0068 - Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide
0922 - French republic chooses Robert I, King of France
1529 - Zurich declares war on Catholic kantons
1534 - Jacques Cartier 1st sails into mouth of St Lawrence River
1549 - Book of Common Prayer is adopted by the Church of England
1572 - Willem van Orange's army occupies Gelderland
1588 - Spanish Armada sails from Lisbon to England
1628 - 1st deportation from what is now US, Thomas Morton from Mass
1732 - Royal charter for Georgia granted to James Oglethorpe
1772 - 1st naval attack of Revolutionary War takes place in Providence, RI [H]
1784 - John Carroll appointed supervisor of US Catholic Missions
1790 - 1st book copyrighted under constitution, "Philadelphia Spelling Book"
1802 - US Academy at West Point founded
1822 - Charles Graham patents false teeth
1851 - San Francisco Committee of Vigilance forms
1860 - The first dime novel, "Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter" by Ann Stephens, was published.
1862 - Battle of Port Republic, last of 5 battles in Jackson's Valley campaign
1863 - Battle of Brandy Station, VA (Fleetwood, Beverly Ford) [H]
1864 - Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, GA (Pine Mt, Pine Knob, Golgotha)
1868 - 1st meeting of Board of Regents University of California.
1869 - Charles Elmer Hires sells his 1st root beer (Phila)
1870 - Washington: Pres Grant meets with Sioux chief Red Cloud
1883 - 1st commercial electric railway line begins operation (Chicago)
1891 - Painter Paul Gauguin arrives in Papeete, Tahiti
1897 - Alvin Graham Clark dies 3 weeks after 1st use of Yerkes 40-inch lens
1898 - China leases Hong Kong's New Territories to Britain for 99 years. The
territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
1902 - 1st Automat restaurant opens (818 Chestnut St, Phila)
1910 - Passenger on SS Arawatta throws bottle with note overboard (found June 6, 1983 in Queensland)
1923 - Brinks unveils 1st armored security vans
1924 - "Jelly-Roll Blues," is recorded by blues great, Jelly Roll Morton
1928 - Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm are 1st to fly across the Pacific when they end their flight from California to Brisbane
1931 - Goddard patents rocket-fueled aircraft design
1934 - Donald Duck made his 1st screen appearance ("The Wise Little Hen"). Donald’s distinctive quack was voiced originally by Clarence Nash.
1934 - Edwin H. Armstrong demonstrated the superior sound quality FM radio transmission.
1942 - German-Neth press reports, 3 million Dutch sent to East-Europe
1942 - Nazis methodically murder all inhabitants of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in retaliation for partisan assassination of SS Gen Reinhard Heydrich in Prague
1943 - "Pay-as-you-go" (withholding) US income tax deductions authorized
1953 - About 100 die in Worcester MA tornado
1954 - Joseph Welch asks Sen Joseph McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" during Senate-Army hearings
1956 - Heavy earthquake strikes Afghanistan, 400 killed
1957 - Anthony Eden resigns as British PM
1959 - 1st ballistic missile sub launched (George Washington-Groton, Ct)
1963 - Cleopatra opens in NY
1963 - Equal Pay Act enacted
1963 - JFK names Winston Churchill US honorary citizen
1963 - Movie "Cleopatra" opens in NY
1969 - Warren Burger confirmed as US Chief Justice succeeding
Earl Warren
1970 - Harry A Blackmun, sworn in as Supreme Court Justice
1972 - First All-Nite Grad Parties
1973 - Secretariat wins Belmont Stakes & Triple Crown [H]
1977 - Silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth celebrated with fireworks
1978 - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) strikes down 148 year policy of excluding black men from priesthood
1978 - Gutenberg Bible (1 of 21) sells for $2.4 million, London
1980 - Comedian Richard Pryor suffers burns from free basing cocaine
1980 - Soyuz T-2 returns to Earth
1982 - Israel wipes out Syrian SAM missiles in Bekaa Valley
1983 - M Thatcher's Conservative Party wins British parliamentary election
1984 - An Italian prosecutor's report linked the Bulgarian secret service to the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope
John Paul II. Three Bulgarians were indicted but a trialfailed to prove charges against them.
1984 - Laserphonic Fantasy premieres
1985 - American educator Thomas Sutherland was
kidnapped in Lebanon. (He was released in November 1991 along with fellow
hostage Terry Waite.)
1986 - The Rogers Commission released its report on the Challenger disaster,
criticizing NASA and rocket-builder Morton Thiokol for management problems
leading to the explosion that claimed the lives of seven astronauts.
1990 - Go and Go won the 122nd running of the Belmont Stakes.
1993 - Japanese crown prince Naruhito weds Masaka Owada
1994 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to
require the Clinton administration to stop participating in the U.N.-sponsored
arms embargo against the Bosnian government.
1995 - Colombian police arrested Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, believed to be
a leader of the Cali drug cartel.
