0816: Death of St. Leo, Pope
0918: Death of Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred "the Great,"
King of England
1099: Crusade leaders visit the Mount of Olives where they meet a
hermit who urges them to assault Jerusalem. Taking Jerusalem.
1349: Edward III, King of England, orders the practice of Archery
1365: King Edward III bans football in London, orders archery practice
1402: John, Duke of Burgundy, massacres 3500 people in Paris
1442: Alfonso V, King of Aragon, crowned King of Naples
1446: Peace of Constance
1458: College of St. Mary Magdelen founded, Oxford, England
1479: Death of St. John of Sahagun
1587: Ursula Fray and Catharina Kless burned for witchcraft
1616: Pocahontas arrives in England
1623: Rev. Gerville Pooley, of Virginia, files the first
breach-of-promise lawsuit against Ciceley Jordan...and loses
1630: The new Governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, arrives in
Salem
1665: English rename New Amsterdam 'New York' after Dutch pull out.
1776: Virginia first to adopt the Bill of Rights.
1787: It is decided that U.S. Senators be at least 30 years old.
1812: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.
1838: Iowa Territory is organized.
1839: The first baseball game is played in America.
1849: The gas mask is patented by L. P. Haslett.
1880: The First baseball perfect game - John Richmond of Worcester
beats Cleveland.
1898: Philippine nationalists declared their independence from Spain.
1901: Cuba agrees to become an American protectorate by accepting the
Platt Amendment.
1905: A bitter fight between musical traditionalists and the avante
garde ended in Parism in a draw. They agreed on a compromise choice to head the Paris
Conservatory its composition teacher Gabriel Faure.
1917: Secret Service extends protection of President to his family as
well.
1918: The first airplane bombing raid by an American unit occurs on
World War I's Western Front in France.
1920: Republicans nominate Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin
Coolidge for vice president.
1923: Harry Houdini frees himself from a straitjacket while suspended
upside down, 40 feet above the ground.
1931: Gangster Al Capone and 68 of his henchmen are indicted for
violating Prohibition laws.
1934: Black-McKeller Bill passes causes Boeing empire to break up into
Boeing United Aircraft [Technologies] and United Air Lines.
1936: First radio station with 500,000 watt power, Pittsburgh, Pa.
1937: Eight of Stalin's generals are sentenced to death during purges
in the Soviet Union.
1939: Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, NY.
1942: An American classical work of the first order drew a scathing
review from a British listener. "How blessed are those who are born tone deaf,"
went the letter in the Radio Times of London, "and are spared the agony of listening
to the hideous sounds of Symphony No. 3 of Roy Harris."
1942: American bombers strike the oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania
for the first time.
1946: Philippines National Day.
1947: Nina Makarova conducted the premiere of her own symphony in
Moscow.
1963: A sniper killed civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson,
Miss.
1964: Nelson Mandella begins a long jail term in South Africa.
1967: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could NOT outlaw
inter-racial marriages.
1967: Israel wins six day war.
1971: Tricia Nixon and Edward F. Cox married in a White House ceremony.
1972: John Lennon's political "Sometime in NYC" released
including "Woman is the Nigger of the World", "Attica State", and
"Luck of the Irish".
1977: Ground-breakng ceremonies for President Kennedy library.
1978: David Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for
each of the six "Son of Sam" .44-caliber killings that had terrified New
Yorkers.
1979: Bryan Allen flew man-powered Gossamer Albatross over English
Channel.
1981: The 3rd professional baseball players strike starts.
1982: 750,000 anti-nuclear demonstrators in Central Park, NYC.
1985: The U.S. House of Representatives approves $27 million in aid to
the Nicaraguan contras.
1986: P. W. Botha declares South African national emergency.
1987: President Reagan, during a visit to the divided German city of
Berlin, publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to "tear down this
wall."
1988: In runoff elections in France, President Francois Mitterrand's
Socialist Party fell short of a majority in the National Assembly. But a right-wing
coalition also failed to retain its legislative control.
1989: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that white workers who claim to
be treated unfairly as a result of affirmative action programs can sue for remedies under
civil rights legislation.
1990: In a speech to the Supreme Soviet legislature, President Mikhail
S. Gorbachev eased his objection to a reunified Germany holding membership in NATO.
1991: The Russian republic held its first-ever direct presidential
elections and elected Boris N. Yeltsin president of their republic.
1991: The Chicago Bulls won their first N-B-A championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one.
1993: Reports surfaced that Judge Stephen Breyer, considered a likely
candidate to the Supreme Court, had failed to pay Social Security taxes for a domestic
employee. (Although Breyer was passed over by President Clinton in favor of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, he was later nominated to serve on the nation's highest court.)
1994: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were slashed to death
outside her Los Angeles home; O.J. Simpson was tried and later acquitted of the killings
in a criminal trial, but held liable in a civil action.
1994: Rabbi Menachem Scheerson, the charismatic ultra-Orthodox Jewish
leader, died in New York at age 92.
1994: At the Tony Awards, "Angels in America: Perestroika"
won best play while "Passion" won best musical.
1995: The Supreme Court dealt a potentially crippling blow to federal
affirmative action programs, ruling Congress was limited by the same standards as states
in offering special help to minorities.
1995: Rescued Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady was treated to lunch at
the White House and a hero's welcome at the Pentagon.
1996: A panel of federal judges in Philadelphia blocked a law against
indecency on the Internet, saying the 1996 Communications Decency Act would infringe
adults' free speech rights.
1996: Senate Republicans overwhelmingly chose Trent Lott to succeed Bob
Dole as majority leader.
1997: The Treasury Department unveiled a new 50-dollar bill meant to be
more counterfeit-resistant.
1997: Baseball began interleague play, ending a 126-year tradition of
separating the major leagues until the World Series.
1998: A jury in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, convicted 17-year-old Luke
Woodham of killing two students and wounding seven others at Pearl High School.
1998: Space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth, bringing home the last
American to live aboard Mir and closing out three years of US-Russian cooperation aboard
the aging space station.
1999: Thousands of NATO peacekeeping troops poured into Kosovo by air
and by land; but in a surprising move, a Russian armored column entered Pristina before
dawn to a hero's welcome from Serb residents.
2000: The Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, said patients cannot use a federal law to sue HMO's for giving doctors a financial incentive to cut treatment costs.
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