0373: Death of St. Ephraem
0741: Death of Leo III (the Isaurian), founder of Byzantine Syrian
dynasty
0860: Vikings from Russia repulsed in an attack on Constantinople
1037: Death of Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
1155: Coronation of Fredrick "Barbarossa," King of Germany,
as Holy Roman Emperor; 1,000 Romans die in riots
1164: Death of St. Elizabeth of Schonau
1178: 5 Canterbury monks report explosion on the moon (only such
observation known) - proposed time of origin of lunar crater Giordano Bruno
1464: Pope Pius II began a Crusade
1464: Roger van der Weyden, Flemish painter, dies at about 64
1497: Publication in Florence of the excommunication of Savonarola
1541: Crossing of the Mississippi River by Hernando DeSoto
1583: Richard Martin of London takes out the first life insurance
policy, on William Gibbons. The premium is 383 pounds.
1586: Francis Drake rescues the Roanoke settlers
1621: First known duel in American colonies (Plymouth Colony)
1778: British Redcoats withdraw from Philadelphia when the American
forces entered during the Revolutionary War.
1812: War of 1812 begins as US declares war against Britain.
1815: Battle of Waterloo -- British and Prussians defeat Napoleon.
1840: The greatest tragedy of Giuseppe Verdi's life occurred, when his
25-year-old wife Margherita died of encephalitis. Both of the Verdis' children had died in
the months before. Suddenly the young Verdi's entire family had been taken away from him.
1863: After long neglect, Confederates hurriedly fortify Vicksburg.
1864: At Petersburg, Grant ends four days of assaults.
1872: Woman's Sufferage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall.
1873: Susan B. Anthony fined $100 for attempting to vote for President
in 1872 (however, the fine was never paid).
1892: Macademia nuts first planted in Hawaii.
1928: Amelia Earhart is first woman to cross the Atlantic. She
completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours.
1934: US Highway planning surveys nationwide authorized.
1940: Winston Churchill urged perseverance so that future generations
would remember that "this was their finest hour."
1945: William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), British radio traitor, charged with
treason against the Crown.
1948: Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-playing
phonograph record in New York.
1948: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its
International Declaration of Human Rights.
1953: Egypt proclaimed a republic.
1959: First telecast transmitted from England to U.S.
1972: 118 die in crash of British European Airways jet.
1975: Saudi Prince Faisal Ibn Mussed Abdul Aziz beheaded in Riyadh
shopping center parking lot for killing his uncle the king.
1977: Space Shuttle test model the "Enterprise" carries a
crew aloft for the first time. It was fixed to a modified Boeing 747.
1979: President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a
strategic arms control treaty in Vienna (SALT Two).
1981: Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart retires. (replaced by Sandra
Day O'Connor first woman on the high court).
1982: Voting Rights Act of 1965 extended by Senate by 85-8 vote.
1983: The space shuttle Challenger was launched from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, and Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.
1984: Alan Berg, a Denver radio talk show host, was shot to death
outside his home. (Two white supremacists were later convicted of civil rights violations
in the slaying.)
1986: 52 die in plane/helicopter collision over the Grand Canyon.
1989: Greek Premier Andreas Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement
suffered a defeat as the center-right New Democracy Party finished first in general
elections.
1990: James Edward Pough went on a shooting rampage at an
auto-financing company office in Jacksonville, Florida, fatally wounding nine people
before killing himself.
1991: The Louisiana Legislature enacted a strict anti-abortion law, overriding a veto by Governor Buddy
Roemer.
1991: Russia's newly elected president, Boris Yeltsin, arrived in the United States for visits with American officials, including President Bush.
1992: Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Peter Allen died of complications
of AIDS at age 48.
1993: A new recording of Mendelssohn's "Elijah" was produced
by the French Harmonia Mundi label. Mendelssohn's oratorios made him popular in England,
where Handel's oratorio weres venerated above almost all other classical music in
Mendelssohn's time.
1994: The presidents of North Korea and South Korea agreed to hold a
historic summit (however, plans for the summit were disrupted by the death of North Korean
leader Kim Il Sung on July eighth).
1995: A private plane carrying the Angolan soccer team crashed in
Luanda, Angola, killing 48 people.
1995: About 300 inmates trashed an immigration detention center in
Elizabeth, New Jersey.
1995: Serbs in Bosnia released the last 26 United Nations hostages held
since NATO airstrikes.
1996: federal prosecutors in California charged Theodore Kaczynski in
four of the "Unabomber" attacks.
1996: Richard Allen Davis was convicted in San Jose, California, of the
1993 kidnap-murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma.
1996: Two Army helicopters collided and crashed during training
exercises near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing six and injuring 33.
1998: Three people were killed when a Chicago-bound commuter train
rammed a tractor-trailer in Portage, Indiana.
1998: President Clinton appointed UN ambassador Bill Richardson to
replace Energy Secretary Federico Pena and named Bosnian peace architect and diplomatic
troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke as the new representative to the United Nations.
(However, the Holbrooke nomination was held up for a year because of ethics questions.)
1999: The House rejected gun control legislation, 280-147, with many
Democrats rebelling against National Rifle Association-backed provisions in the bill.
1999: The Group of Seven leading industrial democracies opened a
three-day summit in Cologne, Germany. Arsonists struck three synagogues in the Sacramento,
Calif., area. (Two white supremacist brothers have pleaded innocent to federal charges of
setting the fires.)
2000: Tiger Woods won the US Open by a record 15 strokes.
2000: Ethiopia and Eritrea agreed to cease hostilities in a two-year-old border war.
2000: Emmy-winning actress Nancy Marchand died in Stratford, Connecticut, a day before her 72nd birthday.
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