Today In The Past
Events
196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt.
1309 – Pope Clement V excommunicates Venice and all its population.
1329 – Pope John XXII issues his ‘In Agro Dominico’ condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.
1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida
1599 – Robert Devereux becomes lt-general of Ireland
1613 – The first English child born in Canada at Cuper’s Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy.
1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland & Ireland, ascends English throne
1709 – Dike at Hardinxveld breaks (Alblasserwaard flooded)
1758 – Battle at Emmerich: British army floats around France the Rhine
1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented in England
1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
1802 – Treaty of Amiens-French Revolutionary War ends
1814 – Battle at Horseshoe Bend: General Andrew Jackson defeats the Red Sticks, part of the Creek Indian tribe near Dadeville, Alabama
1836 – 1st Mormon temple dedicated (Kirtland Ohio)
1841 – 1st US steam fire engine tested, NYC
1848 – John Parker Paynard originates medicated adhesive plaster
1849 – Joseph Couch patents steam-powered percussion rock drill
1855 – Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
1860 – M L Byrn patents “covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” (corkscrew)
1863 – President Davis calls for this to be a day of fasting & prayer
1865 – Siege of Spanish Fort, AL-captured by Federals
1866 – Andrew Rankin patents the urinal
1866 – Pres Johnson vetoes civil rights bill; it later becomes 14th amend
1879 – Longest championship fight (136 rounds)
1881 – Rioting takes place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance by the Salvation Army.
1884 – 1st long-distance telephone call, Boston-NY
1890 – A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.
1906 – Founding of the Alpine Club of Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba
1910 – Fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, killed 312
1912 – 1st Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Wash DC
1914 – 1st successful blood transfusion (in Brussels)
1928 – US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Maribel Vinson
1928 – US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Roger Turner
1929 – US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Maribel Vinson
1929 – US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Roger Turner
1931 – Charlie Chaplin receives France’s distinguished Legion of Honor
1933 – Polythene discovered by Reginald Gibson & Eric William Fawcett
1938 – The Battle of Taierzhuang takes place.
Chinese soldiers in house-to-house fighting in Battle of Taierzhuang. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
1940 – Himmler orders building of Auschwitz concentration camp, at Katowice
1941 – Britain leases defense bases in Trinidad to US for 99 years
1941 – Hitler signs Directive 27 (assault on Yugoslavia)
1942 – -28] Allies raid German submarine base in St Nazaire
1942 – Joe Louis KOs Abe Simon in 6 to retain heavyweight boxing title (NYC)
1943 – Blue Ribbon Town (with Groucho Marx) 1st heard on CBS Radio
1943 – US begins assault on Fondouk-pass, Tunisia
1944 – 1,000 Jews leave Drancy France for Auschwitz Concentration Camp
1944 – 2,000 Jews are murdered in Kaunas Lithuania
1944 – 40 Jewish policemen in Riga Latvia ghetto are shot by the gestapo
1944 – Children’s Aktion-Nazis collect all the Jewish children of Lovno
1945 – Ella Fitzgerald & Delta Rhythm Boys record “It’s Only a Paper Moon”
1945 – Gen Eisenhower declares German defenses on Western Front broken
1945 – Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese & 6,000 US killed
1945 – US 20th Army corps captures Wiesbaden
1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways begins.
1950 – Jazz pianist, Erroll Garner’s solo concert (Cleve OH)
1952 – Sun Records of Memphis begins releasing records
1955 – Steve McQueen makes his network TV debut (Goodyear Playhouse)
1956 – French commandos land in Algeria
1958 – CBS Labs announce new stereophonic records
1964 – 1st true Pirate Radio station, Radio Caroline (England)
1964 – Great Train Robbers sentenced to a total of 307 years behind bars
1966 – Anit Vietnam war demonstrations in US, Europe & Australia
1968 – Suharto succeeds Sukarno as president of Indonesia
1971 – 33rd NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: UCLA beats Villanova 68-62 UCLA wins their 5th consecutive NCAA basketball title
1972 – Adolph Rupp retires after 42 years of coaching U of Kentucky
1972 – Venera 8 launched to Venus
1973 – Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) stopped for speeding & LSD possession
1977 – 583 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM-Pan Am 747 crash on Tenerife
1979 – Supreme Court rules, 8-1, cops can’t randomly stop cars
1980 – Elevator in Vaal Reef S Afr gold mine crash 1900m down (23 die)
1980 – Mount St Helens becomes active after 123 years
1983 – Larry Holmes beats Lucien Rodriguez in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
1985 – Billy Dee Williams receives a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
1986 – Disney-MGM Studio Tour ground breaking
1988 – Ice Dance Championship at Budapest won by Bestemianova & Bukin (URS)
1988 – Ice Pairs Championship at Budapest won by E Valova & O Vasiliev (URS)
1988 – Ladies Fig Skating Championship in Budapest won by Katarina Witt (GDR)
1988 – Men’s Figure Skating Champions in Budapest won by Brian Boitano (USA)
1990 – Bus accidentally touches high voltage wire in Karagpur India; 21 die
1990 – The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba in an effort to bridge the information blackout imposed by the Castro regime.
