June 17th



1497 - At "Battle of Deptford Bridge" forces under King Henry VII crushed an army led by Michael An Gof.

1565 - The 13th Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru, is assassinated.

1579 - Sir Francis Drake claimed a land he called "Nova Albion" (present day California) for England.

1631 - Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years to build her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

1775 - American Revolutionary War: At "The Battle of Bunker Hill" the British forces took Bunker Hill outside of Boston.

1789 - In France, the Third Estate declared itself as a national assembly.

1839 - In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issued the "Edict of Toleration" which gave Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace was later established as a result.

1863 - "The Battle of Aldie" in the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War took place.

1876 - Indian Wars: At "The Battle of the Rosebud" 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. This was the lead up to "Little Bighorn".

1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor.

1898 - The Navy Hospital Corps were established.

1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart began her attempt to become the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. She was a passenger, Wilmer Stutz was pilot and Lou Gordon, mechanic.

1930 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed the "Smoot-Hawley Tariff" into law.

1930 - Bonus Army: Approximately 1000 World War I veterans massed at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considered a bill that would give them certain benefits.

1940 - World War II: "Operation Ariel" begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.

1940 - World War II: "RMS Lancastria" is sunk by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.

1940 - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.

1944 - Iceland became independent from Denmark and formed a republic.

1948 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashed near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

1953 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union ordered a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.

1961 - The New Democratic Party of Canada was founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.

1963 - The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in "Abington School District v. Schempp" against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.

1971 - Representatives of Japan and the United States signed the "Okinawa Reversion Agreement", setting out a plan where the U.S. would return control of Okinawa.

1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives were arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1982 - The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1991 - Apartheid: The South African Parliament repealed " The Population Registration Act", which had required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.

1992 - A 'Joint Understanding' agreement on arms reduction was signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this was be later codified in START II).

1994 - Following a televised highway chase and a failed attempt at suicide, O. J. Simpson wis arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.


Born this day:

1239 - King Edward I of England (d. 1307)

1682 - King Charles XII of Sweden (d. 1718)

1703 - John Wesley, English theologian, founder of Methodism (d. 1791)

1808 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian author

1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer (d. 1893)

1832 - Sir William Crookes, physicist, chemist (d. 1919)

1881 - Tommy Burns, boxer (d. 1955)

1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (d. 1971)

1898 - M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (d. 1972)

1907 - Charles Eames, American designer and architect (d. 1978)

1909 - Elmer Lee Andersen, American politician and governor of Minnesota (d. 2004).

1914 - John Hersey, author (d. 1993)

1915 - Karl Targownik, psychiatrist (d. 1996)

1917 - Dean Martin, American singer, actor (d. 1995)

1917 - Atle Selberg, Norwegian mathematician

1929 - Tigran Petrosian, chess player (d. 1984).

1940 - George Akerlof, American economist

1942 - Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA Director

1943 - Newt Gingrich, American politician

1945 - Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London

1946 - Peter Rosei, writer

1958 - Jello Biafra, musician, politician

1967 - Ed Murnaghan, Generalist


Died this day:

1565 - Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Ashikaga shogun (b. 1536)

1696 - John III Sobieski, king of Poland (b. 1629)

1719 - Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (b. 1672)

1734 - Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, Marshal of France (b. 1653)

1797 - Agha Muhammad Khan, Persian Shah of Qajar dynasty (b. 1742)

1898 - Edward Burne-Jones, English artist (b. 1833)

1939 - Eugen Weidmann, last public guillotine execution in France

1940 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)

1956 - Paul Rostock, German doctor (b. 1892)

1957 - Dorothy Richardson, English feminist writer (b. 1873)

1982 - Roberto Calvi, banker

1996 - Thomas Kuhn, American philosopher of science

2004 - Sara Lidman, Swedish writer (b. 1923)

June 18th



1178 - Five Canterbury monks saw what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon's distance (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.

1264 - The Parliament of Ireland met at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.

1429 - The French, under the leadership of Joan of Arc, crushed the English under Sir John Fastolf at "The Battle of Patay". It came to be recognized as the war's turning point.

1685 - The Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, declared himself King of England at Taunton, Somerset.

1778 - American Revolutionary War: British troops abandoned Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1812 - War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declared war on Great Britain.

1815 - Napoleonic Wars: Perhaps the most famous military engagement in history, "The Battle of Waterloo", ending in a definitive French defeat, lead to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for a second and final time.

1858 - Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory.

1873 - Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1887 - "The Reinsurance Treaty" was closed between Germany and Russia.

1900 - Empress Dowager of China ordered all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families. (Bit of a PMS day there, Dow?)

1923 - Checker Cab put its first taxi on the streets.

1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean.

1930 - Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute were held.

1940 - "The Appeal of June 18" by Charles de Gaulle was given. (It's hard to leave this one alone...)

1945 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was charged with treason.

1946 - Dr. Ram Manohar, a Gandhian, called for a "Direct Action Day" against the Portuguese in Goa. A road is named after this date in Panjim.

1953 - The Republic of Egypt was declared and the monarchy was abolished.

1953 - A United States Air Force C-124 crashed and burned near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.

1954 - Pierre Mendès-France became Prime Minister of France.

