1509 - Pope Julius II excommunicates entire Italian state of Venice
1521 - Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.
[H]
1565 -1st Spanish settlement in Phillipines, Cebu City, founded.
1646 - King Charles I flees Oxford
1650 - Scottish general Montrose defeated
1667 - John Milton sells the copyright to Paradise Lost
1746 - Battle at Culloden Moor -- Duke of Cumberland routs "Bonny Prince Charley" Stuart and massacres fleeing Highlanders
1773 - British Parliament Passes the Tea Act
1805 - A force led by U.S. Marines captured the city of Derna, on the legendary shores of Tripoli [H]
1813 - Americans under Gen Pike capture Toronto; Pike is killed
1838 - Fire destroys half of Charleston
1857 - Establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited
1859 - "Pomona" sinks in North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard
1860 - Thomas J Jackson (the future "Stonewall") is assigned to command Harpers Ferry
1861 - President Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus
1861 - West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from US
1863 - Battle of Streight's raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL
1865 - Days after the end of the Civil War, the worst maritime disaster in American history occurred when the steamboat
Sultana exploded and sank on the Mississippi River, kills up to 1,547 of 2000
released Union POWs on their way home
1865 - Steamboat "Sultana" explodes in Mississippi River,
1867 - Charles Gounod's Opera "Romeo et Juliette" is produced (Paris)
1870 - Heinrich Schliemann discovers Troy
1877 - Jules Massenet's Opera "Le Roi de Lahore" is produced (Paris)
1877 - President Hayes removes Federal troops from LA, Reconstruction ends
1881 - Pogroms against Russian Jews start in Elisabethgrad
1897 - Grant's Tomb (famed of song & legend) is dedicated.
1920 - Pogrom leader Petljoera declares Ukraine Independence
1922 - Fritz Lang's "Dr Mabuse, der Spieler" premieres in Berlin
1932 - American poet Hart Crane drowned after jumping from a steamer while en route to New York; he was 32.
1936 - The UAW, or United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, gained autonomy from the American Federation of Labor (AFL)
1937 - The nation's first Social Security checks were distributed.
1940 - Hweinrich Himmler orders construction of Auschwitz Death Camp in southern Poland
1941 - German troops occupy Athens Greece
1942 - Belgium Jews are forced to wear stars
1942 - Tornado destroys Pryor Oklahoma killing 100, injuring 300
1945 - Founding of the Second Republic, in Austria.
1945 - Italian partisans capture Mussolini
1945 - US 5th army enters Genoa
1946 - 1st radar installation aboard a coml ship installed
1947 - "Babe Ruth Day" at Yankee Stadium
was held to honor the ailing baseball star.
1950 - South Africa passes Group Areas Act segregating races
1960 - 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine launched (Tullibee)
1960 - South Korean pres Syngman Rhee resigns
1963 - Cuban premier Fidel Castro arrives in Moscow
1965 - RC Duncan patents "Pampers" disposable diaper
1967 - Expo '67 was officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
1967 - Rocky Marciano retires as undefeated boxing champ
1972 - Apollo 16 returns to Earth
1973 - During the Watergate scandal, the FBI's acting director, L. Patrick Gray, resigned.
1974 - Pan Am 707 crashes into mountains of Bali, killing 107
1977 - Bloody riots in Soweto South Africa
1978 - Accident at nuclear reactor Willow Island, W Virginia, kills 51
1978 - Afghanistan revolution (National Day), pro-Russian military coup
1978 - Convicted Watergate defendant John D. Ehrlichman was released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months.
1981 - Xerox introduced its STAR 8010 information system, the first computer on the market to boast a mouse and a point-and-click interface
1982 - Trial of John W Hinckley Jr, attempted assassin of Reagan, begins
1983 - Nolan Ryan becomes strikeout king (3,509), passing Walter Johnson
1986 - "Sweet Charity" opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 368 performances
1986 - A video pirate calling himself "Captain Midnight" interrupted a movie on Home Box Office with a printed message protesting de-scrambling fees. Captain Midnight turned out to be John R. MacDougall of Florida, who was fined and placed on probation.
1987 - US Justice Dept bars Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim from entering US, due to his implications in war crimes as a Nazi officer during WW II
1989 - Beijing students take over Tiananmen Square in China
1989 - Hurricane in Bangladesh kills 500
1991 - A group of 250 Kurds became the first refugees to move into a new U.S.-built camp in northern Iraq.
1994 - President Nixon buried in Nixon Library in California
1996 - Tens of thousands of refugees streamed home to southern Lebanon after a U.S.-brokered cease-fire silenced the guns in the 16-day Israel-Hezbollah war.