1991 – New Kid Donnie Wahlberg, arrested on arson charges in Kentucky
1994 – Church in Piedmont Alabama collapses in tornado, 19 killed
1994 – The Eurofighter takes its first flight in Manching, Germany
1997 – 39 cult memebers in California commit mass suicide (Hale-Bopp)
1997 – Martin Luther King’s son meets with James Earl Ray
2000 – Phillips explosion of 2000 kills 1 and injures 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
2002 – Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber kills 29 people in Netanya, Israel.
2004 – HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
2006 – The United Nations Commission on Human Rights holds its final meeting.
2009 – Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails killing at least 99 people.
2134 – 32nd recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet
Births
972 – King Robert II of France (d. 1031)
1416 – Antonio Squarcialupi, composer
1554 – Everhardus van Bronchorst, Dutch lawyer
1676 – Francis II Rákóczi, leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburg (d. 1735)
1712 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon (d. 1779)
1746 – Carlo Bonaparte, Corsican attorney/father of emperor Napoleon
1760 – MJ Auguste Vestrius, French ballet dancers
1765 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher/theologist
1797 – Alfred V Comte de Vigny, French musketeer/writer (Moise, Chatterton)
1813 – Nathaniel Currier, lithographer (Currier & Ives)
1817 – Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Swiss biologist (d. 1891)
1823 – Samuel Kosciusko Zook, Bvt Mjr General (Union volunteers)
1844 – Alophus Washington Greely, US, Arctic explorer
1845 – Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen, Germany, discovered X-rays (Nobel 1901)
1847 – Otto Wallach, Germany, chemist (Nobel 1910)
1857 – Karl Pearson, London England, mathematician
1863 – Henry Royce, automobile founder (Rolls-Royce)
1886 – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, German/US architect (Bauhaus)
1886 – Sergey Kirov, Russian bolshevik leader (d. 1934)
1897 – Douglas Hartree, English mathematician and physicist
1899 – Gloria Swanson, Chicago Illinois, American actress (Sunset Boulevard, Queen Kelly)
1901 – Wilhelm Conrad von Roentgen, physicist (Nobel)
1901 – Carl Barks, American illustrator (d. 2000)
1902 – Mary Armour, artist
1905 – Elsie MacGill, Canadian aeronautical engineer (d. 1980)
1906 – Pee Wee Russell, American musician (d. 1969)
1914 – Budd Schulberg, NYC, novelist (On the Waterfront)
1914 – Snooky Lanson, Memphis Tn, singer (Your Hit Parade, 5 Star Jubilee)
1915 – Selma Rubin, Toledo, Ohio, environmental activist (Earth Day co-founder), (d. 2012)
1924 – Sarah L Vaughan, Newark NJ, jazz/scat singer (Broken Hearted Melody)
1927 – Anthony Lewis, columnist (NY Times)/author (Gideon’s Trumpet)
1930 – David Janssen, [Meyer], Naponee Nebraska, actor (Fugitive, Harry O)
1931 – R P Bauman, CEO (British Aerospace)
1932 – Wes Covington, baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies)
1933 – DRG Andrews, CEO (Land Rover-Leyland)
1937 – Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, US blues guitarist/singer (Lion’s Den)
1938 – A J Bellingham, president (Royal College of Pathologists)
1938 – Jock Slater, admiral
1939 – Cale Yarborough, auto racer (Daytona 500–1968, 77, 83, 84)
1939 – Judy Carne, comedienne (Laugh-In, Love on a Rooftop)
1941 – Liese Prokop, Austria, pentathlete (Olympic-silver-1968)
1942 – Michael York, England, actor (Cabaret, Logan’s Run, 3 Musketeers)
1942 – John E. Sulston, British chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1943 – Phil Frank, American cartoonist (d. 2007)
1950 – Tony Banks, rock keyboardist (Genesis-Against All Odds)
1952 – Maria Schneider, Paris, actress (Last Tango in Paris, Crime of Honor)
