1478: Philip I "the Handsome," King of Spain

1559: St. Lawrence of Brindisi

1647: St. Marguerite Marie Alacoque

1822: Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, discoverer of the first laws of heredity

1836: Emily E. S. Elliott, Anglican missions supporter and hymnwriter. She penned the words to the hymn'Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne.'

1844: Rev. William Archibald Spooner, invented 'spoonerisms'

1849: Poet Emma Lazarus, whose poem "The New Colossus" is carved at the base of the Statue of Liberty

1865: Peter P. Bilhorn, composer of sacred music. He produced over 1,400 hymns in his life, including 'I Will Sing the Wondrous Story' and 'Sweet Peace, The Gift of God's Love.'

1882: Painter Edward Hopper

1890: Kennedy family matriarch Rose Kennedy

1923: Former Senate Majority Leader and one time presidential candidate Bob Dole (Republican, Kansas)

1924: Singer Margaret Whiting

1928: Actor-comedian Orson Bean

1931: Actor Perry Lopez

1932: Fashion designer Oscar de la Renta

1934: Actress Louise Fletcher

1936: Director John Korty

1937: Rhythm-and-blues singer Chuck Jackson

1939: Actor Terence Stamp

1940: Game show host Alex Trebek

1940: Singer George Clinton

1943: Actor-singer Bobby Sherman

1944: Singer Estelle Bennett (The Ronettes)

1946: Movie writer-director Paul Schrader

1946: Illinois Governor Jim Edgar

1947: Actor Danny Glover

1947: Actor-comedian-director Albert Brooks

1947: Rock singer Don Henley

1955: Actor Willem Dafoe

1961: Rhythm-and-blues singer Keith Sweat

1963: Folk singer Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)

1963: Actress Joanna Going

1963: Actor Rob Estes

1964: Actor John Leguizamo

1964: Actor-comedian David Spade

1965: Actor Patrick Labyorteaux

1967: Actress Irene Bedard ("Pocahontas")

1967: Actor Rhys Ifans

1973: Rock musician Daniel Jones  

0259: St. Dionysius becomes Pope

1099: Godfrey of Boullion elected first Christian ruler of Jerusalem

1209: Capture of Beziers, France by the Albigensian "Crusade;" the Papal Legate says "Kill them all; God will know His own."

1212: Marriage of King Otto IV of Germany to Beatrix of Swabia

1246: John of Plato Carpini arrives at Karakorum, for the inauguration of Guyuk as KaKhan

1461: Death of Charles VII, King of France

1515: An alliance is formed between the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia

1587: A second English colony -- also fated to vanish under mysterious circumstances -- was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina. (John White delivers 177 colonists to Roanoke Island)

1598: Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" entered on the Stationers' Register

1612: Agnes Browne, Joan Vaughan, Mary Barber, Hellen Jenkenson and Arthur Bill executed in England for witchcraft

1613: Coronation of Michael Romanov, Czar of Russia

1620: A small congregation of English Separatists, led by John Robinson, began their emigration to the New World. Today, we refer to these folks as 'Pilgrims.'

1627: Execution of the Compte de Boutteville and the Compte de Rosmadec des Chapelles for the death of the Marquis de Bussy d'Amboise in a duel

1643: Cornish army invades Devon and besieges Parliamentarians in Bristol

1650: Cromwell invades Scotland

1796: Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by General Moses Cleaveland (correct spelling of his name - it seems that the city spells its name wrong).

1812: English troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca Spain.

1833: Hector Berlioz was quite a smart aleck when he attended the premiere of "Ali Baba," the last opera of Cherubini. "Twenty francs for an idea!" he shouted during the first act. In the second act he offered forty; in the third act, eighty.

1847: The first large company of Mormon immigrants entered the Salt Lake Valley, in wha was still Mexican territory. Soon after, Mormon leader Brigham Young founded Salt Lake City,Utah.

1864: In the first battle of Atlanta, Confederate troops under Gen. John Hood were defeated by Union forces under Gen. William Sherman.

1870: Josef Strauss died in Vienna at the age of 42. When Johann Strauss died, his band wound up being led by Johann Strauss the Younger. When he left the band to compose it was brother Josef who took the baton, giving up a career in architecture to do so.

1916: A bomb went off during a Preparedness Day parade San Francisco, killing ten people.

1933: Wiley Post completed his first solo flight around the world in seven days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1934: A man identified as bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater.

1937: The Senate rejected President Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

1943: American forces led by General George S. Patton captured Palermo, Sicily.

