonzaga, composer
1620 -
John Graunt, statistician, founded the science of demography
1706 - Giovanni Battista Martini, composer (Padre Martini)
1743 - Edmund Cartwright, England, cleric, inventor (power loom)
1766 - Robert Bailey Thomas (founder, editor: The Farmer's Almanac)
1769 - Arthur Wellesley, General/Duke of Wellington (defeated Napoleon at Waterloo)
1815 - Anthony Trollope, England, novelist/poet (Barchester Towers)
1874 - John Russell Pope, US, architect (Jefferson Memorial)
1883 - Jaroslav Hasek, Czech writer (Brave soldier Schweik)
1895 - S Constantine Timoshenko, Russian marshal/people's commissioner
1904 - Willem De Kooning, Rotterdam Netherland, artist (North Atlantic Light)
1905 - Robert Penn Warren (Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist: All the King's Men [1947], poet: Promises:Poems, 1954-1956 [1958], Now and Then:Poems, 1976-1978 [1979]; 1st official poet laureate of U.S.)
1911 - Jack E. Leonard (comedian)
1922 - Samuel Aaron Bell (musician, composer)
1923 - Freddy Scott (singer: Hey Girl, Are You Lonely For Me)
1924 - Shirley MacLaine (Beatty) (Oscar Award-winning actress: Terms of Endearment [1983]; Emmy awards: Shirley MacLaine: If They Could See Me Now [1974], Gypsy in My Soul [1976], Shirley MacLaine... Every Little Movement [1980]; Irma La Douce, The Turning Point; sister of Warren Beatty)
1928 - Johnny Griffin (jazz musician: tenor sax: Chicago Riffin', Flying Home, Soft and Furry, Honeybucket)
1934 - Shirley Boone (Foley) (singer: married to singer, Pat Boone since 1953; daughter of singer, Red Foley; The Boones with Pat and daughters Cherry, Linda Lee, Debby and Laura Gene)
1936 - Jill Ireland (actress: Assassination, Death Wish 2, Hard Times)
1937 - Joe Henderson (musician, composer: played live in sextet at San Francisco's Keystone Korner; also played with Blood Sweat and Tears)
1942 - Barbra (Joan) Streisand (Grammy Award-winning Best Female Pop Vocalist [1963-1965, 1977, 1986], Best Songwriter [1977], People, The Way We Were, You Don't Bring Me Flowers; Academy Award-winning Best Actress: Funny Girl [1968], I Can Get It For You Wholesale, The Owl and the Pussycat, Hello Dolly, Funny Lady, The Way We Were, Yentl; Oscar for Best Song: Evergreen [1976); director: Yentl, The Prince of Tides)
1944 - Bill Singer (baseball)
1945 - Bob Lunn (golfer)
1945 - Doug Clifford (drummer: group: Creedence Clearwater Revival: Lookin' Out My Back Door, Up Around the Bend)
1949 - Bob Chandler (football: Oakland Raiders wide receiver: Super Bowl XV)
Famous
deaths
0709 - Wilfried, bishop of York, dies at about 76
0729 - Egbert[us], English bishop/saint, dies in Iona at 89
1077 - Geza I, King of Hungary (1074-7), dies
1731 - Daniel Defoe, English novelist (Robinson Crusoe), dies
1850 - Louis Alexandre Piccinni, composer, dies at 70
1904 - Friedrich Siemens, German industrialist, dies at 77
1967 - Frank Overton, actor (12 O'Clock High), dies at 48
1986 - The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Warfield Simpson, (Bessie) for whom England's King Edward VIII gave up his throne, died in exile in Paris at age 89.
1997 - Pat Paulsen, comedian (Smothers Brothers Show), died in Mexico at age 69.
2001 - The Rev. Leon Sullivan, a pioneering civil rights crusader credited with helping end South Africa's system of apartheid, died in Scottsdale, Ariz., at age 78.
