1476 - The Battle of Morat in Switzerland was waged, in which
the Confederates defeated the soldiers of Charles the Bold of
Burgundy,.
1535 - A month after the Pope had made him a cardinal, John
Fisher was beheaded in London after refusing to recognize King
Henry VIII as the supreme leader of the English Church.
1611 - Henry Hudson & son set adrift in Hudson Bay by mutineers
1633 - Galileo Galilei again forced to recant Earth orbits Sun by Pope (but on Oct 31, 1992, Vatican admits it was wrong)
1675 - Royal Greenwich Observatory established in England by Charles II
1740 - King Frederick II of Prussia ends torture & guarantees religion & freedom of the press
1772 - Slavery outlawed in England
1775 - 1st Continental currency authorized
1807 - The U.S frigate Chesapeake was fired upon and then boarded by the crew of the British battleship Leopold about 40 miles east of Chesapeake
Bay, a provocation leading to War of 1812 .
1808 - Zebulon Pike reaches his peak.
1812 - Napoleon's Grand Army invades Russia
1815 - Following his crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo four days before, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France for the second and final time.
1847 - The doughnut is invented.
1849 - Stephen C Massett opens at San Francisco courthouse as 1st professional entertainer using (allegedly) only piano in California
1851 - Fire destroys part of San Francisco
1864 - Battle of Ream's Station, VA (Wilson's Raid)
1868 - Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.
1870 - Congress created the Department of Justice.
1874 - Dr Andrew T Sill, of Macon Missouri, founds osteopathy
1889 - Louisville Colonels set major-league baseball record with 26th consecutive loss
1898 - Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood lead the 'Rough Riders' (a volunteer cavalry regiment) onto the beach at Daiquiri (Spanish American War)
1910 - 1st airship passengers - Zeppelin Deutscheland
1911 - Britain's King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
1918 - 53 circus performers and many circus animals were killed when an empty troop train rear-ended the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train, which was stopped in Ivanhoe, Ind., to fix its brakes.
1930 - Lou Gehrig hits 3 HRs in a game - Ruth hits 3 in double header
1934 - Ferdinand Porsche contracted with the Automobile Manufacturers Association of Germany (RDA) to build three prototype "people's cars",
the Volkswagen. [H]
1937 - Joe Lewis wins world heavyweight title from James Braddock by KO
1938 - Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium.
1939 - Future Queen Elizabeth of England meets future husband Philip
1940 - During World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris.
1941 - Estonians starts armed resistance against Soviet occupation
1941 - Finland invades Karelia
1941 - Germany launches Operation Barbarossa-the invasion of Russia
1941 - President Roosevelt signs "GI Bill of Rights"
1942 - Japanese submarine in mouth of Columbia River, Oregon
1942 - Jewish Brigade attached by British Army in WW II, forms
1944 - FDR signs "GI Bill of Rights" (Servicemen's Readjustment Act)
1945 - The U.S. Tenth Army overcame the last major pockets of Japanese resistance on Okinawa Island, ending one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed in the 81-day campaign.
1954 - Congress passes revised organic act for Virgin Islands
1957 - Kansas City stops using streetcars in it's transit system.
1962 - 1st test of Hovercraft
1966 - "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opens
1968 - The Jeff Beck Group -- featuring Rod Stewart -- debuted in the United States at the Fillmore East in New York City.
1969 - Cleveland's Cuyahgo River catches fire
1969 - Blind Faith released its first and only album.
1970 - Pres Nixon signs 26th amendment (voting age lowered to 18)
1973 - Skylab 2's astronauts land
1973 - President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a pledge to try to avoid nuclear war.
1977 - Former attorney general John Mitchell starts 19 months in Alabama prison became the first former U.S.
to go to jail when he entered a federal prison to serve time for Watergate crimes.
1977 - Walt Disney's "The Rescuers" is released
1978 - Neo-Nazis call off plans to march in Jewish community of Skokie, Ill
1978 - The planet Pluto's partner, Charon, is discovered by James Christy.
1979 - Pro Football Researchers Association founded at Canton - O
1981 - Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to murder charges in the shooting death of John Lennon.
