120 BC Aurelia Cotta (born), Roman wife of Gaius Julius Caesar (died 54 BC)
293 Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as the Tetrarchy.
878 Syracuse, Italy, is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily.
987 Louis V of France (died) (born 967)
1237 Olaf the Black, Manx son of Godred II Olafsson (died)
1471 Albrecht Dürer (born), German painter, engraver, and mathematician (died 1528)
1471 Henry VI of England (died) (born 1421)
1502 The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese explorer João da Nova.
1542 Hernando de Soto (died), Spanish-American explorer (born 1496)
1554 Queen Mary I grants a royal Charter to Derby School, as a grammar school for boys in Derby, England.
1664 Elizabeth Poole (died), English-American settler, founded Taunton, Massachusetts (born 1588)
1670 Niccolò Zucchi (died), Italian astronomer and physicist (born 1586)
1688 Alexander Pope (born), English poet (died 1744)
1719 Pierre Poiret (died), French mystic and philosopher (born 1646)
1758 Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned some six and a half years later.
1844 Henri Rousseau (born), French painter (died 1910)
1851 Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.
1856 Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.
1863 American Civil War: The Union Army succeeds in closing off the last escape route from Port Hudson, Louisiana, in preparation for the coming siege.
1863 Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.
1871 French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting. By the close of “Bloody Week”, some 20,000 communards have been killed and 38,000 arrested.
1873 Hans Berger (born), German neurologist (died 1941)
1881 The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C..
1894 Émile Henry (died), French anarchist (born 1872)
1894 The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams.
1895 Franz von Suppé (died), Austrian composer and conductor (born 1819)
1898 Armand Hammer (born), American physician and businessman, founded Occidental Petroleum (died 1990)
1901 Sam Jaffe (born), American film producer and agent (died 2000)
1902 Marcel Breuer (born), Hungarian-American architect, designed the Ameritrust Tower (died 1981)
1904 Fats Waller (born), American singer-songwriter and pianist (died 1943)
1904 Robert Montgomery (born), American actor and director (died 1981)
1904 The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris.
1907 John C. Allen (born), American roller coaster designer (died 1979)
1916 Harold Robbins (born), American author (died 1997)
1917 Raymond Burr (born), Canadian-American actor (died 1993)
1917 The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).
1920 Bill Barber (born), American tuba player and educator (died 2007)
1921 Andrei Sakharov (born), Russian physicist (died 1989)
1921 Sandy Douglas (born), English computer scientist and educator, designed OXO (died 2010)
1923 Ara Parseghian (born), American football player and coach
1925 Hidesaburō Ueno (died), Japanese agriculturalist, guardian of Hachikō (born 1871)
1927 Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1932 Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1933 Maurice André (born), French trumpet player (died 2012)
1934 Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.
1935 Jane Addams (died), American activist and author, co-founded Hull House, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1860)
1935 Terry Lightfoot (born), English clarinet player and bandleader (died 2013)
1936 Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover’s severed genitals in her hand. Her story soon becomes one of Japan’s most notorious scandals.
1937 A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.
1939 Heinz Holliger (born), Swiss oboe player, composer, and conductor
1941 Martin Carthy (born), English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Steeleye Span, The Watersons, Waterson:Carthy, Brass Monkey, and Blue Murder)
1941 Ronald Isley (born), American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (The Isley Brothers)
1942 Danny Ongais (born), American race car driver
1943 Hilton Valentine (born), English guitarist and songwriter (The Animals)
1943 Vincent Crane (born), English pianist, for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster (died 1989)
1946 Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
1947 Bill Champlin (born), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Chicago and Sons of Champlin)
1948 Leo Sayer (born), English-Australian singer-songwriter
1951 Al Franken (born), American actor, screenwriter, and politician
1951 The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.
1952 Mr. T (born), American actor and wrestler
1955 Stan Lynch (born), American drummer, songwriter, and producer (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
1959 Nick Cassavetes (born), American actor, director, and screenwriter
1960 Jeffrey Dahmer (born), American serial killer (died 1994)
1960 Jeffrey Toobin (born), American lawyer and author
1961 American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
1965 Geoffrey de Havilland (died), English engineer, designed the de Havilland Mosquito (born 1882)
1972 Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.
1973 Vaughn Monroe (died), American singer, trumpet player, bandleader, and actor (born 1911)
1979 White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
1981 Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.
1982 Falklands War: A British amphibious assault during Operation Sutton leads to the Battle of San Carlos.
1983 Kenneth Clark (died), English historian and author (born 1903)
1985 Mark Cavendish (born), Manx cyclist
1988 Sammy Davis, Sr. (died), American dancer (born 1900)
1990 The Democratic Republic of Yemen and North Yemen agree to merge into the Republic of Yemen.
1991 Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.
1992 After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode and last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler) of The Tonight Show.
1996 Lash LaRue (died), American actor (born 1917)
1996 The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.
1998 In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics are hit by a butyric acid attacker.
1998 President Soeharto of Indonesia resigns following the killing of students from Tri Sakti University earlier that week by security forces and growing mass protests in Jakarta against his ongoing corrupt rule.
2000 John Gielgud (died), English actor, director, and producer (born 1904)
2001 French Taubira law is enacted, officially recognizing the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.
2003 Alejandro de Tomaso (died), Argentinian-Italian race car driver and businessman, founded De Tomaso (born 1928)
2005 The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.
2011 Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the end of the world would occur on this day, a prophecy that would prove incorrect.
2013 Leonard Marsh (died), American businessman, co-founded Snapple (born 1933)
2013 Mohammad Khaled Hossain (died), Bangladeshi mountaineer (born 1979)
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