Today In The Past
Events
295 – 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet
850 – Guntherus becomes bishop of Cologne
1139 – 2nd Lateran Council (10th ecumenical council) opens in Rome
1505 – Jews are expelled from Orange Burgandy by Philibert of Luxembourg
1551 – John Dudley becomes English Earl Marshal
1657 – Battle in Santa Cruz Bay, Tenerife: English fleet under Robert Blake sinks Spanish silver fleet
1689 – The former King James II of England, now deposed, lays siege to Derry.
1702 – Comet C/1702 H1 approaches within 0.0437 AUs of Earth
1770 – Capt Cook arrives in New South Wales
1775 – British begin siege of Boston
1777 – New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
1792 – France declares war on Austria, Prussia & Sardinia
1809 – Napoleon I defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria
1828 – René Caillié is first non-Muslim to enter Timbouctou.
1836 – Territory of Wisconsin created
1841 – 1st detective story (Poe’s “Murders in Rue Morgue“) published
1853 – Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad
1861 – Battle of Norfolk, VA
1861 – Colonel Robert E Lee resigns from Union army
1862 – The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.
1879 – 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus
1894 – 136,000 mine workers strike in Ohio for pay increase
1902 – Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride
1904 – Louisiana Purchase Exposition opens in St Louis
1910 – Halley’s Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
1912 – Fenway Park officially opens, Red Sox beat NY Highlanders 7-6 in 11
1914 – 33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow, Colo
1916 – German-British sea battle off Belgian coast
1918 – Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.
1919 – Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from Soviet Army
1920 – 7th modern Olympic games opens in Antwerp Belgium
1920 – Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate
1934 – Heinrich Himmler becomes inspector Prussian secret state police
1945 – US 7th army captured German city of Nuremberg
1945 – US forces conquer Motobu peninsula on Okinawa
1951 – Velsen city council demands investigation of police collaborators
1961 – American Harold Graham makes 1st rocket belt flight
1962 – NASA civilian pilot Neil A Armstrong takes X-15 to 63,250 m
1962 – New Orleans Citizens Co gives free 1-way ride to blacks to move North
1962 – OAS-leader ex-general Salan arrested in Algiers
1964 – 86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools
1965 – People’s Republic China offers North Vietnam military aid
1967 – NY Met Tom Seaver’s 1st victory, beats Cubs, 6-1
1967 – US Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
1967 – US planes bomb Haiphong for 1st time during Vietnam War
1968 – Pierre Elliott Trudeau sworn-in as Canada’s PM
1968 – English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
1970 – Bruno Kreisky becomes 1st socialist chancellor of Austria
1971 – US Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
1972 – Apollo 16’s Young & Duke land on Moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2
1976 – George Harrison sings lumberjack song with Monty Python
1977 – Supreme Court rules “Live Free or Die” may be covered on NH licenses
1980 – Cubans begin to arrive in US from Mariel boatlift
1981 – Final performance of TV show “Soap” airs
1983 – Pres Reagan signs a $165B bail out for Social Security
1984 – Russian offensive in Panshirvallei Afghanistan
1985 – Karyn Marshall of NYC lifted 303 lbs in a clean & jerk lift
1985 – ATF raid on The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas.
1987 – Sri Lanka: Tamils shoot 122 Singalezen dead
1988 – US accuses Renamo of killing 100,000 Mozambiquians
1990 – Pete Rose pleads guilty to hiding $300,000 in income
1991 – Mark Lenzi is 1st diver to score 100 pts on a dive (101.85)
1992 – All star concert in memory of Freddie Mercury held at Wembley Stadium
1993 – Uranus passes Neptune (once every 171 years)
1994 – Danny Harold Rolling, sentenced to death in Florida, for killing 5
1994 – Serbian army bombs hospital in Goradze Bosnia, 47 killed
1997 – Cubs beat NY Mets ending NL worst opening, lost 14 straight games
1997 – Mark McGwire, is 4th to HR on Detroit Tiger left field roof (others are Frank Howard, Harmon Killibrew, & Cecil Fielder)
1998 – German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School located in Jefferson County, Colorado.
