Today In The Past
Events
588 BC - Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign. The siege lasts until July 23, 586 BC.
69 - Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but only rules for three months before committing suicide.
708 - Sisinnius begins his reign as Pope (dies 20 days later)
946 - Caliph al-Mustaqfi blinded/ousted
1346 - Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria gives his wife Margaretha, Holland/Zealand
1535 - Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church
1582 - Russia cedes Livonia & Estonia to Poland, loses access to Baltic
1586 - Battle at Boxum: Spanish troops under Tassis beat state army
1759 - British Museum opens in Montague House, London
1762 - Fraunces Tavern opens in NYC
1777 - People of New Connecticut (Vermont) declare independence from England
1780 - Continental Congress establishes court of appeals
1797 - 1st top hat worn (John Etherington of London)
1831 - 1st US-built locomotive to pull a passenger train makes 1st run
1831 - 1st US railroad honeymoon trip, Mr & Mrs Pierson, Charleston, SC
1833 - HMS Beagle anchors at Goeree Tierra del Fuego
1844 - U of Notre Dame receives its charter in Indiana
1847 - 1st Swedish magazine in US, Skandinavia, published in NYC
1861 - Steam elevator patented by Elisha Otis
1863 - 1st US newspaper printed on wood-pulp paper, Boston Morning Journal
1865 - Ft Fisher, NC falls to Union troops
1870 - Donkey 1st used as symbol of Democratic Party, in Harper’s Weekly
1877 - US Assay Office in Helena, Montana opens
1882 - 1st US ski club forms (Berlin NH)
1889 - The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
1892 - Basketball rules published in Triangle Magazine, Mass
1895 - Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake” premieres, St Petersburg (1/27 NS)
1905 - Coen de Koning becomes world champion all-round skater
1907 - 3-element vacuum tube patented by Dr Lee De Forest
1907 - Gold dental inlays 1st described by Wm Taggart, who invented them
1919 - 2 million gallons of molasses flood Boston MA, drowning 21
1919 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps.
1934 - Babe Ruth signs a 1934 contract for $35,000 ($17,000 cut)
1936 - 1st all-glass windowless structure in US completed, Toledo, Ohio
1936 - Non-profit Ford Foundation incorporates
1939 - 1st NFL pro bowl, NY Giants beat All Stars 13-10 in Wrigley Field
1939 - Municipal Railway & Market St RR begin service to Transbay Terminal
1940 - German U-Boot torpedoes Dutch trade ship Arendskerk (Eagle’s Church)
1943 - 1st transport of Jews from Amsterdam to concentration camp Vught
1943 - World’s largest office building, Pentagon, completed
1943 - 1,000 workers complete air conditioning system for Pentagon
1944 - Vught Concentration Camp puts 74 women in 1 cell, 10 die
1945 - Red Army frees Crakow-Plaszow concentration camp
1947 - The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short (“The Black Dahlia”) is found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California.
1949 - Mao’s Red army conquers Ten-tsin
1950 - 4,000 attend National Emergency Civil Rights Conference in Wash DC
1951 - Supreme Court rule “clear & present danger” of incitement to riot is not protected speech & can be a cause for arrest
1953 - 16 car Federal Express train loses brakes & crashes in Wash DC station
1953 - GDR Min of Foreign affairs Georg Dertingen arrested for “espionage”
1957 - Brooklyn Dodgers sign a new 3 year lease for Ebbets Field
1958 - NY Yankees sign million dollar plus deal to show 140 games on WPIX TV
1961 - Supremes signed with Motown Records
1962 - Dutch & Indonesian navy encounter in Etna Bay New Guinea
1964 - Teamsters negotiate 1st national labor contract
1965 - Rock group Who releases 1st album “I Can’t Explain”
1967 - Superbowl I: Green Bay Packers beat KC Chiefs, 35-10 in LA Superbowl MVP: Bart Starr, Green Bay, QB
1967 - The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles, California.
1970 - Republic Biafra disbands/joins Nigeria
1971 - Aswan Dam official opens in Egypt
1971 - George Harrison releases “My Sweet Lord”
1973 - 4 Watergate burglars plead guilty in federal court
1973 - Pres Nixon suspends all US offensive action in N Vietnam
1974 - ”Happy Days” begins an 11 year run on ABC
1974 - Expert panel reports 18½ minute gap in Watergate tape, 5 separate erasures
1975 - Portugal signs accord for Angola’s independence
1975 - Space Mountain opens (Disneyland)
1976 - Sara Jane Moore sentenced to life for attempting to shoot Pres Ford
1976 - US-German Helios B solar probe launched into solar orbit
1977 - Coneheads debut on “Saturday Night Live“
1978 - Theodore Bundy kills Fla State U coeds Lisa Levy & Margaret Bowman
1981 - ”Hill Street Blues” premieres on NBC-TV
1983 - Hartford Whalers smallest crowd 4,812 (beat Devils) during blizzard
1983 - Thom Syles keeps a life saver intact in his mouth for over 7 hours
1984 - Hana Mandlikova ends Martina Navratilova’s 54-match winning streak
1984 - Schonbrun skates world record 5 km (7:39.44)
1986 - Living Seas opens (Disneyland)
1988 - Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder makes racist remarks about black athletes
1989 - Big John Studd wins WWF’s 1st Royal Rumble
1990 - 42 year old George Foreman KOs Gerry Cooney in 2 rounds
1990 - AT&T experiences long distance problems due to a computer glitch
1991 - UN’s deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait (they don’t)
1992 - Cleaning woman finds intimate photos of Sarah Ferguson with US man
1992 - Supreme Court rules 5-3 that Joseph Doherty isn’t entitled to asylum
1993 - Top mafia leader Salvatore “Toto” Riina arrested in Palermo
1994 - Hague motorist with .51% alcohol in blood, breaks Dutch record (.47%)
1997 - Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir Space Station
1998 - NASA announces John Glenn, 76, may fly in space again
1999 - The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak are killed by Yugoslav security forces.
