1003 Pope Sylvester II (died) (born 946)
1191 Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre who is crowned Queen consort of England the same day.
1364 Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, is founded in Kraków, Poland.
1510 The Prince of Anhua rebellion begins when Zhu Zhifan kills all the officials invited to a banquet and declares his intent on ousting the powerful Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor.
1551 National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.
1700 Luigi Vanvitelli (born), Italian architect and engineer, designed the Palace of Caserta and Royal Palace of Milan (died 1773)
1743 Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia after defeating her rival, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor.
1780 American Revolutionary War: In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.
1820 Florence Nightingale (born), Italian-English nurse (died 1910)
1842 Jules Massenet (born), French composer (died 1912)
1850 Henry Cabot Lodge (born), American politician (died 1924)
1856 Jacques Philippe Marie Binet (died), French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1786)
1859 William Alden Smith (born), American politician (died 1932)
1862 U.S. federal troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1863 American Civil War: Battle of Raymond: two divisions of James B. McPherson’s XVII Corps (ACW) turn the left wing of Confederate General John C. Pemberton’s defensive line on Fourteen Mile Creek, opening up the interior of Mississippi to the Union Army during the Vicksburg Campaign.
1864 American Civil War: the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers die in “the Bloody Angle”.
1865 American Civil War: the Battle of Palmito Ranch: the first day of the last major land action to take place during the Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory.
1867 Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Gerhard (died), German archaeologist (born 1795)
1881 In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate.
1900 Joseph Rochefort (born), American captain and cryptanalyst (died 1976)
1907 Katharine Hepburn (born), American actress and singer (died 2003)
1914 Howard K. Smith (born), American journalist and actor (died 2002)
1918 Julius Rosenberg (born), American spy (died 1953)
1918 Mary Kay Ash (born), American businesswoman, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics (died 2001)
1921 Farley Mowat (born), Canadian environmentalist and author
1925 Yogi Berra (born), American baseball player and manager
1926 The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
1928 Burt Bacharach (born), American pianist, composer, and producer
1932 Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs’ home.
1933 The Agricultural Adjustment Act is enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies.
1935 Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (founders of Alcoholics Anonymous) meet for the first time in Akron, Ohio, at the home of Henrietta Siberling.
1936 Tom Snyder (born), American journalist (died 2007)
1937 George Carlin (born), American comedian, actor, and author (died 2008)
1937 The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at a ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
1941 Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
1942 Billy Swan (born), American singer-songwriter
1942 World War II: The U.S. tanker Virginia was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507.
1946 Daniel Libeskind (born), American architect, designed the Imperial War Museum North and Jewish Museum
1948 Steve Winwood (born), English singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith)
1948 Wilhelmina, Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands cedes throne.
1949 The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin.
1949 The western occupying powers approve the Basic Law for the new German state: the Federal Republic of Germany.
1950 Billy Squier (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1950 Bruce Boxleitner (born), American actor and author
1955 Austria regains its independence as the Allied occupation following World War II ends.
1955 Kix Brooks (born), American singer-songwriter (Brooks & Dunn)
1958 Eric Singer (born), American drummer and songwriter (Kiss, Avantasia, Badlands, and Eric Singer Project)
1959 Ving Rhames (born), American actor
1961 Paul Begala (born), American political adviser and television host
1962 Emilio Estevez (born), American actor, director, and screenwriter
1963 Vanessa A. Williams (born), American actress
1965 The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.
1968 Tony Hawk (born), American skateboarder and actor
1973 Art Pollard (died), American race car driver (born 1911)
1975 –The Cambodian navy seizes the American merchant ship SS Mayagüez in international waters.
1978 In Zaire, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba (now known as Katanga). The local government asks the U.S.A., France and Belgium to restore order.
1981 Francis Hughes starves to death in the Maze Prison in a Republican campaign for political prisoner status to be granted to Provisional IRA prisoners.
1982 During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an “agent of Moscow”.
1986 NBC debuts the current well-known peacock as seen in the NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration.
2000 Adam Petty (died), American race car driver (born 1980)
2001 Alexei Tupolev (died), Russian engineer, designed the Tupolev Tu-144 (born 1925)
2001 Perry Como (died), American singer and actor (born 1912)
2002 Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.
2003 The Riyadh compound bombings, carried out by Al Qaeda, kill 26 people.
2008 An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.
2008 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud.
EO Smith
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