2004 – In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents, killing 22 detainees and wounding 92.
2007 – Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
2010 – Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion kills 11 and causes rig to sink, initiating a massive oil discharge in the Gulf of Mexico.
2012 – 40 people are killed and 27 injured after a tractor trailer collided with a bus in Alamo, Mexico
Births
702 – Jafar Sadiq, Muslim scholar (d. 765)
1442 – Edward IV, King (England, 1461-83)
1494 – John Agricola, [Schneider], German theologist/prime minister
1586 – Saint Rose of Lima, Peruvian saint (d. 1617)
1592 – John Eliot, St Germans Cornwall, English MP/author
1633 – Emperor Go-Komyo of Japan (d. 1654)
1646 – Charles Plumier, French botanist (d. 1704)
1723 – Cornelius Harnett, American delegate to the Continental Congress (d. 1781)
1726 – Jozef de Ferraris, French/Austrian earl/general/cartographer
1745 – Philippe Pinel, physician, founder of psychiatry
1808 – Louis-Napoleon (Napoleon III), emperor of France (1852-71)
1809 – John Smith Preston, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1881
1818 – Heinrich Göbel, German-born inventor (d. 1893)
1824 – Alfred Holt Colquitt, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1894
1827 – John Gibbon, Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1896
1850 – Daniel Chester, French/American sculptor (Minute Man)
1860 – Charles Gordon Curtis, US attorney/inventor (Curtis Turbine)
1882 – Holland Smith, U.S. General (d. 1967)
1884 – Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1966)
1889 – Adolph Hitler, Braunau, Austria, dictator and Führer of Nazi Germany (1936-45)
1893 – Harold Lloyd, Burchard Neb, silent comic (Why Worry, Safety Last)
1893 – Edna Parker, American supercentenarian
1893 – Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1983)
1896 – Senor Wences, ventriloquist (Close the Door)
1908 – Lionel Hampton, orchestra leader/vibraphone improviser (Depths Below)
1910 – Robert F Wagner, (Mayor-D-NYC, 1954-65) [or May 15]
1919 – Richard Hillary, Australian Spitfire pilot and author (d. 1943)
1920 – John Paul Stevens, Illinois, 103rd Supreme Court Justice (1975- )
1920 – Ronald Speirs, WWII Veteran (d. 2007)
1923 – Tito Puente, Puerto Rico, bandleader (Dance Mania)
1924 – Nina Foch, Leiden Netherlands, actress (American in Paris)
1927 – Karl Muller, Switzerland, superconductivity physicist (Nobel 1987)
1928 – Gerald S. Hawkins, English astronomer (d. 2003)
1938 – Bernard Malivoire, France, cox pair (Olympic-gold-1952)
1938 – Betty Cuthbert, Australia 100m/200m/400m dash (Olympic-gold-1956, 64)
1938 – Johnny Tillotson, Jacksonville Fla, singer (Gidget, Poetry in Motion)
1941 – Joni Evans, NYC, publisher (Simon & Schuster, Random House)
1943 – Edie Sedgwick, Santa Barbara CA, actor (Ciao Manhattan)
1943 – Ian Watson, UK, sci-fi author (Book of Being, Whores of Babylon)
1945 – Jimmy Winston, London, organist (Samll Facres-Itchycoo Park)
1946 – Gordon Smiley, American racecar driver (d. 1982)
1947 – Andrew Tobias, American journalist and author
1948 – Craig Frost, keyboardist (Grand Funk Railroad-Some Kind of Wonderful)
1949 – Jessica Lange, Cloquet Minnesota, actress (King Kong, Tootsie)
1949 – Veronica Cartwright, American actress
1951 – Luther Vandross, NYC, rock vocalist (Dance with my Father), (d. 2005)
1952 – Tamara Sergeyevna Zakharova, Russian cosmonaut
1961 – Don “Hitman” Mattingly, Indiana, 1st baseman (NY Yankees/MVP 1985)
