1576 – Spanish explorer Diego García de Palacio first sights the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Copán.
1618 – Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1655 – John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England’s North American colonies.
1702 – Anne Stuart, sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America”, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1782 – Gnadenhütten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians.
1801 – War of the Second Coalition: At the Battle of Abukir, a British force under Sir Ralph Abercromby lands in Egypt with the aim of ending theFrench campaign in Egypt and Syria.
1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.
1844 – King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
1862 – American Civil War: The iron-clad CSS Virginia (formerly USS Merrimack) is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
1910 – French aviatrix Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to receive a pilot’s license.
1911 – International Women’s Day is launched in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Clara Zetkin, leader of the Women’s Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany.
1917 – International Women’s Day protests in St. Petersburg mark the beginning of the February Revolution (so named because it was February on the Julian calendar).
1917 – The United States Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.
1920 – The Arab Kingdom of Syria, the first modern Arab state to come into existence, is established.
1924 – The Castle Gate mine disaster kills 172 coal miners near Castle Gate, Utah.
1936 – Daytona Beach RaceCourse holds its first oval stock car race.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Battle of Guadalajara begins.
1942 – World War II: The Dutch surrender to Japanese forces on Java.
1949 – Mildred Gillars (“Axis Sally”) is condemned to prison for treason.
1957 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis.
1957 – The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitions the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th & 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, is adopted by the Georgia legislature.
1957 – Ghana joins the United Nations.
1963 – The Ba’ath Party comes to power in Syria in a coup d’état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.
1966 – A bomb planted by Irish Republicans destroys Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin.
1974 – Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France.
1978 – The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is transmitted on BBC Radio 4.
1979 – Philips demonstrates the Compact Disc publicly for the first time.
1983 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an “evil empire”.
1985 – A failed assassination attempt on Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon, kills at least 45 and injures 175 others.
Births[edit]
1702 – Anne Bonny, Irish-American pirate (d. 1782)
1712 – John Fothergill, English physician (d. 1780)
1714 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer (d. 1788)
1726 – Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, English admiral (d. 1799)
1746 – André Michaux, French botanist and explorer (d. 1802)
1748 – William V, Prince of Orange (d. 1806)
1783 – Hannah Van Buren, American wife of Martin Van Buren (d. 1819)
1804 – Alvan Clark, American astronomer (d. 1887)
1822 – Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Polish inventor and businessman, invented the Kerosene lamp (d. 1882)
1826 – Johann Köler, Estonian painter (d. 1899)
1827 – Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist (d. 1875)
1841 – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American jurist (d. 1935)
1847 – John Lister, English politician (d. 1933)
1865 – Frederic Goudy, American type designer, created Copperplate Gothic and Goudy Old Style (d. 1947)
1879 – Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
1886 – Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
1891 – Sam Jaffe, American actor (d. 1984)
1899 – Elmer Keith, American gun designer and author (d. 1984)
1900 – Howard H. Aiken, American computer scientist, created the Harvard Mark I (d. 1973)
1909 – Beatrice Shilling, British aeronautical engineer (d. 1990)
1910 – Bernard Benjamin, English statistician and demographer (d. 2002)
1914 – Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich, Russian physicist (d. 1987)
1921 – Alan Hale, Jr., American actor (d. 1990)
1921 – Fritz Luchsinger, Swiss mountaineer (d. 1983)
1922 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (d. 2008)
1924 – Anthony Caro, English sculptor
1926 – Grigori Kromanov, Estonian director (d. 1984)
1926 – Francisco Rabal, Spanish actor (d. 2001)
1931 – John McPhee, American author and educator
1939 – Lidiya Skoblikova, Russian speed skater
1943 – Lynn Redgrave, English actress (d. 2010)
1943 – Dionysis Simopoulos, Greek physicist and astronomer
1946 – Randy Meisner, American singer-songwriter and bass player (The Eagles and Poco)
1947 – Mike Allsup, American musician (Three Dog Night)
1947 – Michael S. Hart, American author, founded Project Gutenberg (d. 2011)
1957 – Clive Burr, English drummer and songwriter (Iron Maiden, Samson, and Trust) (d. 2013)
1976 – Freddie Prinze, Jr., American actor
1869 – Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)
1874 – Millard Fillmore, American politician, 13th President of the United States (b. 1800)
1887 – Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman (b. 1813)
1887 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (b. 1820)
1889 – John Ericsson, Swedish-American engineer, designed the USS Monitor (b. 1803)
1917 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German general and businessman, founded the Zeppelin Company (b. 1838)
1930 – William Howard Taft, American politician, 27th President of the United States (b. 1857)
1945 – Frederick Bligh Bond, English architect and archaeologist (b. 1864)
1957 – Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer and conductor (b. 1886)
1961 – Thomas Beecham, English conductor (b. 1879)
1973 – Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, American keyboard player and songwriter (Grateful Dead) (b. 1945)
1983 – William Walton, English composer (b. 1902)
1999 – Peggy Cass, American actress (b. 1924)
1999 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player (b. 1914)
1999 – William Wrigley III, American businessman (b. 1933)
2004 – Muhammad Zaidan, Syrian terrorist, founded the Palestine Liberation Front (b. 1948)
2005 – César Lattes, Brazilian physicist (b. 1924)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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