62 Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.
1576 Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.
1578 Giovanni Battista Moroni (died), Italian painter (born 1520)
1597 A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
1608 Gaspar Schott (born), German mathematician (died 1666)
1631 Roger Williams emigrates to Boston.
1705 Philipp Jakob Spener (died), German theologian (born 1635)
1725 James Otis, Jr. (born), American lawyer and patriot (died 1783)
1744 John Jeffries (born), physician and surgeon (died 1819)
1754 Nicolaas Kruik (died), Dutch astronomer and cartographer (born 1678)
1778 South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1782 Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.
1784 Nancy Lincoln (born), mother of Abraham Lincoln (died 1818)
1795 Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger (born), Austrian mineralogist, geologist, and physicist (died 1871)
1810 Peninsular War: Siege of Cádiz begins.
1818 Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
1837 Dwight L. Moody (born), American evangelist and publisher, founded Moody Publishers (died 1899)
1840 Hiram Stevens Maxim (born), American-English inventor, invented the Maxim gun (died 1916)
1840 John Boyd Dunlop (born), Scottish businessman, co-founded Dunlop Rubber (died 1921)
1848 Belle Starr (born), American outlaw (died 1889)
1849 University of Wisconsin-Madison’s first class meets at Madison Female Academy.
1852 The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.
1859 Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered the birth of the modern Romanian state.
1869 The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the “Welcome Stranger”, is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.
1878 André Citroën (born), French engineer and businessman, founded Citroën (died 1935)
1880 Gabriel Voisin (born), French engineer (died 1973)
1881 Thomas Carlyle (died), Scottish historian (born 1795)
1885 King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
1900 Adlai Stevenson (born), American politician, 31st Governor of Illinois (died 1965)
1900 The United States and the United Kingdom sign a treaty for the Panama Canal.
1906 John Carradine (born), American actor (died 1988)
1909 Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic.
1914 Alan Lloyd Hodgkin (born), English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998)
1914 William S. Burroughs (born), American author (died 1997)
1915 Robert Hofstadter (born), American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1990)
1917 The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
1917 The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
1919 Andreas Papandreou (born), Greek economist and politician, Prime Minister of Greece (died 1996)
1919 Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.
1919 Kenneth Hare (born), Canadian climatologist and academic (died 2002)
1919 Red Buttons (born), American actor (died 2006)
1924 The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC pips”.
1927 Ruth Fertel (born), American businessman, founded Ruth’s Chris Steak House (died 2002)
1928 Andrew Greeley (born), American priest, sociologist, and author (died 2013)
1934 Hank Aaron (born). American baseball player
1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
1939 Generalísimo Francisco Franco becomes the 68th “Caudillo de España”, or Leader of Spain.
1941 World War II: Allied forces begin the Battle of Keren to capture Keren, Eritrea.
1942 Cory Wells (born), American singer (Three Dog Night)
1942 Roger Staubach (born), American football player
1943 Craig Morton (born), American football player
1943 Michael Mann (born), American director, screenwriter, and producer
1943 Nolan Bushnell (born), American businessman, founded Atari, Inc.
1944 Al Kooper (born), American singer-songwriter and producer (Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears)
1944 J. R. Cobb (born), American guitarist (Classics IV and Atlanta Rhythm Section)
1945 World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
1956 Betty Ong (born), American flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 (died 2001)
1956 Hector Rebaque (born), Mexican race car driver
1958 A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
1958 Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
1962 French President Charles De Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.
1963 The European Court of Justice’s ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law.
1971 Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.
1972 Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
1975 Riots break in Lima, Peru after the police forces go on strike the day before. The uprising (locally known as the Limazo) is bloodily suppressed by the military dictatorship.
1976 Rudy Pompill (died), American saxophonist (Bill Haley and His Comets) (born 1926)
1976 The 1976 swine flu outbreak begins at Fort Dix, NJ.
1977 Oskar Klein (died), Swedish physicist (born 1894)
1981 Ella T. Grasso (died), American politician, 83rd Governor of Connecticut (born 1919)
1988 Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
1993 Joseph L. Mankiewicz (died), American screenwriter, producer, and director (born 1909)
1994 Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
1997 The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
2000 Russian forces massacre at least 60 civilians in the Novye Aldi suburb of Grozny, Chechnya.
2004 Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.
2008 A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States killing 57.
2013 Paul Tanner (died), American trombonist (Glenn Miller Orchestra) (born 1917)
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