1186: The Glastonbury Abbey "Lady Chapel" is consecrated
1216: Death of Henry, Emperor of Rumania supposedly poisoned by his
wife
1258: Provisions of Oxford reforms proposed by Parliament
1292: Death of Roger Bacon
1346: Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected Holy Roman Emperor in
Germany.
1474: Louis XI, King of France, ratifies the "Perpetual
Peace"
1488: Murder of James III, King of Scotland
1496: Columbus returns to Spain
1509: Marriage of Henry VIII, King of England, to Catherine of Aragon
1514: Coronation of Christian II as King of Norway and Denmark
1534: Revolt in Ireland of "Silken" Thomas Fitzgerald
1559: Tristan de Luna y Arellano sets sail for Florida
1560: Death of Mary of Guise, widow of King James V of Scotland
1578: Sir Humphrey Gilbert granted a charter to search for the
Northwest Passage
1611: Henrick Hudson's ship, the "Half Moon," freed from the
ice
1770: Captain Cook runs aground on Australian Great Barrier Reef.
1838: The Iowa Territory organized.
1859: Claim laid to the Comstock (silver) Lode in Nevada. The mine
eventually produces more than $300 million in silver.
1864: 300 feet of Meigg's Wharf washed away in storm.
1881: Bedrich Smetana's "Libuse" premiered in Prague to open
a new theatre there. Smetana attended, but by this time his deafness was nearly total.
1895: First known auto race.
1919: Sir Barton becomes the first horse to win the Triple Crown.
1920: Ohio Sen. Warren G. Harding was chosen as the "dark
horse" Republican candidate for president. He became the 29th president of the United
States.
1937: Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races" released.
1940: Bartok's "Divertimento for Strings" premiered in the
Swiss city of Basle. The "Divertimento" is one of Bartok's finest works, somehow
managing to be extremely modern and extremely listenable at the same time.
1942: US and USSR sign Lend-Lease agreement during World War II.
1947: World War II sugar rationing finally ends.
1955: First magnesium jet airplane flown.
1961: Roger Maris hits #19 and 20 of his 61 homers.
1963 :George Wallace backs down at the Alabama schoolhouse door.
1963: Buddhist monk Quang Duc immolated himself on a Saigon street to
protest the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
1970: U.S. leaves Wheelus Air Force Base, Libya.
1977: Train and school hostage incident in the Netherlands ends.
1977: Seattle Slew won Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown.
1978: Joseph Freeman Junior became the first black priest ordained in
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
1979: Actor John Wayne died at age 72.
1982: Israel and Syria stop fighting in Lebanon.
1982: Larry Holmes defeats Gerry Cooney retains WBC heavyweight crown.
1982: Movie "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" released.
1985: Karen Ann Quinlan, the comatose patient whose case prompted a
historic right-to-die court decision, died in Morris Plains, New Jersey, at age 31.
1986: A divided Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvania abortion law,
while reaffirming its 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
1987: Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in 160
years to win three consecutive terms.
1988: Preakness winner "Risen Star" captured the Belmont
Stakes with a time second only to its father, thoroughbred legend "Secretariat."
1989: The government of China issued a warrant for the arrest of
dissident Fang Lizhi, who had taken refuge inside the US Embassy in Beijing.
1990: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an anti-flag burning law
passed by Congress in 1989, re-igniting calls for a constitutional amendment.
1990: A federal judge sentenced former national security adviser John
M. Poindexter to six months in prison for making false statements to Congress about the
Iran-Contra affair. (Poindexter's convictions were later overturned.)
1991: The long dormant Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted during
negotiations between the United States and the Philippines over future base leases. The
ashes and gasses it spewed could be seen for more than 60 miles.
1991: President Bush authorized $1.5 billion in agricultural credit guarantees for the Soviet Union.
1991: Actress Julia Roberts and actor Kiefer Sutherland called off their wedding three days before it was to have taken place.
1992: President Bush's stopover in Panama en route to the Earth Summit
in Brazil was disrupted when police fired tear gas at protesters, preventing Bush from
speaking at a rally praising the revival of democracy in Panama.
1993: United Nations forces launched a nighttime attack against the
forces of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
1993: United Nations forces launched a nighttime attack against the
forces of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
1993: The Supreme Court ruled that people who commit "hate
crimes" motivated by bigotry may be sentenced to extra punishment; the court also
ruled religious groups have a constitutional right to sacrifice animals in worship
services.
1993: The Steven Spielberg movie "Jurassic Park" opened.
1994: The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to seek punitive
steps against North Korea over its nuclear program.
1994: A car bomb blew up outside a luxury hotel in Guadalajara, Mexico,
killing five people in an apparently drug-related attack.
1994: Tabasco Cat won the Belmont Stakes.
1995: in an unprecedented joint appearance, President Clinton and House
Speaker Newt Gingrich sparred politely over Medicare and other issues before an audience
of senior citizens in Claremont, New Hampshire.
1996: Closing a congressional career that had spanned 3 ½ decades, Bob
Dole said goodbye to the Senate to begin in earnest his campaign for the presidency.
1997: The parents of Timothy McVeigh pleaded for their son's life
during the penalty phase of the Oklahoma City bombing trial.
1998: Mitsubishi Motors agreed to pay 34 million dollars to settle
allegations that women on the assembly line at its Illinois factory were groped and
insulted and that managers did nothing to stop it.
1999: The FBI was seeking the creator of Worm.Explore.Zip, a
file-destroying computer virus which had hit some of the nation's biggest corporations.
1999: Actor DeForest Kelley of "Star Trek" fame died in
Woodland Hills, Calif., at age 79
2000: A day after the death of Syrian President Hafez Assad, his son, Bashar, was unanimously nominated by Syria's ruling Baath Party to succeed his father.
2000: An unruly group of men doused women with water and groped them in New York's Central Park; some of the assaults were captured on home video.
2000: Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil won his second French Open title, beating Magnus Norman.
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