1408 Henry Percy (died), 1st Earl of Northumberland, English son of Mary of Lancaster (born 1342)
1472 Orkney and Shetland Islands are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.
1547 Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
1618 Philip William (died), Prince of Orange (born 1554)
1626 John Dowland (died), English lute player and composer (born 1563)
1653 Luigi Rossi (died), Italian composer (born 1597)
1685 René-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France’s claim to Texas.
1757 John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller (born), English philanthropist (died 1834)
1792 The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.
1816 Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1835 Concepción, Chile is destroyed by an earthquake.
1844 Joshua Slocum (born), Canadian sailor and adventurer (died 1909)
1862 William Wallace Lincoln (died), son of Abraham Lincoln (born 1850)
1864 American Civil War: Battle of Olustee occurs the largest battle fought in Florida during the war.
1872 In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
1873 The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California.
1877 Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake receives its première performance at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
1893 Elizabeth Holloway Marston (born), American psychologist (died 1993)
1893 P. G. T. Beauregard (died), American general (born 1818)
1895 Frederick Douglass (died), American author and activist (born 1818)
1899 Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (born), American businessman (died 1992)
1901 The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
1902 Ansel Adams (born), American photographer (died 1984)
1904 Alexei Kosygin (born), Soviet politician, 8th Premier of the Soviet Union (died 1980)
1912 Pierre Boulle (born), French author (died 1994)
1920 Robert Peary (died), American explorer (born 1856)
1920 Yevgeny Dragunov (born), Russian weapons designer, designed the Dragunov sniper rifle (died 1991)
1925 Robert Altman (born), American director and screenwriter (died 2006)
1927 Sidney Poitier (born), American actor and director
1928 Jean Kennedy Smith (born), American diplomat, 25th United States Ambassador to Ireland
1929 Amanda Blake (born), American actress (died 1989)
1931 The Congress of the United States approves the construction of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.
1932 Tom Patey (born), Scottish mountaineer (died 1970)
1933 Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party’s upcoming election campaign.
1933 The Congress of the United States proposes the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution that will end Prohibition in the United States.
1934 Bobby Unser (born), American race car driver
1935 Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
1937 Nancy Wilson (born), American singer and actress
1937 Roger Penske (born), American race car driver
1941 Buffy Sainte-Marie (born), Canadian-American singer-songwriter and producer
1942 Lieutenant Edward O’Hare becomes America’s first World War II flying ace.
1942 Mitch McConnell (born), American politician
1943 American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
1943 The Parícutin volcano begins to form in Parícutin, Mexico.
1943 The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.
1944 World War II: The “Big Week” began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.
1944 World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Island.
1945 Andrew Bergman (born), American screenwriter and director
1946 J. Geils (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The J. Geils Band)
1946 Sandy Duncan (born), American actress, singer, and dancer
1949 Ivana Trump (born), Czech-American skier and model
1950 Ken Shimura (born), Japanese actor
1950 Walter Becker (born), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Steely Dan)
1951 Edward Albert (born), American actor (died 2006)
1951 Gordon Brown (born), Scottish politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1951 Randy California (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Spirit and The Blue Flame) (died 1997)
1954 Jon Brant (born), American bass player (Cheap Trick)
1954 Patty Hearst (born), American actress
1956 The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy
1961 Percy Grainger (died), Australian-American pianist and composer (born 1882)
1962 Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
1965 Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
1966 Chester Nimitz (died), American admiral (born 1885)
1966 Cindy Crawford (born), American model and actress
1967 Kurt Cobain (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Nirvana and Fecal Matter) (died 1994)
1968 Anthony Asquith (died), English director (born 1902)
1970 Sophie Treadwell (died), American playwright and journalist (born 1885)
1972 Walter Winchell (died), American journalist (born 1897)
1976 René Cassin (died), French judge, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1887)
1978 The last Order of Victory is bestowed upon Leonid Brezhnev.
1987 Unabomber: In Salt Lake City, a bomb explodes in a computer store.
1989 An IRA bomb destroys a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, England
1993 Ferruccio Lamborghini (died), Italian businessman, founded Lamborghini (born 1916)
1996 Solomon Asch (died), American psychologist (born 1907)
1996 Toru Takemitsu (died), Japanese composer (born 1930)
1998 American figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
1999 Gene Siskel (died), American journalist and critic (born 1946)
2003 During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.
2005 Hunter S. Thompson (died), American journalist and author (born 1937)
2005 Sandra Dee (died), American actress (born 1944)
2005 Thomas Willmore (died), English mathematician (born 1919)
2006 Curt Gowdy (died), American sportscaster (born 1919)
2009 Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack.
2010 Alexander Haig (died), American general and politician, 59th United States Secretary of State (born 1924)
2013 David S. McKay (died), American astrobiologist (born 1936)
2013 The smallest Extrasolar planet, Kepler-37b is discovered.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
- The Super Sucker Bowl - 10 February, 2017
- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017