1946: Jewish extremists blew up a wing of the King David Hotel Jerusalem, killing 90 people.

1963: World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston was able to retain his boxing title by knocking out Floyd Patterson in the first round of a match in Las Vega, Nevada.

1965: "Till Death Us Do Part" debuted on England's BBC. The show was so popular it became a TV series in Great Britain. The show was the forerunner of the 1971-72, CBS-TV hit, "All In The Family," starring Carroll O'Connor.

1969: Apollo XI astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, safely reunited aboard the command module, blasted out of lunar orbit for the start of their journey home after the first manned mission to the moon.

1975: The House of Representatives joined the Senate voting to restore the American citizenship of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

1979: Frenchman Bernard Hinault won the "Tour de France" in 103 hours, 6 minutes and 50 seconds. It was his second time to have won the event, having won the previous year. He would win again in 1981, 1982 and 1985. 

1979: The first Sony Walkman went on sale.

1981: A Rome court sentenced Turkish extremist Mehmet Ali Agca to life in prison for the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

1982: A Tucson, Arizona, TV station's antenna was struck by lightning 20 times in 10 minutes.

1982: Reverand Sun Myung Moon married 2,200 couples in New York City, making this the biggest mass wedding in history.

1985: The Reagan administration issued a statement blaming apartheid for being "largely responsible for the current violence" in South Africa, but stopped short of criticizing the government's declaration of a state of emergency.

1986: For the first time in a half-century, the House of Representatives impeached a federal official. Judge Harry E. Claiborne was later convicted by the Senate of tax evasion and bringing disrepute on the federal courts.

1986: The United States began its policy of escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers up and down the Persian Gulf to protect them from possible attack by Iran.

1987: The United States began its policy of escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers up and down the Persian Gulf to protect them from possible attack from Iran.

1987: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to a U.S. proposal to ban medium- and short-range nuclear weapons.

1988: Iran and Iraq said they would send their foreign ministers to New York to meet with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, after Iran said it would accept a UN cease-fire resolution.

1989: Nearly 200,000 Palestinian children returned to classrooms in the West Bank after the Israeli army lifted an order that had kept their schools closed for most of the Palestinian "intefadeh."

1990: Voters in Mongolia began casting ballots in their Communist-ruled nation's first multiparty election ever.

1990: American Greg Lemond won his third Tour de France title. He finished the event in 90 hours, 43 minutes and 20 seconds.

1991: Police Milwaukee arrested serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer, who was later murdered prison.

1991: Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, charged she'd been raped by boxer Mike Tyson an Indianapolis hotel room. (Tyson, convicted of rape, served three years prison.)

1991: President Bush returned from a nine-day trip that included the G-7 summit in London.

1992: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison near Medell. (He was slaby security forces December 1993.)

1993: Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa agreed to resign, following big election losses by the scandal-plagued Liberal Democrats.

1993: Leonard Slatkin conducted the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. Elliott Carter's "Holidays" Overture launched the program, which concluded with "Rite of Spring." In between, the Beethoven Second Piano Concerto was performed by Christian Zacharius.

1994: President Clinton ordered round-the-clock aid flights to Zaire's border area to help millions of Rwandan refugees.

1994: O.J. Simpson pleaded innocent to the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

1994: A federal judge ordered The Citadel, a state-financed military college in Charleston, South Carolina, to open its doors to women.

1995: Susan Smith was convicted by a jury in Union, South Carolina, of first-degree murder for drowning her two sons. (She was later sentenced to life in prison.)

1996: Friends and families gathered on a Long Island, New York, beach for a tearful memorial service dedicated to the 230 victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800.

1997: More than 2,000 people gathered in Milan, Italy, for a memorial Mass for slain fashion designer Gianni Versace; the mourners included Princess Diana, singer-songwriter Elton John and supermodels Naomi Campbell and Eva Herzigova.

1998: President Clinton, with Republican lawmakers at his side, signed a bill designed to mold the Internal Revenue Service into a friendlier, fairer tax collector.

1998: The Senate Armed Services Committee rejected, on a 9-to-9 vote, Daryl Jones' bid to become Air Force secretary.

1999: Family members watched mournfully from the deck of a Navy destroyer as the ashes of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were cast into the sea off Martha's Vineyard, consigned to the depths where they died.

2000: President Clinton, in Japan for a Group of Eight summit, addressed US troops on Okinawa, where he said they "need to be good neighbors" with the island's residents.