1982 - Manhattan institutes bus-only lanes
1982 - Prince Charles & Lady Di take Prince William home from hospital
1983 - 1st time a satellite is retrieved from
orbit, by Space Shuttle.
1987 - Tom Seaver retires after 3rd try with NY Mets
1990 - Florida passes a law prohibits wearing a throng bathing suit
1990 - South African police tightened security around President de Klerk and detained 11 right-wing activists after a published report detailed an alleged plot to assassinate Klerk and black nationalist Nelson Mandela.
1991 - An estimated 200,000 Albanians turned out in the capital Tirana to cheer visiting U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
1991 - At an auction in New York, a Jimi Hendrix fan paid $35,200 dollars for handwritten lyrics to the song "Room Full of Mirrors."
1991 - Funeral services were held for James Kubert -- an original member of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels -- in Royal Oaks, Mich. He died of cancer at age 46.
1991 - The South African government, Inkatha Freedom partyand ANC met for the first time in Johannesburg to discuss a way to end factional violence.
1992 - 2 skeletons excavated in Ykaterinburg identified as Czar Nicholas II & wife Alexandra
1992 - Supreme Court rules "hate crime" laws violated free-speech rights
1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court said the FBI had to explain why it refused to release its secret files on ex-Beatle John Lennon to a history professor at the University of California.
1992 - Three members of M. C. Hammer's entourage were wounded -- none seriously -- in a drive-by shooting in Albuquerque, N.M.
1993 - Billy Ray Cyrus's lifelong dream came true when he visited Dodger Stadium.
1994 - Former President Carter persuaded North Korea to meet with South Korea as part of a breakthrough in the controversy over North Korea's nuclear-development sites.
1994 - In a major upset at the World Cup soccer tournament, the United States defeated Columbia, 2-1.
1995 - President Clinton's nominee for surgeon-general, Dr. Henry Foster, failed to win Senate approval.
1996 - At their first summit in six years, Arab leaders meeting in Cairo, Egypt, urged Israel to prove its commitment to peace by resuming negotiations without delay.
1999, "Snowfall in the Sahara," Natalie Cole's first album in 3 years, was released.
2000 - Independent Counsel Robert Ray ended his investigation of the 1993 firings in the White House travel office, issuing no indictments but saying he'd found "substantial evidence" that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton played a role in the dismissals.
2000 - The state of Texas executed Gary Graham for the 1981 killing of a man in a holdup outside a Houston supermarket; Graham insisted to the end that he was innocent.
2000 - The surviving members of the Isley Brothers inked an eight-figure deal with The Pullman Group to issue bonds in lieu of future song royalties.
1684 - Francesco Onofrio Manfredini, composer
1741 - Alois Luigi Tomasini, composer
1757 - George Vancouver, surveyed Pacific coast from SF to Vancouver I
1837 - Paul Morphy, US greatest chess player of all time champ (1857-61)
1856 - English adventure novelist H. Rider Haggard ("King Solomon's Mines," "She")
1858 - Giacomo Puccini, Italian operatic composer
1887 - Sir Julian Huxley, biologist and philosopher of science
1898 - German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, novelist (All Quiet on the Western Front)
1903 - Carl Hubbell (baseball: 'The Meal Ticket': pitcher: NY Giants: won 24 games in a row over two seasons [1936-37; Baseball Writer's Award [1933])
1906 - Billy Wilder (Academy Award-winning director: The Apartment [1960], The Lost Weekend [1945]; Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like it Hot, Sabrina, Irma La Douce, The Front Page, Buddy, Buddy)
1907 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American aviator author (Gift from the Sea)
