1545: Don Carlos "the Mad," Prince of Spain

1621: La Fontaine

1792: Lowell Mason, Presbyterian pioneer of congregational singing. He composed over 1,000 hymn tunes, including BETHANY ('Nearer, My God, To Thee'), DENNIS ('Blest Be theTie That Binds'), and HAMBURG ('When I Survey the Wondrous Cross')

1838: Dirigible inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin

1857: French psychologist Alfred Binet

1839: Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller

19??: Steve Mason (Jars of Clay)

1908: Nelson Rockefeller U.S. Vice President under Gerald Ford

1914: Jazz singer Billy Eckstine

1919: Actor Craig Stevens ("Peter Gunn")

1931: ABC News Chairman Roone Arledge

1932: Singer Jerry Vale (Genaro Vitaliano)

1933: Marty Feldman - (Young Frankenstein)

1935: Singer Steve Lawrence (Sidney Leibowitz)

1944: Actor Jeffrey Tambor

1946: Ballerina Cynthia Gregory

1948: Actress Kim Darby

1948: Children's performer Raffi

1951: Actress Anjelica Huston

1958: Actor Kevin Bacon

1961: Rock musician Andy Fletcher (Depeche Mode)

1961: Country singer Toby Keith

1961: Rock musician Graham Jones (Haircut 100)

1962: Rock singer Joan Osborne

1962: "Late Show with David Letterman" executive producer Rob Burnett

1965: Actor Corey Parker

1968: Actor Billy Crudup

1970: Singer Beck

1970: Country singer Drew Womack (Sons of the Desert)

1977: Rock musician Tavis Werts (Reel Big Fish)

0371 BC:Thebans defeat Spartans

0303: Death of St. Procopius

0810: Death of Pepin III, King of France

1115: Death of Peter, the Hermit

1153: Death of St. Eugenius, Pope

1173: Elanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II, King of England, sails to England as her husband's prisoner

1249: Death of Alexander II, King of Scotland

1336: Death of St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal

1376: Death of Edward, "the Black Prince"

1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon on a voyage that would lead to discovery of a sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa.

1553: Northumberland proclaims Lady Jane Dudley as Queen of England

1617: Beheading of Leonora Galigai, for witchcraft

1623: Death of Pope Gregory XV

1629: The King of Spain sends Charles I of England, an Elephant and five camels

1643: Charles I, King of England, sends to artist Bartolomeo della Stone in Venice to purchase works of art

1663: King Charles the Second of England granted a new charter to Rhode Island. It guaranteed religious freedom regardless of 'differencesin opinion in matters of religion.'

1693: Uniforms for police in New York City were authorized on this day.

1741: Colonial Congregational minister Jonathan Edwards preaches his classic sermon at Enfield, Connecticut: "You are thus in the hands of an angry God; 'tis nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction." This speech influenced the start of New England's 'Great Awakening.'

1776: Colonel John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence to a crowd gathered at Independence Square in Philadelphia.

1795: Martin Academy in Washington, TN, changed its name to Washington College becoming the first college to be named after George Washington.

1796: 1st American Passport issued by the US State Department.

1835: The Liberty Bell cracked while being rung during the funeral of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in Philadelphia.

1853: An expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese.

1880: Claude Debussy was hired as a summer piano tutor by Nadezhda von Meck, the rich Russian woman who for so many years provided covert financial support to Tchaikovsky. To get the gig, Debussy lied about his age, pretending his was 20 when he was really only 17.

1881: Edward Berner invents the Sundae.

1889: "The Wall Street Journal" was first published. This first issue was a four page afternoon daily.

1891: Warren G. Harding married Florence K. DeWolfe in Marion, Ohio.

1907: Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first "Follies," on the roof of the New York Theater.

1907: C.E. Barnes of Lowell, MA, patented the machine gun.

1911: Nan Jane Aspinwall became the first woman to ride a horse across the United States. She rode from San Francisco, California to New York City. The trip began on September 1, 1910 and ended on July 8, 1911.

1919: President Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.

1947: Demolition work began in New York City to make way for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.

1947: The American League defeated the National League, 2-to-1, in the All-Star game played at Chicago's Wrigley Field.

1948: The Moscow Conference convened to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from control of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1950: General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.

