0379: Death of St. Macrina the Younger
0532: Start of the Dionysian Pascal (Easter) Cycle
0711: Rodric, King of Spain, defeated by the Moors
1372: Treaty between Yann of Brittany and Edward III of England against
Charles V of France
1380: The Earl of Buckingham lands at Calais for a raid thru France
1525: Dessau League formed
1545: A French force lands on the Isle of Wight, England
1551: Treaty of Karlsburg
1553: Fifteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen of England
after claiming the crown for nine days. King Henry the Eighth's daughter Mary was
proclaimed Queen.
1588: Spanish Armada sighted from England
1660: Death of St. Vincent de Paul
1842: The British stiff upper lip was not to Felix Mendelssohn's
liking. The likable composer wrote his mother on this day that Buckingham Palace was, as
far as he was concerned, "the only friendly home in England."
1848: A pioneer women's rights convention called by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott convened in Seneca Falls, New York. "Bloomers," a
radical departure in women's clothing, were introduced to the first women's rights
convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. They were named after Amelia Jenks Bloomer.
1870: The Franco-Prussian war began.
1941: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his "V for
Victory" campaign in Europe.
1942: Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony received its American premiere
when Toscanini and the NBC Symphony performed it live over the radio from New York. The
score had been smuggled out of Russia on microfilm.
1943: Allied air forces raided Rome during World War Two.
1961:1st In-flight movie is shown (on TWA).
1969: John Fairfax of Britain arrived at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the
first person to row across the Atlantic alone.
1975: The "Apollo" and "Soyuz" space capsules that
were linked in orbit for two days separated.
1984: US Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (Democrat, New York) won
the Democratic nomination for vice president by acclamation at the party's convention in
San Francisco.
1985: Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first
schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. (McAuliffe and six other crew members died
when the "Challenger" exploded shortly after lift-off.)
1986: Colin Davis concluded 15 years as music director of Covent Garden
the longest tenure ever with a staging of "Fidelio" so avant garde that it was
booed.
1987: Residents of Balch Springs, Texas, gathered at the Seagoville
Road Baptist Church to mourn the ten teen-agers who died when a flash flood engulfed a
church bus and van two days earlier.
1988: Jesse Jackson brought his 1988 presidential campaign to an
emotionally charged close at the Democratic national convention in Atlanta, telling the
party faithful to unite because "the only time we win is when we come together."
1989: 112 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-10 crashed
while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 184 other people survived.
1990: President Bush joined Republican predecessors Ronald Reagan,
Gerald R. Ford and Richard M. Nixon at ceremonies dedicating the Nixon Library and
Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.
1990: Baseball's all-time hits leader Pete Rose was sentenced in
Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion.
1991: Nine days of combat between Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan soldiers
left 78 soldiers and 600 rebels dead in the fiercest fighting since 1983.
1991: The South African government acknowledged that it had been giving
money to the Inkatha Freedom Party, the main rival of the African National Congress.
1991: President Bush toured the Souda Bay U.S. naval base during a
visit to Greece.
1992: Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third opened a fresh round
of Mideast diplomacy, meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and
other officials.
1992: In Palermo, Sicily, a car bomb claimed the life of chief
prosecutor Paolo Borsellino.
1993: President Clinton fired FBI Director William Sessions, citing
"serious questions" about Sessions' conduct and leadership.
1993: President Clinton announced a compromise allowing homosexuals to
serve in the military, but only if they refrained from all homosexual activity, known as
the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy.
1993: Former U.S. House postmaster Robert Rota pleaded guilty to
conspiring to embezzle public funds.
1994: Funeral services were held for North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung,
who had died July 8 at age 82.
1994: A bomb ripped apart a Panama commuter plane, killing 21,
including 12 Jews, a day after a car bomb destroyed a Jewish community center in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, killing 95 people.
1995: In the busiest trading day in history, the Dow Jones industrial
average ended at 4,628.87, down 57.41, after plunging more than 130 points earlier in the
session.
1995: President Clinton firmly rejected calls for dismantling
affirmative action programs.
1995: A pair of House subcommittees held a joint hearing on the federal
government's raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.
1996: Opening ceremonies were held in Atlanta for the 26th Summer
Olympic Games.
1996: A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended,
with some conditions, that the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 be approved.
1996: Bosnian Serb official Radovan Karadzic yielded to international
pressure to give up all political power.
1997: The Irish Republican Army declared a new cease-fire and opened
the way for supporters to join peace talks with Northern Ireland's pro-British
Protestants.
1997: Eleven armored carriers from NATO gathered in a show of force
near the home of ousted Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Bosnia's number-one war crimes
suspect.
1998: Hundreds of Serb police battled secessionist guerrillas for
control of the central Kosovo town of Orahovac.
1998: Seeking to break a 16-month deadlock, Israel and the Palestinians
held their first high-level talks in months.
1999: Federal officials said radar data showed the plane piloted by
John F. Kennedy Jr. dropped 1,100 feet in just 14 seconds. Sen. Edward Kennedy released a
statement saying, "We are filled with unspeakable grief and sadness by the loss of
John and Carolyn and of Lauren Bessette."
2000: President Clinton uselessly shuttled between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his own experts during peace talks at Camp David after delaying his departure for an economic summit in Japan.
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