0905: Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor, blinded
1209: Massacre of Beziers (Albegensian "Crusade")
1306: Philip "The Fair's" secret commission results in the
arrest of and confiscation of all the goods and money of, every Jew in France
1362: Coronation of Louis I "the Great" as King of Hungary
1411: Sigsimund again chosen King of Germany
1425: Death of Manuel II, Emperor of Byzantium
1542: Inquisition established in Rome
1552: Death of Antonio de Mendoza, first Viceroy of Mexico
1571: Inquisition created for the Portuguese navy
1588: Sir Francis Drake and the English first meet the Armada
1619: Death of St. Laurence of Brindisi.
1773: Pope Clement XIV dissolves the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which
was founded during in 1534. Clement did not condemn the Society, but explained it was an
administrative move for the peace of the church. The Society was restored in 1814.
1812: Goethe wrote in his diary that he had spent the evening with
Beethoven. He said the composer "played deliciously."
1831: Belgium became independent as Leopold the First was proclaimed
King of the Belgians.
1838: The inventor of the metronome died. Johann Maelzel was 65 and was
sailing to New York at the time. Maelzel's invention changed classical music forever,
because it enabled composers to leave much more specific tempo markings.
1861: The first major military engagement of the Civil War occurred at
Bull Run Creek in Virginia. It was a Confederate victory.
1864: The first daily black newspaper "The New Orleans
Tribune" was published.
1867: City Gardens on Folsom opens.
1873: The world's 1st train robbery, by Jesse James.
1925: The so-called "Monkey Trial" ended in Dayton,
Tennessee, with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's
Theory of Evolution. John T. Scopes is fined $100 for the offense. (The conviction was
later overturned.)
1930: The U.S. Veterans Administration was established.
1944: American forces landed on Guam during World War Two.
1944: The Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated Senator
Harry S. Truman to be vice president.
1949: The US Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty.
1954: France surrendered North Vietnam to the Communists.
1955: During the Geneva summit, President Eisenhower presented his
"open skies" proposal under which the US and the Soviet Union would trade
information on each other's military facilities.
1961: Captain Virgil "Gus" Grissom became the second American
to rocket into a sub-orbital pattern around the Earth, flying aboard the "Liberty
Bell Seven."
1967: Basil Rathbone, the South African-born English actor, died. Famed
for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, he also became the Hollywood villain
in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Mark of Zorro.""
1969: Coronation of Bruce of Cloves as first King of the East (SCA)
1969: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
climbed back into the lunar module, Eagle, and lifted off from the surface of the moon.
1976: The British ambassador to the Irish Republic, Christopher
Ewart-Biggs, was killed by a bomb placed under his car outside his home.
1979: The National Women's Hall of Fame is dedicated. Its purpose is to
honor women important to American history.
1980: Draft registration began in the United States for 19- and
20-year-old men.
1987: Defying a threatened veto by President Reagan, the Senate
approved a trade bill containing a provision requiring companies to give 60 days' notice
to employees of impending plant closings and large-scale layoffs. (Although Reagan
successfully vetoed the bill, he ended up allowing a separate plant-closing notice measure
to become law.)
1983: Poland ended 19 months of martial law.
1983: The U.S. announced American hostage David Dodge had been freed in
Lebanon.
1984: A robot accidentally crushed a worker in a Jackson, Michigan,
auto plant. This was the first recorded robot homicide.
1986: South African Bishop Desmond Tutu met with President P.W. Botha
in Pretoria. Robert J. Brown withdrew from consideration as U.S. ambassador to South
Africa.
1986: Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrived in Morocco for talks
with King Hassan II.
1987: Defying a threatened veto by President Reagan, the Senate
approved a trade bill containing a provision requiring companies to give 60 days notice to
employees of impending plant closings and large-scale layoffs.
1988: Baroda Airport in India was re-opened after the runway had been
blocked by a damaged Boeing 737, which had been charged by a wild bull when it came in to
land. The passengers survived; the bull didn't.
1988: Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis accepted the Democratic
presidential nomination at the party's convention in Atlanta, declaring, "this
election isn't about ideology, it's about competence."
1989: The State Department confirmed an ABC News report that Felix S.
Bloch, a veteran US diplomat, was being investigated as a possible Soviet spy. (Bloch was
never charged with espionage, but was fired from his job in 1990.)
1990: A day after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan announced
his retirement, President Bush convened a meeting with key administration officials to
begin finding a replacement.
1991: Jordan joined Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in agreeing
to regional peace talks.
1992: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin paid a quick visit to Cairo,
where he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said afterward that he'd accepted
Rabin's invitation to visit Israel.
1992: A judge in Pontiac, Michigan, dismissed murder charges against
euthanasia advocate Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian.
1993: More rain set back cleanup and recovery efforts in parts of the
Midwest; Transportation Secretary Federico Pena examined flood damage along the
Mississippi in Keokuk, Iowa.
1994: After a two-month trek across Russia following his return from 20
years of exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn arrived back in Moscow.
1994: Former Senate Republican leader Hugh Scott died in Falls Church,
Virginia, at age 93.
1994: Britain's Labor Party elected Tony Blair its new leader,
succeeding the late John Smith.
1995: At a 16-nation conference in London, the United States and NATO
allies warned Bosnian Serbs that further attacks on U.N. safe havens would draw a
"substantial and decisive response."
1996: Dozens of memorial services were held across the country to
remember the 230 people lost in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
1996: At the Atlanta Olympics, swimmer Tom Dolan gave the United States
its first gold, in the 400-meter individual medley. The men's 800-meter freestyle relay
team also won.
1997: The USS "Constitution," which defended the US during
the War of 1812, set sail under its own power for first time in 116 years, leaving its
temporary anchorage at Marblehead, Massachusetts, for a one-hour voyage marking its 200th
anniversary. (The actual anniversary was the following October.)
1998: The Pentagon said it found no evidence to support allegations in
a CNN report that US troops had used nerve gas during a 1970 operation in Laos designed to
hunt down American defectors.
1998: President Clinton announced a crackdown on nursing homes that
were lax about quality and on states that do a poor job of regulating them.
1998: Astronaut Alan Shepard died in Monterey, California, at age 74.
1998: Actor Robert Young died in Westlake Village, California, at age
91.
1999: Navy divers found the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife,
Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, in the wreckage of Kennedy's plane in the
Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard.
1999: Advertising executive David Ogilvy died in Bonnes, France, at age
88.
2000: Special Counsel John C. Danforth concluded "with 100 percent certainty" that the federal government was innocent of wrongdoing in the siege that killed 80 members of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993.
2000: Group of Eight leaders met for an economic summit on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where President Clinton also
futilely sought to soothe long-simmering tensions over the huge American military presence.
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