1958: The first gold record album presented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was awarded this day -- to the soundtrack LP, "Oklahoma!" The honor signified that the album had reached one million dollars in sales.

1959: Meeting in Oberlin, Ohio, the Congregational Christian and the Evangelical andReformed churches adopted a united statement of faith. The two groups merged to form the United Church of Christ in 1961.

1969: The withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam began.

1975: President Ford announced he would seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1976.

1984: John McEnroe defeated Jimmy Connors in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 to become the first American man in 46 years to capture back-to-back Wimbledon tennis titles.

1985: In a speech to the American Bar Association, President Reagan branded Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba and Nicaragua "outlaw states" that were engaged in "acts of war" against the United States.

1986: Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to Nazi war crimes.

1986: Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, widely regarded as the father of the nuclear navy, died in Arlington, Virginia, at age 86.

1987: Kitty Dukakis, wife of Massachusetts Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis, revealed she'd been addicted to amphetamines for 26 years, but had sought help and was drug-free. (However, Mrs. Dukakis later admitted to dependence on alcohol, and entered a recovery program.)

1988: Iran's parliamentary speaker, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said his nation would not seek revenge against the United States for shooting down an Iranian jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

1989: Carlos Saul Menem was inaugurated as president of Argentina in the country's first transfer of power from one democratically elected civilian leader to another in six decades.

1990: Sweden's Stefan Edberg beat Boris Becker of West Germany to capture his second men's tennis championship at Wimbledon.

1990: West Germany won the World Cup soccer championship by defeating Argentina, 1-0.

1990: The Louisiana Senate passed a tough anti-abortion bill that was successfully vetoed by Governor Buddy Roemer.

1991: Reversing earlier denials, Iraq disclosed for the first time that it was carrying out a nuclear weapons program, including the production of enriched uranium.

1992: Russian President Boris Yeltsin met with Group of Seven leaders holding their economic summit in Munich, Germany, where he offered a startling proposal to swap factories, energy resources and other properties for Russian debt.

1993: Leaders of the Group of Seven, in the second day of their Tokyo summit, warned against the dismembering of Bosnia, but backed away from a threat to use force.

1993: A jury in Boise, Idaho, acquitted white separatist Randy Weaver and a co-defendant of slaying a federal marshal in a shootout at a remote mountain cabin.

1993: The Tanglewood had its first regular concert tonight with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony. The first part of the evening was the second act of Saint-Saens' "Samson and Delilah" with soloists Jessye Norman, Gary Lakes and Sherrill Milnes. After the intermission: the "Eroica."

1994: Kim Il Sung, North Korea's communist leader since 1948, died at age 82.

1994: O.J. Simpson was ordered to stand trial on charges of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

1994: Leaders of the Group of Seven nations opened their 20th annual economic summit, in Naples, Italy.

1994: The space shuttle Columbia blasted off on a two-week mission.

1995: Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu was arrested in China and charged with obtaining state secrets (he was later convicted of espionage and deported in August 1995).

1995: A deadly heat wave began in the nation's midsection; it claimed more than 800 lives, more than half of them in Illinois.

1995: Steffi Graf won the women's singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.

1996: Hurricane "Bertha" slammed into the Virgin Islands with torrential rains and winds that gusted to 105 miles-an-hour.

1997: The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee opened politically charged hearings into fund-raising abuses, with chairman Fred Thompson accusing China of trying to influence the 1996 US elections.

1997: NATO extended membership invitations to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

1997: The Mayo Clinic and the government warned the diet-drug combination known as "fen-phen" could cause serious heart and lung damage.

1998: A federal bankruptcy judge tentatively approved a settlement under which an estimated 170,000 women who said silicone breast implants had made them sick would get $3.2 billion from Dow Corning Corporation.

1999: An Air Force cargo jet took off from Seattle on a dangerous mission to Antarctica to drop medicine for Dr. Jerri Nielsen, a physician at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Center who had discovered a lump in her breast. (The mission was successful; Nielsen was evacuated the following October.)

1999: Astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., the third man to walk on the moon, died after a motorcycle accident near Ojai, Calif.; he was 69.

2000: The Pentagon's missile defense project suffered its latest setback when a rocket that had taken off from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific failed to intercept a target missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. 

2000: Venus Williams beat Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first black women's champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1957-58.