0363: Death of Julian the Apostate
0657: Mu'awiyan defeats Caliph Ali in the Battle of Siffin in
Mesopotamia.
0796: Death of Offa, King of the English
0811: Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor, killed in battle with the
Bulgars
1237: Edward I, King of England, did homage to Philip II, King of
France, for his French holdings
1267: Pope Gregory X establishes the Inquisition
1471: Anti-Pope Benedict XIII deposed as a heretic
1471: Death of Pope Paul II
1526: Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon leaves Santo Domingo with several hundred
settlers to found a colony in Florida
1527: Founding of Coro, Venezuela
1529: Pizarro authorized to conquer Peru, by the Crown of Spain
1581: The Estates-General of the Hague declares Philip II deposed
1603: James VI of Scotland was crowned King James I of England. He then
'authorized'an English translation of the Scriptures, first published in 1611 and known
since as the'King James Version' of the Bible.
1643: Excise Tax in England
1645: Matthew Hopkins, "Witch-finder General," helps to
condemn 26 persons as witches in Norfolk, England
1759: The French relinquish Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British
under General Jeffrey Amherst.
1775: Benjamin Franklin becomes the first Postmaster-General.
1788: New York became the eleventh state to ratify the US Constitution.
1847: Liberia became a republic, and Africa's first sovereign,
black-ruled democratic nation.
1859: The French composer Jules Massenet won the Prix de Rome but for
his piano playing ability rather than his composing.
1888: Rimsky-Korsakov finished composing "Scheherazade". This
four movement tone poem could be called a symphony, and it's almost a violin concerto
since the concertmaster has a great deal to do by himself, but most people just think of
"Scheherazade" as a very lovely work.
1908: Arnold Schoenberg, who has just been abandoned by his wife,
himself abandoned tonality, writing atonal variations on a folk song which ends with the
words "All is lost." You can hear this in the second movement of his second
string quartet.
1908: Attorney General Charles Bonaparte created an investigative
agency that was the forerunner of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).
1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting
discrimination in voting on the basis of sex, is ratified
1926: The sanctuary of Our Lady of Victory, in Lackawanna, NY, became
the first RomanCatholic church in the U.S. to be consecrated a basilica.
1935: The Open Bible Standard Churches was formed when two smaller
revival movements with similar objectives merged. OBSCI is headquartered today in Des
Moines.
1941: Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander of U.S. forces in the
Philippines
1945: Winston Churchill resigned as Britain's prime minister after his
Conservatives were soundly defeated by the Labor Party. (Clement Attlee became the new
prime minister.)
1946: President Truman signed a order that called for the desegration
of all U.S. armed forces.
1947: President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the
Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1948: In an Executive Order, President Harry Truman calls for the end
of discrimination and segregation in the U.S. armed forces.
1952: Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president by the Democratic
national convention Chicago; John J. Sparkman was nominated for vice president.
1952: Argentina's first lady, Eva Peron, died Buenos Aires at age 33.
1952: King Farouk the First of Egypt abdicated the wake of a coup led
by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
1953: Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an
unsuccessful attack on an army barracks eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista 1959.)
1956: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez
Canal.
1964: Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and six others were convicted of
fraud and conspiracy the handling of a union pension fund.
1971: "Apollo 15" was launched from Cape Kennedy.
1984: "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" became the
first network television show to be broadcast in stereo.
1985: The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution condemning South
Africa's declaration of a state of emergency and calling for limited, voluntary sanctions
against the Pretoria government.
1986: Kidnappers in Lebanon released the Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, an
American hostage held for nearly 19 months.
1986: American statesman Averell Harriman died in Yorktown Heights, New
York, at age 94.
1987: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said on ABC TV the US
Navy's anti-mine capabilities would be improved the Persian Gulf the wake of a mine
explosion that damaged the tanker "Bridgeton."
1988: UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met twice with
Iran's foreign minister in the first formal round of talks aimed at achieving a cease-fire
in the eight-year-old war between Iran and Iraq.
1989: Mark Wellman, a 29-year-old paraplegic, reached the summit of El
Capitan in Yosemite National Park after hauling himself up the granite cliff six inches at
a time over nine days.
1990: The U.S. House of Representatives reprimanded Congressman Barney
Frank, D-Mass., for ethics violations.
1990: President Bush signed into law the "Americans with
Disabilities Act."
1990: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that a young woman,
later identified as Kimberly Bergalis, had been infected with the AIDS virus, apparently
by her dentist.
1991: Secretary of State James Baker became the first Western diplomat
to address the Mongolian parliament.
1992: Iraq agreed to permit weapons inspectors to search the
Agriculture Ministry Baghdad. Miguel Induraof Spawon cycling's Tour de France for the
second year a row. Singer Mary Wells died Los Angeles at age 49.
1993: President Clinton launched a new, harder sell for his budget at a
conference in Chicago, accusing Republicans of gridlock.
1993: Retired General Matthew B. Ridgway died in Fox Chapel,
Pennsylvania, at age 98.
1994: A car bomb heavily damaged the Israeli embassy in London,
injuring 14; hours later, a second bomb exploded outside a building housing Jewish
organizations in north London.
1994: The House Banking Committee opened limited hearings on the
Whitewater controversy.
1995: The Senate voted 69-to-29 to unilaterally lift the U.N. embargo
on arms shipments to Bosnia.
1995: Former Michigan Governor George W. Romney died at age 88.
1996: President Clinton rejected a clemency plea from Jonathan Pollard,
who'd spent more than ten years prison for spying for Israel.
1996: Amy Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four gold
medals at a single Olympics as she captured the 50-meter freestyle Atlanta.
1997: President Clinton visited Lake Tahoe, bringing with him $26
million in new postal trucks and new sewage pipes as he committed himself to the lake's
preservation.
1998: The White House said President Clinton's lawyers were working
with prosecutor Kenneth Starr to avert Clinton's direct testimony to a grand jury about
the Monica Lewinsky case. (The president ended up testifying via closed-circuit
television.)
1998: AT&T and British Telecommunications PLC announced they were
forming a joint venture that would combine their international operations and develop a
new Internet system.
1999: Cary Stayner, a motel handyman, described in detail for an
off-camera jailhouse interview with San Francisco TV station KBWB how he'd killed a
naturalist and three Yosemite sightseers.
1999: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her Russian
counterpart, Igor Ivanov, announced a second Washington-Moscow hot line would be installed
to help avoid misunderstandings like those that had developed over Kosovo.
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2000: George W. Bush and his just-chosen running mate, Dick Cheney, set out on their first campaign excursion together as they visited Cheney's former hometown of Casper, Wyoming.
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2000: A federal judge in New York approved a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and more than a-half million plaintiffs who alleged the banks had hoarded money deposited by Holocaust victims.
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