2001 - Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.
2005 - ESA’s SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.
2005 - An intense solar flare blasts X-rays across the solar system.
2007 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.
2009 - US Airways Flight 1549 makes an emergency landing into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. All passengers and crew members survive.
Births
1481 - Ashikaga Yoshizumi, Japanese shogun (d. 1511)
1507 - Johann Oporinus [Herbster], Swiss book publisher (Koran)
1538 - Maeda Toshiie, Japanese general (d. 1599)
1622 - Molière, French playwright (d. 1673)
1671 - Abraham de la Pryme, English antiquarian (d. 1704)
1716 - Philip Livingston, American businessman and politician (signed Declaration of Independence)
1747 - John Aikin, English doctor and writer (d. 1822)
1754 - Richard Martin, Irish animal rights activist (d. 1834)
1798 - Thomas Crofton Croker, Irish story teller (Fairy legends)
1809 - Pierre Joseph Proudhon, France, politician (libertarian socialist)
1813 - James Marion Sims, SC, surgeon/gynecologist (vesicovaginal operation)
1815 - Henry Morris Naglee, Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1886
1816 - Marie LaFarge, French murderer (d. 1852)
1817 - Lewis Golding Arnold, Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1871
1821 - Lafayette McLaws, Major General (Confederate Army), died in 1897
1824 - Marie Duplessis, French courtesan (d. 1847)
1842 - Blessed Mary McKillop, Australian candidate for sainthood (d. 1909)
1845 - Ella Flagg Young, 1st woman pres (National Educational Association)
1850 - Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician. (d. 1891)
1866 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish archbishop, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1931)
1870 - Johan Peter Koch, Danish officer/explorer (Greenland)
1870 - Pierre S. du Pont, American businessman (d. 1954)
1873 - Max Adler, Austria sociologist/socialist theorist
1877 - Lewis M Terman, Ind, psychologist (developed Stanford-Binet IQ test)
1885 - Lorenz Böhler, Austrian physician (d. 1973)
1885 - Huang Yuanyong, Chinese writer (d. 1915)
1892 - Rex Ingram, [Reginald IM Hitchcock], Irish director (4 Horsemen of Apocalypse) (d. 1950)
1895 - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1973)
1902 - Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Faisal al-Saud, king (Saudi Arabia)
1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greece, rich shipping magnate
1908 - Edward Teller, Budapest Hungary, fathered H-bomb (Manhattan Project), (d. 2003)
1909 - Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman’s drummer (Sing Sing Sing)
1909 - Jean Bugatti, German-born automobile designer (d. 1939)
1913 - Lloyd Bridges, San Leandro California, actor (Sea Hunt, Roots, Airplane)
1913 - Alexander Marinesko, captain of the S-13 submarine, which sank the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff (d. 1963)
1918 - Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt (1954-1971)
1920 - John J “Cardinal” O’Connor, Phila, Roman Catholic Archbishop of NY
1923 - Ivor Cutler, Scottish poet (d. 2006)
1925 - Keith Bentley, international racing cyclist
1926 - Maria Schell, Vienna Austria, actress (Space 1999)
1927 - Norm Crosby, Boston MA, comedian (Young at Heart Comedians)
1929 - Martin Luther King Jr, Atlanta, American clergyman and leader of the Civil Rights Movement (Nobel 1964)
1931 - Derek Meddings, special effects technician
1932 - Dean Smith, US actor/relay runner (Olympic-gold-1952)
1932 - Louis Woodard Jones, New Rochelle NY, 4X400m relayer (Oly-gold-56)
1935 - Robert Silverberg, US, sci-fi author (Hugo, Regan’s Planet)
1941 - Captain Beefheart, [Don Van Vliet], rocker (Bongo Fury, Shiny Beast)
1945 - Vince Foster, American lawyer (d. 1993)
1945 - William R. Higgins, USMC colonel (d. 1990)
1947 - Andrea Martin, Portland ME, comediene (SCTV, Club Paradise)
1948 - Ronnie Van Zant, rocker (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
1951 - Charo [Maria Baeza], Spanish-American actress, comedienne and flamenco guitarist (Chico and the Man, Love Boat)
1951 - Martha Davis, California, vocalist/guitar (Motels-Only the Lonely, Shame)
