1031: Death of Robert II, King of France
1187: Jaffa falls to Saladin
1213: Archbishop Langton absolves John I, King of England
1247: The Ka-Khan of the Mongols demands homage of the Pope
1332: Death of Randolph, Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland
1378: Uprising of the middle and lower classes in Florence, Italy
1474: Death of John II, King of Castile
1537: Death of St. Jerome Emiliani
1540: "The Association of Masters of Defence," a professional
association of teachers and students of rapier &c., is recognized by Henry VIII, King
of England
1545: Charles V outlaws Philip of Hesse and John Fredrick, the Elector
of Saxony 1545
1592: Abel de la Rue, of Coulommiers, France, accused of witchcraft
1605 :Samuel de Champlain reaches Cape Cod
1609: Federico Zuccari, Italian Mannerist painter, dies at about 69
1616: Death of "Red" Hugh O'Neill
1629: The Englishman Sir David Kirke siezes power in Quebec.
1648: The Westminster Larger Catechism is adopted by the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh. This and the Shorter Catechism have been
in regular use among Presbyterians.
1715: The English Riot Act, which prohibited assemblages of more than
12 people, took effect. If more than 12 people assembled, they were 'read the Riot Act'
which called upon them to depart.
1810: Colombia declared independence from Spain.
1859: American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the
first time. 1,500 spectators each paid 50 cents to see Brooklyn play New York.
1861: The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in
Richmond, Virginia.
1871: British Columbia entered Confederation as a Canadian province.
1881: Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of
the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops.
1917: The draft lottery in World War One went into operation.
1970: 1st baby born on Alcatraz Island.
1924: Arnold Schoenberg's "Serenade," Op. 24, was premiered.
It was his first work composed entirely by the 12-tone method. It had previously been used
to some extent in the Suite for Piano, Op. 21, composed from 1921 to 1923.
1940: The first singles chart from Billboard appeared. The first #1
single was Tommy Dorsey's and Frank Sinatra's "I'll Never Smile Again."
1942: The first unit of the WACs (Women's Auxiliary Army) began basic
training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
1942: The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps -- later
known as WACs -- began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
1944: An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf
Hitler failed as a bomb explosion at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters only wounded the
Nazi leader.
1944: President Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth
term of office at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
1951: Jordan's King Abdullah Ibn Hussein was assassinated in Jerusalem.
1969: "Apollo Eleven" astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin
"Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon as they stepped out of
their lunar module.
1976: America's "Viking One" robot spacecraft made a
successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
1977: a flash flood hit Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing 80 people and
causing $350-million worth of damage.
1985: Treasure hunter Mel Fisher located a Spanish galleon sunk by a
1622 hurricane off Key West, Fla. It contained $400 million worth of treasure.
1987: The UN Security Council voted unanimously to approve a
US-sponsored resolution demanding an end to the Persian Gulf war between Iraq and Iran --
a move supported by Iraq and dismissed by Iran.
1988: Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis received the Democratic
presidential nomination at the party's convention in Atlanta.
1988: Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a truce with Iraq,
even though he said the decision was like drinking poison.
1989: President Bush called for a long-range space program to build an
orbiting space station, establish a base on the moon and send a manned mission to the
planet Mars.
1990: Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, one of the court's most
liberal voices, announced he was planning to retire from the nation's highest court.
1990: A federal appeals court set aside Oliver North's Iran-Contra
convictions, reversing one outright.
1991: Lebanon joined Syria in agreeing to participate in Mideast peace
talks with Israel.
1991: Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin banned political activity in
government offices and republic-run business, effectively curtailing the influence of the
Communist Party.
1992: Vaclav Havel, the playwright who'd led the "Velvet
Revolution" against communism, formally stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia.
1993: White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster Junior was found shot
to death in a park near Washington DC, a suicide.
1993: A day after firing William Sessions as FBI director, President
Clinton named federal judge Louis Freeh to replace him.
1993: Harry Ellis Dickson conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra at
Tanglewood in "A Centennial Salute to Arthur Fiedler." A whole generation of
classical fans have grown up without having known Fiedler.
1994: Bosnian Serbs rejected an international peace plan sponsored by
the United States, Russia, France, Britain and Germany.
1995: Leaders of the University of California voted to drop affirmative
action policies on admission and hiring.
1995: Baseball Hall-of-Famers Duke Snider and Willie McCovey pleaded
guilty in New York to tax evasion.
1996: In his weekly radio address, President Clinton paid tribute to
America's Olympic athletes at the just-opened Atlanta games — as well as 16 high school
students from Montoursville, Pennsylvania, who died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
1996: At the Atlanta Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the games'
first gold, in the ten-meter air rifle.
1997: Seven people were arrested after New York City police found
scores of deaf Mexicans who were being kept in slave-like conditions and forced to peddle
trinkets for the smugglers who had brought them to the US.
1998: Russia won an $11.2 billion loan from the International Monetary
Fund to help avert the devaluation of its currency.
1998: A smoky fire broke out aboard the cruise ship "Ecstasy"
just two miles from the Florida shore, forcing the ship's return to port.
1999: After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus
Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was lifted to the surface.
2000: The Mideast summit, resurrected only hours after its reported demise, moved forward with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stepping in for
a useless President Clinton, who had left for an economic summit in Japan.
2000: A federal grand jury indicted two former Utah Olympic officials for their alleged roles in paying one million dollars in cash and gifts to help bring the 2002 games to Salt Lake City.
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