1487 Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.
1586 Mary, Queen of Scots, recognizes Philip II of Spain as her heir and successor.
1613 John Cleveland (born), English poet (died 1658)
1749 Johann Baptista Ruffini (died), Italian salt trader (born 1672)
1779 Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.
1795 First Battle of Groix otherwise known as “Cornwallis’ Retreat”.
1804 Johann Adam Hiller (died), German composer and conductor (born 1728)
1816 Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori, and inspires his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.
1821 Old Tom Morris (born), Scottish golfer (died 1908)
1826 Constantin von Ettingshausen (born), Austrian geologist and botanist (died 1897)
1829 Geronimo (born), American tribal leader (died 1909)
1846 The Papal conclave of 1846 concludes. Pope Pius IX is elected Pope beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy.
1858 Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
1858 John Snow (died), English physician (born 1813)
1869 Charles Sturt (died), Indian-English explorer (born 1795)
1871 The University Tests Act allows students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).
1872 Norman MacLeod (died), Scottish clergyman and author (born 1812)
1878 Crawford Long (died), American surgeon and pharmacist (born 1815)
1897 A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
1902 Barbara McClintock (born), American geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1992)
1902 Ernst Schröder (died), German mathematician (born 1841)
1902 George Gaylord Simpson (born), American paleontologist (died 1984)
1903 Helen Traubel (born), American soprano (died 1972)
1903 Roald Amundsen commences the first east-west navigation of the Northwest Passage, leaving Oslo, Norway.
1903 The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
1904 Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called “Bloomsday”.
1909 Archie Carr (born), American biologist (died 1987)
1911 A 772 gram stony meteorite strikes the earth near Kilbourn, Wisconsin damaging a barn.
1911 IBM founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
1915 Foundation of the British Women’s Institute.
1917 Katharine Graham (born), American publisher (died 2001)
1922 General election in the Irish Free State: the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin win a large majority.
1925 Emmett Hardy (died), American cornet player (New Orleans Rhythm Kings) (born 1903)
1928 Mark Keppel (died), American educator (born 1867)
1930 Elmer Ambrose Sperry (died), American inventor, co-invented the gyrocompass (born 1860)
1930 Ezra Fitch (died), American lawyer and businessman, co-founded Abercrombie & Fitch (born 1866)
1937 Erich Segal (born), American author and screenwriter (died 2010)
1938 Joyce Carol Oates (born), American author
1939 Billy “Crash” Craddock (born), American singer
1939 Chick Webb (died), American drummer and bandleader (born 1905)
1942 Eddie Levert (born), American singer-songwriter and producer (The O’Jays)
1943 Joan Van Ark (born), American actress
1948 Members of the Malayan Communist Party kill three British plantation managers in Sungai Siput; in response, British Malaya declares a state of emergency.
1952 Gino Vannelli (born), Canadian singer-songwriter
1959 George Reeves (died), American actor and director (born 1914)
1961 Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union.
1963 Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 Mission Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
1967 The Monterey Pop Festival begins
1970 Phil Mickelson (born), American golfer
1971 Tupac Shakur (born), American rapper, producer, and actor (Digital Underground, Outlawz, and Thug Life) (died 1996)
1972 The largest single-site hydro-electric power project in Canada is inaugurated at Churchill Falls, Labrador.
1973 Louise Latimer (died), American actress (born 1913)
1976 Soweto uprising: a non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd.
1977 Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
1977 Wernher von Braun (died), German-American engineer (born 1912)
1981 Jule Gregory Charney (died), American meteorologist (born 1917)
1981 President Reagan awards Congressional Gold Medal to Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, for helping six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979-80; first foreign citizen given the honor.
1982 James Honeyman-Scott (died), English guitarist and songwriter (The Pretenders) (born 1956)
2000 Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 22 years after its issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw fromLebanon. Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon, except the disputed Shebaa Farms.
2010 Bhutan becomes the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.
2012 The United States Air Force’s robotic Boeing X-37B space plane returns to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017