1953 - Randy White, NFL tackle (Dallas Cowboys)
1956 - Vera Sosulya, USSR, toboggan (Olympic-gold-1980)
1957 - Mario Van Peebles, Mexico, actor (Posse, South Bronx Heroes)
1957 - Patrick Dixon, English entrepreneur
1959 - Pete Trewavas, Middlesbrough, bassist, (Marillion-Clutching at Straws)
1959 - Pavle Kozjek, Slovenian climber (d. 2008)
1961 - Yves P. Pelletier, Canadian comedian and film director
1963 - Erling Kagge, Norway, explorer (South Pole)
1963 - Lijuan Geng, Hebei China, Canadian tennis player (Olympics-96)
1963 - Yaro Dachniwsky, Chic Ill, team handball goalie (Olympics-1996)
1964 - Paula Schnurr, Kirkland Lake Ontario, 1.5k (Olympics-8-92, 96)
1965 - Maurizio Fondriest, Italian cyclist
1967 - Lisa Lisa, [Velez], rock vocalist (& Cult Jam)
1968 - Laurie Fellner, Appleton Wisc, team handball goalie (Olympics-92, 96)
1968 - Steve McConaghy, Australian soling yachter (Olympics-96)
1969 - Rod de Highden, Australian 5k/10k/marathoner (Olympics-96)
1970 - Dan Landry, San Diego Ca, volleyball opposite hitter (Olympics-96)
1970 - Michele Granger, Anaheim California, softball pitcher (Olympics-gold-96)
1971 - Regina King, LA California, actress (Brenda Jenkins-227)
1978 - Franco Pellizotti, Italian cyclist
1979 - Ken Chu, Taiwanese singer-actor and taichi champ
1984 - Megan Jendrick, American swimmer
Deaths
69 - Servius Sulpicius Galba, 6th emperor of Rome (68-69), lynched at 70
570 - Saint Ita, Irish nun (b. 475)
936 - King Rudolph of France
1208 - Peter of Castelnau, French nobleman, murdered
1345 - Martin Zaccaria, Italo-Greek ruler
1595 - Murat III, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1546)
1683 - Philip Warwick, English writer and politician (b. 1609)
1684 - Caspar Netscher, Dutch portrait painter, dies at about 48
1705 - Walraad, the Young, earl of Nassau-Ottweiler/gov of Nijmegen, dies
1790 - John Landen, English mathematician (b. 1719)
1804 - Dru Drury, English entomologist (b. 1725)
1815 - Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Lord Nelson (b. 1761
1876 - Eliza Johnson, U.S. First Lady (b. 1810)
1896 - Matthew B Brady, US photographer (Civil War), dies at about 72
1919 - Karl Liebknecht, Marxist revolutionary, murdered at 47
1919 - Rosa Luxemburg, Marxist revolutionary, murdered
1922 - John Kirk Barry, Dr/explorer David Livingstone’s companion, dies at 89
1934 - Patrick O’Malley, US policeman, killed by John Dillinger
1942 - Melvin Winfield Sheppard, runner (Olympic-gold-08, 12), dies at 58
1947 - Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia (b. 1924)
1949 - Black Dahlia, murder victim found in LA (basis of the movie)
1950 - Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold, U.S. General of the Air Force (b. 1886)
1964 - Weldon John “Jack” Teagarden, US jazz trombonist/singer, dies at 58
1968 - Leopold Infeld, Pol nuclear physcist (Motion & Relativity), dies at 69
1978 - Margaret Bowman & Janet Levy, Chi Omega, FSU, killed by Ted Bundy
1983 - Meyer Lansky, reputed mobster, dies in Miami Beach Fla at 80
1987 - Ray Bolger, actor/dancer (Wizard of Oz), dies at 83
1988 - Sean MacBride, Ireland, commander of Irish Republican Army, dies at 83
1993 - Sammy Cahn, American songwriter (b. 1913)
1994 - Harry Nilsson, rock vocalist (Everybody’s Talkin’), dies at 52
1996 - Les Baxter, singer/orchestra leader/composer (Born Again), dies at 73
1996 - Richard Charles Cobb, historian, dies at 78
1998 - Amos “Junior” Wells, blues musician, dies at 63(see UE Births 12/09)
Hoochie Coochie Man & Mannish Boy with Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy
2000 - Željko Ražnatović, aka Arkan, Serbian paramilitary leader (b. 1952)
2003 - Doris Fisher, American singer and songwriter (b. 1915)
2005 - Elizabeth Janeway, American author (b. 1913)
2005 - Ruth Warrick, American actress (b. 1915)
2005 - Deem Bristow, American video game voice actor (b. 1947)
2007 - James Hillier, Canadian inventor of electron microscope (b. 1915)
2007 - Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court (b. 1945) (executed)
2008 - Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Game Designer (b. 1964)
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