1397: John II, King of Aragon

1475: Beatrice Sforza, Duchess of Milan

1577: Reubens

1858: George Washington Goethals, engineer who built the Panama Canal

1861: William Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

1868: Astronomer George Ellery Hale, founder of the Yerkes and Mount Palomar observatories

1879: The conductor Rafael Kubelik. He was the son of a violinist. Kubelik would become a famous interpreter of the great German and Viennese composers.

1901: Actor-singer Nelson Eddy

1911: Bernard Herrmann was born in New York. Herrmann is best known for his movie music. It was Herrmann who wrote the screechy violins in "Psycho."

1915: Actress Ruth Warrick

1916: Dancer-choreographer Fred Kelly

1919: Actor Slim Pickens

1924: Ezra Laderman - in Brooklyn. Laderman is a prolific symphonist in a style that is tonal but very modern and very American. Apart from more than half a dozen numbered symphonies Laderman has also produced other large orchestral works, including Pentimento.

1928: Actor Ian Bannen

1930: Movie producer Robert Evans

1941: "Black power" advocate Stokely Carmichael

1944: Actor Gary Busey

1945: Singer Little Eva

1947: Comedian Richard Lewis

1948: Rock musician Ian Paice (Deep Purple)

1948: Actor Fred Grandy

1953: Rock singer Colin Hay (Men At Work)

1957: Actress Maria Conchita Alonso

1960: Singer Evelyn "Champagne" King

1961: Actress Sharon Lawrence ("Fired Up;" "NYPD Blue")

1962: Actress Amanda Donohoe

1964: Rhythm-and-blues singer Stedman Pearson (Five Star)

1966: Musician Dale Baker (Sixpence None the Richer)

0922: Coronation of Robert I, King of France

1214: The Interdict is removed from England

1236: Ferdinand III, King of Castile-Leon, takes Cordoba

1312: Coronation of Henry VII as Holy Roman Emperor

1315: Death of Raymond Lully

1545: Founding of a Botanical Garden at Padua, Italy

1565: Pedro Menendez de Aviles leaves Spain to attack Fort Caroline

1613: Globe Theater burns during performance of "Henry VIII"

1620: An agreement between the English and the Virginia Company prohibited the growing of tobacco in England.

1652: The Massachusetts Colony declares itself an independent Commonwealth

1767: The British Parliament approved the Townshend Revenue Acts, which imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America. Colonists bitterly protested the Acts, which were repealed in 1770.

1776: Mission Dolores founded by San Francisco Bay.

1853: The U.S. Senate ratified the $10 million Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, adding more than 29,000 square miles to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico.

1863: The very first first National Bank opened in Davenport, Iowa.

1891: The National Forest Service was formed.

1941: Polish statesman, pianist and composer Ignace Jan Paderewski died in New York at age 80.

1946: British authorities arrested more than 2700 Jews in Palestine in an attempt to stamp out alleged terrorism.

1954: The Atomic Energy Commission voted against re-instating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's access to classified information.

1966: the United States bombed fuel storage facilities near the North Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.

1967: Jerusalem was re-unified as Israel removed barricades separating the Old City from the Israeli sector.

1972: The Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, as then administered by individual states, was unconstitutional.

1987: In a surprise move, the chairman of South Korea's ruling party, Roh Tae-woo, demanded democratic reforms of the man he was groomed to succeed, President Chun Doo-hwan, following weeks of violent protests that had racked the country. (Chun agreed two days later.)

1988: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the power of independent counsels to prosecute illegal acts by high-ranking government officials, ruling the 1978 special prosecutor law did not violate the Constitution.

1989: The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of new sanctions against China because of its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement.

1991: President Bush, speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out the possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its interference with U.N. inspectors "very disturbing."

1990: Marla Maples father sued the National Enquirer for $12M.

1990: Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dave Stewart of the Oakland A's became the first pitchers to hurl no-hitters in both the National and American Leagues on the same day. (Oakland shut out the Blue Jays, 5-0, while Los Angeles blanked the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-0.)

1991: President Bush, speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out the possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its interference with U-N inspectors "very disturbing." 

1992: The U.S. Supreme Court left intact the basics of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion, but upheld most of ennsylvania's new restrictions on a woman's right to abortion.

1992: The remains of Polish statesman Ignace Jan Paderewski, interred for five decades in the United States, were returned to his homeland in keeping with his wish to be buried in a free Poland.

1993: Joel Rifkin pleaded innocent at an arraignment in Mineola, New York, to one count of murder, a day after police found a woman's body in his pickup truck. (Rifkin, who later confessed to killing 17 women, is serving multiple life sentences.)

1994: Japan's parliament chose Tomiichi Murayama to be the new prime minister, succeeding Tsutoma Hata.

1994: In a British TV documentary, Prince Charles said he'd been faithful in his marriage to Princess Diana "until it became irretrievably broken down.""

1995: The shuttle Atlantis and the space station Mir docked, forming the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

1995: A department store in Seoul, South Korea, collapsed, killing 501 people and injuring more than 900.

1995: Actress Lana Turner died in Century City, California, at age 74.

1996: US allies backed President Clinton's demand that Bosnian Serb leaders indicted for war crimes be forced "out of power and out of influence."

1997: In Albania, gunmen menaced voters, burned ballots and pressured polling officials, marring parliamentary elections meant to steer the country toward recovery after months of chaos.

1998: Students at Peking University peppered President Clinton with polite but critical questions about America's human rights record, Taiwan policy and views on China in an exchange televised live across the vast nation.

1998: With negotiations on a new labor agreement at a standstill, the NBA announced that a lockout would be imposed at midnight.    

1999: Urging the biggest expansion in Medicare's history, President Clinton proposed that the government help older Americans pay for prescription drugs.

1999: Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey's rebel Kurds, was convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

1999: About 10,000 demonstrators rallied in central Serbia, demanding the resignation of President Slobodan Milosevic.

2000: An overloaded ship carrying almost 500 people, many fleeing sectarian violence in Indonesia's Maluku islands, sank, killing all but ten known survivors. 

2000: President Clinton nominated former Congressman Norman Mineta to lead the Commerce Department and become the first Asian-American Cabinet secretary. 

2000: Actor Vittorio Gassman died in Rome at age 77.