1907 - Michael Todd (Avrom Godenborgen) (producer)
1909 - Mary Livingstone (Sadie Marks) (actress: The Jack Benny Show; married to Jack Benny)
1910 - Katherine Dunham, American dancer choreographer anthropologist
1910 - Peter Pears, tenor
1921 - Gower Champion (Tony Award-winning choreographer: 42nd Street [1981], The Happy Time [1968], Hello Dolly! [1964], Bye-Bye Birdie [1961], Lend an Ear [1949]; actor, dancer: Lovely to Look At, Show Boat, Mr. Music)
1921 - Joseph Papp (Papirofsky) (Pulitzer Prize-winning producer; also winner of 28 Tony awards and 6 New York Critics Circle Awards; over 400 productions including: Hair, A Chorus Line, Two Gentlemen of Verona, That Championship Season)
1922 - Bill Blass (fashion designer)
1928 - Ralph Waite (actor: The Waltons, Roots, Cliffhanger, The Bodyguard, Cool Hand Luke, Five Easy Pieces)
1930 - Roy Drusky (DJ, songwriter: Alone with You, Country Girl, Anymore; singer: Three Hearts in a Tangle, Peel Me a Nanner, Another, Yes Mr. Peters [w/Priscilla Mitchell]; films: The Golden Guitar, Forty-Acre Feud)
1933 - Dianne Feinstein, (Goldman) 1st female mayor of SF/(Sen-D-California)
1934 - Russ Snyder (baseball)
1936 - Kris Kristofferson (songwriter: Me & Bobby McGee, For the Good Times, Help Me Make It Through the Night; singer: Loving Her was Easier, Why Me; actor: A Star is Born, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore)
1941 - Barry Serafin (news reporter: ABC News)
1941 - Ed Bradley (news correspondent: Sixty Minutes; host: Street Stories)
1944 - Peter Asher (singer: group: Peter and Gordon: A World Without Love, I Go To Pieces, True Love Ways, Lady Godiva, Sunday for Tea; record producer)
1947 - Bobby Douglass (football)
1947 - Howard Kaylan (Kaplan) (singer: group: The Turtles: Happy Together, She'd Rather Be with Me, Elenore, You Showed Me; duo: Flo & Eddie: back-up for: Bruce Springsteen, The Knack, etc.)
1948 - 'Pistol' Pete Maravich (basketball: New Orleans Jazz; NCAA Div. I Individual Record: total points scored [1,381], field goal points [522] in a season [1970]: Louisiana State)
1948 - Todd Rundgren (singer: We Gotta Get You a Woman, I Saw the Light, Hello It's Me, Can We Still Be Friends; groups: Nazz, Utopia; producer: Meat Loaf, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad)
1949 - Allen Osmond (singer: group: The Osmonds/The Osmond Brothers: One Bad Apple, Any Time, Merrill and Jessica, You're Here to Remember, I'm Here to Forget)
1949 - Lindsay Wagner (actress: The Bionic Woman, The Paper Chase, Fire in the Dark, Nurses on the Line, The Second Wind)
1949 - Meryl Streep (Academy Award-winning actress: Sophie's Choice [1982], Kramer vs. Kramer [1979]; Bridges of Madison County, Postcards from the Edge, The River Wild)
1954 - Chris Lemmon (actor: Fantasy, Dad, Thunder in Paradise, Corporate Affairs; Jack Lemmon's son)
1954 - Freddie Prinze (Preutzel) (comedian, actor: Chico and the Man)
1960 - Tracy Pollan (actress: Family Ties, A Stranger Among Us)
1962 - Clyde 'The Glide' Drexler (basketball: Portland Trailblazers; member of U. of Houston's [1980s] Phi Slamma Jamma team)
1535 - John Fisher, English bishop (1504-35)/cardinal/saint, beheaded by Henry VIII at 65
1876 - General Santa Anna dies in Mexico City at 82 [H]
1903 - George White, black resident of Delaware, lynched
1945 - Japanese Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, the commander of Okinawa's defense, committed suicide with a number of Japanese officers and troops rather than surrender to US troops.
1969 - Judy Garland, actress (Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade), died in London at age 47.
1979 - Julius Sommer dies of heart failure buried in Dayton Oh
1987 - Actor/Dancer Fred Astaire dies
1988 - Dennis Day, actor/tenor (Jack Benny Show), dies of ALS at 71
1992 - M F K Fisher, cook book author, dies of Parkinson Disease at 83
1993 - Pat Nixon, former first lady (1969-75), dies of lung cancer in Park Ridge, N.J., at age
81