1953 – Pamela Roylance, Seattle Wash, actress (Sarah-Little House on Prairie)
1955 – Kim Brassey, racehorse trainer
1956 – Thomas Wassberg, Sweden, 15K/50K cross country skier (Oly-gold-1980)
1957 – Billy MacKenzie, rock vocalist (The Associates-Affectionate Punch)
1957 – Duncan Goodhew, England, 100m breast stroke swimmer (Oly-Gold-1980)
1958 – Bart Connor, gymnast/sportscaster (Olympic-gold-1984)
1960 – Jennifer Grey, actress (Dirty Dancing); Joel Grey’s daughter
1961 – Tak Matsumoto, Japanese guitarist (B’z)
1963 – Quentin Tarantino, director/screenwriter (Pulp Fiction)
1963 – Randall Cunningham, NFL QB (Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings)
1963 – Todd Graves, Laurel Miss, skeet (Olympics-1992, 96)
1967 – Talisa Soto, [Miriam], Brooklyn NY, actress (License to Kill)
1968 – Irina Belova, Russian pentathelete (world record 1992)
1970 – Brendan Hill, British drummer (Blues Traveler)
1970 – Princess Leila of Iran (d. 2001)
1970 – Elizabeth Mitchell, American actress
1971 – Mariah Carey, NYC, singer (Love Takes Time, Hero)
1973 – Serge Tremblay, La Malbaie Quebec, weightlifter (Olympics-96)
1977 – Vitor Meira, Brazilian racing driver
1982 – Kurara Chibana, Japanese beauty queen, first runner-up Miss Universe 2006
1984 – Emily Ann Lloyd, actress (Sarah Kramer-Something So Right)
1985 – Caroline Winberg, Swedish supermodel
1988 – Brenda Song, American actress
Deaths
710 – Rupert of Salzburg
922 – Al-Hallaj al-Mughith-al-Hsayn Mansur, Persian mystic, beheaded at 64
965 – Arnulf I, the Elder/the Great, count of Flanders (918-65), dies
973 – Herman, Duke of Saxony
1378 – Gregory XI, [Pierre R the Beaufort], last French Pope (1370-78), dies
1462 – Vasili II of Russia, Grand Prince of Moscow (b. 1415)
1482 – Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold and his successor, dies falling off her horse (b. 1457)
1555 – William Hunter, Protestant martyr
1572 – Girolamo Maggi, Italian Renaissance man (b. abt. 1523)
1625 – James I Stuart, king of Scotland (1567)/England (1603-25), dies at 58
1697 – Simon Bradstreet, English colonial magistrate (b. 1603)
1701 – Anne Hilarion de Cotentin, count of Tourville/Fr admiral, dies at 58
1836 – James Fannin, Texas revolutionary (b. 1804)
1850 – Wilhelm Bear, German banker/astronomer (Moon Map), dies at 53
1864 – Jean-Jacques Ampère, French scholar (b. 1800)
1878 – George Gilbert Scott, architect, dies
1894 – Verney L Cameron, English explorer (Tanganyika), dies at 49
1897 – Andreas Anagnostakis, Greek physician (b. 1826)
1898 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Indian Muslim intellectual and one of the founding fathers of Pakistan dies at 80
1900 – Pieter J Joubert [Smart Piet], South African general, dies at 69
1910 – Alexander E Agassiz, US businessman/biologist/geologist, dies at 74
1923 – Sir James Dewar, Scottish chemist (b. 1842)
1929 – Samuil Shatunovsky, Ukrainian mathematician, dies at 70
1967 – Jim Thompson, American designer (disappeared) (b. 1906)
1968 – Yuri Gagarin, 1st man to orbit Earth, & Seryogin, in plane crash at 34
1991 – Aldo Ray, western actor (Battle Cry), dies at 64 of cancer
1992 – James E Webb, head of NASA (1961-68), dies at 84
1998 – Ferry Porsche, Austrian automobile manufacturer (b. 1909)
2002 – Milton Berle, American actor and comedian (b. 1908)
2002 – Dudley Moore, British actor (b. 1935)
2002 – Billy Wilder, American director (b. 1906)
2006 – Lyn Nofziger, American journalist and political advisor to Ronald Reagan (b. 1924)
2007 – Paul Lauterbur, American chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1929)
2010 – Vasily Smyslov, Russian grandmaster (b. 1921)
2012 – Hilton Kramer, American art critic, dies from heart failure at 84
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