1963 – Brett Edward Garsed, Victoria Australia, heavy metal artist (Nelson)
1963 – Mauricio Gugelmin, Brazilian racing driver
1963 – Aubrey de Grey, British biomedical gerontologist
1964 – Andy Serkis, English actor
1965 – Adrian Fernández, Mexican racing driver
1966 – David Chalmers, Australian philosopher
1967 – Mike Portnoy, American drummer (Dream Theater)
1968 – LeShundra Nathan, Birmingham Ala, heptathlete
1970 – Adriano Moraes, Brazilian rodeo performer
1972 – Carmen Electra [Tara Leigh Patrick], Sharonville, Ohio, American model and actress (Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans)
1974 – Ben[jamin] Lincoln Holbrook, Hartland Wis, rower (Olympics-1996)
1976 – Lenka Nemeckova, Brno Czech, tennis star (1993 Futures-Maribor-SLO)
1977 – Lisa Ervin, figure skater (US Nationals-4th-1992)
1977 – Johnny “The Bull” Stamboli, professional wrestler
1983 – Miranda Kerr, Australian supermodel
1984 – Tyson Griffin, American mixed martial artist
Deaths
1164 – Victor IV, [Ottaviano Montecello], Italian antipope (1159-64), dies
1176 – Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, English soldier (b. 1130)
1314 – Clement V, [Bertrand Got], pope (1305-14) move papacy to Avignon, dies
1317 – Agnes van Montepulciano, Italian mystic/saint, dies
1521 – Zhengde, Emperor of China (b. 1491)
1534 – Elizabeth Barton, [St Magd van Kent], British prophet, dies
1558 – Johannes Bugenhagen, German reformer (b. 1485)
1632 – Nicolas Antione, converted to Judiasm, burned at the stake
1703 – Lancelot Addison, English royal chaplain (b. 1632)
1765 – Abigail Williams, American accuser in the Salem witch trials (b. 1674)
1769 – Pontiac, indian chief to Ottawa, murdered
1812 – George Clinton, 4th US VP, dies at 73 1st VP to, die in office
1821 – Franz K Achard, German physicist/chemist, dies at 67
1836 – Johan I Jozef, monarch of Liechtenstein/fieldmarshal, dies at 75
1906 – Australian wombat; oldest known marsupial, dies in London Zoo at 26
1912 – Bram Stoker, Irish theater manager/writer (Dracula), dies at 64
1932 – Giuseppe Peano, mathematician, dies
1962 – Jesse G Vincent, engineer designed 1st V-12 engine, dies at 82
1974 – Agnes Moorehead, actress (Endora-Bewitched), dies at 67
1977 – Bryan Foy, director/writer, dies at 80
1982 – Archibald MacLeish, US, lawyer/writer (Conquistador), dies at 89
1984 – Mabel Mercer, English/US singer (Fly me to the moon), dies at 84
1991 – Don[ald] Siegel, US director (Coogan’s Bluff/Dirty Harry), dies at 78
1991 – Steve Marriott, English guitarist (Small Faces), dies in a fire at 44
1992 – Benny Hill, comedian (Benny Hill Show), dies of a heart attack at 67
1992 – Johnny Shines, Delta blues singer/guitarist, dies at 76
1993 – Cantinflas, [Mario Moreno], Mexican actor (Pepe), dies at 81
1996 – Christopher Robin Milne, bookseller, dies at 75
1996 – Tran Van Tra, soldier, dies at 77
1999 – Victims and shooters of the Columbine High School massacre
1999 – Rick Rude, American professional wrestler (b. 1958)
1999 – Señor Wences, Spanish ventriloquist and comedian (b. 1896)
2003 – Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer (b. 1976)
2003 – Bernard Katz, German-born biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1911)
2007 – Andrew Hill, American jazz composer and pianist (b. 1931)
2011 – Tim Hetherington, British-American photojournalist (b. 1970)
2011 – Chris Hondros, American photographer (b. 1970)
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