1997 - The leading candidate to become chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, withdrew from
consideration after a past adulterous affair became known.
1997 - British lease on New Territories in Hong Kong expires
1998 - Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar was sworn in as
Nigeria's new military ruler, one day after the death of Gen. Sani Abacha, who'd
seized power in a 1993 military coup. Abacha had died of an apparent heart
attack at age 54.
1999 - After 78 days of intense
NATO airstrikes, Yugoslav and Western generals signed a pact in which Yugoslavia pledged to withdraw all Serbian troops
from Kosovo within 11 days, clearing the way
for a Kosovo peace plan.
1999 - President Clinton instructed federal law agencies to
collect race and gender data on people they stop or arrest, in a move to end
racial profiling by police.
1510 - Nicolaas van Nieuwland, corrupt 1st bishop of Harlem
1640 - Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1658-1705)
1672 - Peter the Great (Peter Alekseyevich [Romanov]) (Russian Emperor)
1781 - George Stephenson, principal Railroad locomotive inventor
1791 - John Howard Payne, American author actor diplomat
1810 - Carl Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai, composer (Merry Wives of Windsor)
1843 - Bertha von Suttner, Austrian novelist pacifist (Nobel 1905)
1865 - Carl Nielsen, Danish composer
1891 - Cole (Albert) Porter (composer & lyricist: Broadway shows: Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate, Can Can, Silk Stockings; songwriter: I'm in Love Again, Let's Do It, You Do Something to Me, It's De-Lovely, Night and Day, Don't Fence Me In, What is This Thing Called Love, Love for Sale, I Get a Kick Out of You, Just One of Those Things, Begin the Beguine, I Love Paris, In the Still of the Night, True Love)
1900 - Fred Waring (choirmaster & bandleader: group: The Pennsylvanians: The Whiffenpoof Song; invented Waring blender)
1910 - Robert Cummings (Emmy Award-winning actor: Twelve Angry Men [1954], Love That Bob, The Bob Cummings Show, My Hero, Dial "M" for Murder, The Carpetbaggers)
1916 - Les Paul (Polfus) (Grammy Award-winning guitarist: Chester & Lester [w/Chet Atkins - 1976], Trustees Award [1982]; w/Mary Ford: Vaya Con Dios, How High the Moon, Hummingbird, Sittin' on Top of the World; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer [1988])
1916 - Robert McNamara (U.S. Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy & Johnson administrations; president of World Bank)
1922 - George Axelrod (playwright: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Bus Stop, The Seven Year Itch, The Manchurian Candidate)
1926 - Mona Freeman (actress: National Velvet, Black Beauty, Dear Ruth, Battle Cry)
1926 - Roy Smalley (baseball: shortstop: Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves, Philadelphia Phillies)
1930 - Marvin Kalb (journalist: NBC News, Meet the Press)
1931 - Bill Virdon (baseball: St. Louis Cardinals outfielder: Rookie of the Year [1955])
1931 - Joe Santos (Minieri) (actor: Tyson, Trial by Jury, Sinatra)
1934 - Donald Duck, famous fowl
1934 - Jackie Mason (Yacov Moshe Maza) (comedian: Chicken Soup, The World According to Me, The Jerk, Caddyshack 2, History of the World: Part 1; ordained rabbi)
1934 - Jackie Wilson (singer: Lonely Teardrops, Night, Alone at Last, [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher, Baby Workout, For Your Precious Love, Chain Gang; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [1987])
1935 - Diana Van Der Vlis (actress: Lovespell, Girl in Black Stockings)
1939 - David Hobbs (auto racer)
1944 - Record litter of 23 puppies is born to Lena, a foxhound, Ambler Penn
1948 - Jim Bailey (football: NCAA Division 1-A individual record: most punts in a season [101]: Virginia Military Academy [1969])
1948 - Nathaniel Rosen, Altadena Ca, cellist (Tchaikovsky-gold-1978)
1951 - Bonnie Tyler, Singer
1951 - Dave Parker (Baseball Hall of Famer: Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, Baseball Writer's Award [1978])
1961 - Michael J. Fox (actor: Back to the Future, The Secret of My Success, Bright Lights Big City, Doc Hollywood, Greedy, For Love or Money, Family Ties; voice of bulldog puppy in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey)
0068 - Claudius Nero, Roman emperor (54-68), commits suicide at 31
1597 - Jose de Anchieta, Spanish jesuit/missionary, dies
1870 - Charles Dickens, English writer (David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol), dies at 58
1911 - Carry Amelia Moore Nation, American temperance leader, dies
1944 - 99 inhabitants of Tulle, hanged by SS
1964 - W Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Engl Min of Info, dies at 85
1976 - James A Farley, US Postmaster General (1932-38), dies at 88
1991 - Claudio Arrau, Chilian/US pianist/composer, dies at 88
1997 - Reid Shelton, actor (Daddy Warbucks-Annie), dies of stroke at 71
