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0138: Death of Hadrian, Roman emperor who sponsored
the building of a wall across northern Britain to keep the Scots out
of England. He provided a little relief in the persicution of
Christians. He ordered cases against Christians tried, but he decreed
that the defendants had to be proven guilty before they could be
condemned. Slanderous attacks on them were forbidden. At the same time
he was bitterly opposed to Judaism. Like a miniature Antichrist, he
erected pagan altars on the temple site-leading to other Jewish
uprising and bloodbath.
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0938: Death of Pope Benedict VII
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1024: Death of Pope Benedict VIII
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1040: Lady Godiva rides through Coventry.
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1073: Death of St. Anthony of the Caves
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1086: Death of Canute IV, King of Denmark
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1187: Acre falls to Saladin
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1099: Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, El Cid, died in
Valencia, after the defeat of his forces against the Moors.
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1290: Murder of Ladislaus IV, King of Hungary
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1296: John Baliol surrenders to Edward I, King of
England
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1376: The "Good Parliament" closes
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1472: Heroines of Beauvais force Charles the Bold to
raise seige of Beauvais
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1480: Death of Rene I, King of Naples, Sicily and
Jerusalem
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1520: Cortes retreats from Tenochtitlan
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1547: A duel was fought at Saint Germain-en-Laye,
between Francois de Vivonne, and the Lord of Jarnac, Guy de Chabot.
From this duel comes the fencing term of the "coup de Jarnac"
or leg cut
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1559: Henry II, King of France, dies of injuries
sustained in a joust
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1584: Assassination of William of Orange
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1605: Assassination of Fyodor II, Czar of Russia
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1733: Handel's oratorio "Athalia" was
premiered in Oxford. The premiere had been delayed one night because
commencement ceremonies the previous afternoon had last far later than
anyone had intended.
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1832: President Andrew Jackson vetoed legislation to
re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
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1889: Verdi wrote that he, quote, "won't think
of obstacles, of age, of illness," and set to work composing an
opera on the story of "Falstaff." Verdi was then 75 and
"Falstaff" would be his last opera.
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1890: Wyoming was admitted to the Union as the 44th
state.
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1900: One of the most famous trademarks in the world,
"His Master's Voice", was registered with the U.S. Patent
Office. The logo of the Victor Recording Company, and later, RCA
Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone
machine.
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1919: President Wilson personally delivered the
Treaty of Versailles to the Senate, and urged its ratification.
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1925: The official news agency of the Soviet Union,
TASS, was established.
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1925: The Scopes 'Monkey' Trial starts.
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1928: George Eastman demonstrated his invention of
the color movie.
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1929: The U.S. Government began issuing paper money
in the small size that is currently used.
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1938: Howard Hughes completed his flight around the
world. It took him 91 hours to complete the Odyssey.
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1940: During World War Two, the 114-day Battle of
Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking southern England by air.
By late October, Britain managed to repel the Luftwaffe, which
suffered heavy losses.
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1941: Jelly Roll Morton, American ragtime piano
player and composer, (self proclaimed inventor of Jazz) dies in Los
Angeles.
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1943: During World War Two, US and British forces
invaded Sicily.
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1951: Armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean
conflict began at Kaesong.
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1962: The pioneer telecommunications satellite
Telstar began relaying TV pictures between the United States and
Europe. Telstar was the 1st geosynchonous communications satelite
launched. Its concept based on the ideas of Arthur C. Clark.
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1973: The Bahamas became independent after three
centuries of British colonial rule.
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1975: Cher filed for divorce from rocker Greg Allman,
just ten days after the couple had married. She said that Allman had
been moonlighting with an old flame.
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1983: Schoolgirl Samantha Smith, invited to the
Soviet Union by President Yuri V. Andropov, joined 200 members of a
Soviet youth group for a Black Sea cruise, and tossed a bottle
containing a message for peace into the water.
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1984: The National League beat the American League
3-1 in the All-Star Game, played in San Francisco, in which pitchers
Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden struck out six batters in a row
to break a 50-year-old record.
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1985: The Coca-Cola Company announced that the former
(regular) Coke would return to the beverage shelves in stores.
Consumers were just not happy with the New Coke. The original formula
was renamed Coca-Cola Classic.
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1985: The enviornmental protest ship "Rainbow
Warrior was blown up and sunk in the horbor of Auckland, New Zealand.
The ship was scheduled to leave on a trip to protest French nuclear
tests in the South Pacific.
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1986: The Federal Reserve Board cut its discount rate
from 6.5 to 6 percent, its lowest level since early 1978.
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1987: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North told the
Iran-Contra committees the late CIA director William J. Casey had
embraced a fund created by arms sales to Iran because it could be used
for secret operations other than supplying the Contras.
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1988: Opposition party activists in Mexico blocked a
bridge linking their country to the United States, charging that
Mexico's recent presidential election was marked by widespread fraud.
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1989: Mel Blanc, the "man of a thousand
voices," including such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy
Duck and Porky Pig, died in Los Angeles at age 81.
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1990: The American League shut out the National
League, 2-0, in the 61st All-Star game.
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1990: Mikhail S. Gorbachev handily won re-election as
leader of the Soviet Communist Party.
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1991: Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the
first elected president of the Russian republic.
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1991: President Bush lifted economic sanctions
against South Africa, citing its "profound transformation"
toward racial equality.
-
1991: In Moscow, Boris Yeltsin was inaugurated as the
first freely elected president of the Russian republic.
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1991: President Bush announced he was appointing Alan
Greenspan to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman.
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1991: President Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa.
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1992: A federal judge in Miami sentenced former
Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, convicted of drug and racketeering
charges, to 40 years in prison.
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1992: A New York jury found Pan Am responsible for
allowing a terrorist bomb to destroy Flight 103 in 1988, killing 270
people.
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1993: President Clinton ended his visit to Japan,
then traveled to South Korea, where in a speech to the National
Assembly he denounced communist North Korea for raising the specter of
"nuclear annihilation."
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1994: In the first meeting of its kind, Russian
President Boris N. Yeltsin joined leaders of the Group of Seven
nations for political talks following their annual economic summit in
Naples, Italy.
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1995: Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from
her almost six-year-long house arrest in Rangoon, Burma.
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1995: The defense opened its case at the O.J.
Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles.
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1995: President Clinton embraced mandatory ratings
for TV programs and legislation to put parental-control chips in new
sets.
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1996: A tough speech to Congress laying out
conditions for Mideast negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu demanded that Syria and the Palestinians stop terrorists
from attacking Israel.
-
1996: Ross Perot said on CNN he would make a second
run for president if nominated by the Reform Party -- putting him in
contention with former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, who'd announced
his candidacy the day before.
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1997: President Clinton, visiting Poland, told a
Warsaw square filled with cheering Poles that "never again will
your fate be decided by others" following his successful drive to
bring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO by 1999.
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1997: NATO forces captured one Serb war crimes
suspect and killed another.
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1997: Scientists in London say DNA from a Neanderthal
skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an
"African Eve" 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
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1998: Bringing to a close one of the biggest sex
scandals ever to hit the Roman Catholic Church, the Diocese of Dallas
agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who said they'd
been molested by a priest.
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1999: The U.S. women's soccer team won the World Cup,
beating China 5-4 on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of scoreless play
at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
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2000: Texas Governor George W. Bush, facing a skeptical audience, told the NAACP convention in Baltimore that "the party of Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln," and promised to work to improve relations.
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2000: Israeli President Ezer Weizman resigned, effectively ending a seven-year term that turned sour when he was found to have acted improperly by accepting gifts while in office.
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