474 Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He died ten months later.
1486 King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV.
1535 Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founds Lima, the capital of Peru.
1670 Henry Morgan captures Panama.
1677 Jan van Riebeeck (died), Dutch administrator, founded Cape Town (born 1619)
1689 Montesquieu (born), French philosopher (died 1755)
1701 Frederick I crowns himself King of Prussia in Königsberg.
1778 James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the “Sandwich Islands”.
1779 Peter Mark Roget (born), English physician, theologian, and lexicographer (died 1869)
1782 Daniel Webster (born), American politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (died 1852)
1788 The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
1795 Anna Pavlovna of Russia (born) (died 1865)
1862 John Tyler (died), American politician, 10th President of the United States (born 1790)
1871 Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed the first German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (France) towards the end of theFranco-Prussian War. The empire is known as the Second Reich to Germans.
1878 Antoine César Becquerel (died) French physicist (born 1788)
1884 Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.
1886 Modern hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
1886 Baldassare Verazzi (died), Italian painter (born 1819)
1888 Thomas Sopwith (born), English ice hockey player and pilot (died 1989)
1892 Anton Anderledy died), Swiss religious leader, 23rd Superior General of the Society of Jesus (born 1819)
1896 An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H.L. Smith.
1901 Ivan Petrovsky (born), Russian mathematician (died 1973)
1904 Cary Grant (born), English actor (died 1986)
1905 Joseph Bonanno (born), Italian-American gangster (died 2002)
1908 Jacob Bronowski (born), Polish-English mathematician, historian, and physicist (died 1974)
1911 Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1913 Danny Kaye (born), American actor (died 1987)
1916 A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite strikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
1919 Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1919 World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.
1936 Rudyard Kipling (died), English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1865)
1941 David Ruffin (born), American singer (The Temptations) (died 1991)
1941 World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa.
1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
1944 Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending a three year Nazi siege, known as the Siege of Leningrad.
1944 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers are Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
1950 Gilles Villeneuve (born), Canadian race car driver (died 1982)
1952 Michael Behe (born), American biochemist and author
1955 Kevin Costner (born), American actor, singer, director, and producer
1967 Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1971 Christian Fittipaldi (born), Brazilian race car driver
1974 A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of theYom Kippur War.
1977 Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.
1978 The roof structure of the Hartford Civic Center collapses after a significant snowfall.
1978 Thor Hushovd (born), Norwegian cyclist
1981 Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).
1983 The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals to his family.
1990 Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
1993 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.
1997 Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
1997 In north west Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers and seriously wound one other.
1997 Paul Tsongas (died), American politician (born 1941)
2000 The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
2002 Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.
2005 The Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France
2007 The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths.Hurricane Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.
2009 Gaza War: Hamas announces they will accept Israeli Defense Forces’s offer of a ceasefire, ending the assault.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017