2000 - New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani disclosed that he had prostate cancer. He later bowed out of the U.S. Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
1623 - Johann Adam Reincken, composer
1737 - Edward Gibbon (historian, author: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)
1759 - Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, England, writer/feminist (Female Reader)
1791 - Samuel F.B. (Finley Breese) Morse (inventor: electromagnetic telegraph: 1st telegraph message: "What hath God wrought?)
1802 - Abraham Louis Niedermeyer, composer
1812 - Friedrich von Flotow, composer (Martha)
1822 - Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio.
1824 - William Richard Bexfield, composer
1891 - Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, composer
1892 - Louis Victor de Broglie, physicist (studied electrons)
1896 - Rogers Hornsby (baseball: The League (MVP) Award: St. Louis Cardinals, 2B [1925], Chicago Cubs, 2B [1929])
1896 - Wallace Hume Carothers, invented nylon.
1900 - Walter Lantz (Academy Award-winning animator: creator of Woody Woodpecker)
1904 - Cecil Day-Lewis, England, poet laureate/detective (Nicholas Blake)
1916 - Enos 'Country' Slaughter (Baseball Hall of Famer: St. Louis Cardinals, NY Yankees, Kansas City A's, Milwaukee Braves)
1922 - Jack Klugman (Emmy Award-winning actor: Blacklist, The Defenders [1963-64], The Odd Couple [1970-71, 72-73], Quincy, M.E., Twelve Angry Men, Days of Wine and Roses, Goodbye Columbus)
1927 - Coretta Scott King (civil rights leader: wife of Dr. Martin Luther King)
1931 - Igor Oistrach, Russian violinist/son of David Oistrach
1932 - Chuck Knox (football: head coach: LA Rams [1973-76, 1992-94], Buffalo Bills [1978-1982], Seattle Seahawks [1983-1991])
1932 - Maxine (Ella) Brown (singer: group: The Browns: The Three Bells; Scarlet Ribbons, The Old Lamplighter; solo: Sugar Cane Country)
1933 - Calvin Newborn (guitarist)
1934 - Anouk Aimee (actress: La Dolce Vita, Lola, A Man and a Woman, Dr. Bethune, Ready to Wear)
1937 - Phil Jones (newsman: CBS News)
1937 - Sandy Dennis (Academy Award-winning actress: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff [1966]; The Execution, Splendor in the Grass)
1939 - Judy Carne (Joyce Betterill) (actress: Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: "Sock It to Me!"; The Americanization of Emily, Only with Married Men)
1941 - Judith Blegen, Missoula Mont, opera singer (Papagena-Magic Flute)
1941 - Lee Roy Jordan (football: Dallas Cowboys linebacker: Super Bowls V, VI, X)
1942 - Bob Foster (International Boxing Hall of Famer: light heavyweight champion [1968-74]: won 56 of 65 professional fights)
1944 - Doug Buffone (football)
1945 - August Wilson, US, playwright (Fences, Pulitzer 1987)
1947 - Dave Peel (entertainer)
1947 - Keith Magnuson (hockey)
1947 - Mack Alston (football: Washington Redskins, tight end: Super Bowl VII)
1951 - Gary Huff (football)
1951 - Paul 'Ace' Frehley (musician: group: Kiss (the spaceman): Rock and Roll All Nite, Beth, Forever and I Was Made for Lovin' You; formed Frehley's Comet)
1952 - George Gervin (basketball: 'Iceman': San Antonio Spurs: led NBA in scoring 1977-1980, 1981-82)
1959 - Sheena Easton (Orr) (singer: Modern Girl, Morning Train, One Man Woman, When He Shines, For Your Eyes Only, We Got Tonight, Strut, Sugar Walls)
Famous
deaths
1124 - Alexander I, king of Scotland (1107-24), dies
1521 - Ferdinand Magellan, world traveler, killed by restless Filipino natives at 50 [H]
1702 - Jean Bart, French capt/sea hero (Escape out of Plymouth), dies at 51
1813 - Zebulon M Pike, US explorer (Pike's Peak), dies in battle at 34
1882 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, US poet/essayist, dies
1915 - Alexander N Scriabin, Russ pianist/composer (Prometheus), dies at 43
1932 - Harold "Hart" Crane, US poet (Bridge), commits suicide at 32
1957 - Mario A Gianini, creator (maraschino cherry), dies
1959 - Gordon Armstrong, inventor (baby incubator), dies
1965 - Edward R Murrow, newscaster (Person to Person), dies at 57
1972 - Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, dies at 62
1996 - William Egan Colby, CIA Director, dies at 76
