619 Laurence (died), Archbishop of Canterbury
995 William IV (died), Duke of Aquitaine (born 937)
1338 Joanna of Bourbon (born). (died 1378)
1377 More than 2,000 people of the Italian city of Cesena are slaughtered by Papal Troops (Cesena Bloodbath).
1428 Ashikaga Yoshimochi e (died), Japanese shogun (born 1386)
1451 Murad II (died), Ottoman sultan (born 1404)
1468 Johannes Gutenberg (died), German publisher, invented the Printing press (born 1398)
1488 Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
1509 The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu,India.
1534 The Irish rebel Silken Thomas is executed by the order of Henry VIII in London, England.
1619 Henry Brooke (died), 11th Baron Cobham, English conspirator (born 1564)
1637 Tulip mania collapses in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) as sellers could no longer find buyers for their bulb contracts.
1690 The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.
1736 Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (born), Austrian composer and theorist (died 1809)
1747 Samuel Osgood (born), American soldier, 1st United States Postmaster General (died 1813)
1757 Joseph Forlenze (born), Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon (died 1833)
1781 American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius.
1783 American Revolutionary War: Spain recognizes United States independence.
1787 Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays’ Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts.
1807 A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the city of Montevideo, then part of the Spanish Empire now the capital of Uruguay.
1809 Felix Mendelssohn (born), German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847)
1809 The Illinois Territory is created.
1811 Horace Greeley (born), American journalist and politician (died 1872)
1813 José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence.
1817 Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse (born), French geologist and mineralogist (died 1881)
1821 Elizabeth Blackwell (born), American physician (died 1910)
1824 Ranald MacDonald (born), American educator (died 1894)
1832 George Crabbe (died), English poet, surgeon, and clergyman (born 1754)
1834 Wake Forest University is established.
1842 Sidney Lanier (born), American composer and poet (died 1881)
1857 Giuseppe Moretti (born), Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue (died 1935)
1862 Jean-Baptiste Biot (died), French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (born 1774)
1870 The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
1874 Gertrude Stein (born), American poet and art collector (died 1946)
1889 Belle Starr (died), American outlaw (born 1848)
1894 Norman Rockwell (born), American painter and illustrator (died 1978)
1900 Governor of Kentucky William Goebel dies of wound sustained in an assassination attempt three days earlier in Frankfort, Kentucky.
1903 Douglas Douglas-Hamilton (born), 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish pilot and politician (died 1973)
1904 Pretty Boy Floyd (born), American gangster (died 1934)
1905 Arne Beurling (born), Swedish-American mathematician (died 1986)
1907 James Michener (born), American author (died 1997)
1909 Simone Weil (born), French mystic and philosopher (died 1943)
1913 The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
1916 Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burn down.
1917 The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany a day after the latter announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
1918 Joey Bishop (born), American actor (died 2007)
1918 The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.
1920 Henry Heimlich (born), American physician
1924 Woodrow Wilson e (died), American politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1856)
1926 Shelley Berman (born), American actor
1933 Polde Bibič (born), Slovenian actor (died 2012)
1938 Victor Buono (born), American actor (died 1982)
1940 Fran Tarkenton (born), American football player
1941 Neil Bogart (born), American record producer, founded Casablanca Records (died 1982)
1943 Blythe Danner (born), American actress
1943 Dennis Edwards (born), American singer (The Temptations and The Contours)
1944 World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.
1945 Bob Griese (born), American football player
1945 World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 to 3,000 and displaces another 120,000.
1945 World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan.
1947 The lowest temperature in North America −63.9 °C (−83.0 °F) is recorded in Snag, Yukon.
1950 Morgan Fairchild (born), American actress
1958 Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
1959 The Day the Music Died
Buddy Holly (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Crickets) (born 1936)
Ritchie Valens (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1941)
Roger Peterson (died), American pilot (born 1937)
The Big Bopper (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1930)
1960 British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of the “a wind of change” of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonization.
1961 The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.
1966 The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
1967 Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia, is hanged in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne.
1969 In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
1971 New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
1972 The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history.
1984 John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history’s first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.
1984 Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.
1985 Frank Oppenheimer (died), American physicist (born 1912)
1989 After a stroke two weeks previous, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months.
1989 John Cassavetes (died), American actor (born 1929)
1995 Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
1996 Audrey Meadows (died), American actress (born 1922)
1998 Cavalese cable car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.
1998 Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
2007 A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
2012 Ben Gazzara (died), American actor and director (born 1930)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017