1959 - Governor of Louisiana, Earl K. Long, was committed to a state mental hospital; he responded by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who immediately proclaimed him perfectly sane.

1965 - Vietnam War: The United States used B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.

1967 - Jimi Hendrix burnt his guitar on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival. (And the reason for this was what, Jimi?)

1979 - SALT II was signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1983 - Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

1984 - A major clash between about 5,000 Police and a similar number of Miners at Orgreave, South Yorkshire took place. This during the 1984-1985 Miners Strike.

1996 - Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, was indicted on ten criminals counts.

2001 - Protests occurred in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India. (How dare they not kill each other!)


Born this day:

1757 - Gervasio Antonio de Posadas, Argentine leader (d. 1833)

1812 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian author (d. 1891)

1824 - Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1769)

1854 - E.W. Scripps, journalist, publisher (d. 1926)

1868 - Miklós Horthy, Hungarian admiral and regent (d. 1957)

1877 - James Montgomery Flagg, illustrator (d. 1960)

1886 - Alexander Wetmore, ornithologist (d. 1978)

1901 - Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna Romanova (d. 1918)

1903 - Jeanette MacDonald, American actress and singer (d. 1965)

1903 - Raymond Radiguet, French author (d. 1923)

1907 - Frithjof Schuon, metaphysician, poet, and painter (d. 1998)

1909 - Willi Kramp, writer (d. 1986)

1913 - Sammy Cahn, composer (d. 1993)

1915 - Red Adair, American "Wildcat" firefighter (d. 2004)

1918 - Jerome Karle, Nobel Prize-winning crystallographer

1918 - Franco Modigliani, economist (d. 2003)

1929 - Jürgen Habermas, sociologist and philosopher

1931 - Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil

1932 - Geoffrey Hill, English poet

1937 - Gail Godwin, author

1937 - John D. Rockefeller IV, US Senator

1937 - Vitali Zholobov, cosmonaut

1942 - Roger Ebert, film reviewer

1942 - Sir Paul McCartney, singer, songwriter, classical composer and social activist

1942 - Hans Vonk, conductor (d. 2004)

1949 - Chris Van Allsburg, author and illustrator

1966 - Kurt Browning, figure skater


Died this day:

1250 - Teresa of Portugal (b. 1181)

1291 - King Alfonso III of Aragon (b. 1265)

1629 - Piet Hein (Netherlands), naval commander and folk hero (b. 1577)

1704 - Tom Brown, English satirist (b. 1662)

1794 - François Nicolas Leonard Buzot, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1760)

1835 - William Cobbett, journalist and author (b. 1763)

1901 - Josip Murn - Aleksandrov, Slovenian poet (b. 1879)

1902 - Samuel Butler, English writer (b. 1835)

1922 - Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer (b. 1851)

1928 - Roald Amundsen, explorer (b. 1872)

1959 - Ethel Barrymore, actress (b. 1879)

1971 - Paul Karrer, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1889)

1982 - John Cheever, author (b. 1912)

1984 - Alan Berg, radio talk show host (murdered)

June 19th



1269 - King Louis IX of France ordered all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.

1306 - The Earl of Pembroke's forces defeated Bruce's Scottish army at "The Battle of Methven".

1846 - The first baseball game under recognizable modern rules was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States.

1848 - Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott opened the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, United States.

1860 - Louise of Orange-Nassau married King Charles XV of Sweden-Norway.

1862 - Slavery was banned in U.S territories.

1865 - Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation slaves in Galveston, Texas were finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is henceforth unofficially celebrated as Juneteenth.

1867 - Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire was executed by a firing squad in Querétaro, Querétaro.

1870 - After all of the Southern States were formally readmitted to the United States of America, the Confederate States of America (aka the CSA) ceased to exist.

1893 - Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the axe murder of her parents.

1912 - The eight-hour work day was established in the United States.

1934 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was established. The FCC regulates radio and television broadcasts.

1943 - Race riots occurred in Beaumont, Texas.

1949 - NASCAR sanctioned the first "strictly stock" race, which evolved into the modern Nextel Cup. Jim Roper won the event.

1950 - The first commercial drag races, "The Santa Ana Drags", began at Orange County Airport (now John Wayne Airport) in Santa Ana, California. Admission was 50 cents – or 75 cents if the ticket holder wanted to watch the mechanics work (the equivalency of today's pitt pass).

1953 - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed as spies.

1954 - The last regular-service streetcar operated by Twin City Rapid Transit ran in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1954 - The animated Bugs Bunny short "Devil May Hare" debuted in theaters, introducing The Tasmanian Devil.

1961 - Kuwait declared its independence from the United Kingdom.

1976 - King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden married Silvia Sommerlath.

1999 - Turin, Italy, was picked as the host city of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

2000 - Datapoint, the company that commissioned the Intel 8008 microprocessor, sold its European operations and changed its name to Dynacore.


Born this day:

1301 - Prince Morikuni, 9th Kamakura shogun of Japan (d. 1333)

1566 - King James I of England and VI of Scotland (d. 1625)

1623 - Blaise Pascal, mathematician (d. 1662)

1764 - José Gervasio Artigas, father of Uruguay (d. 1850)

1792 - Gustav Schwab, author (d. 1850)

1834 - Charles Spurgeon, preacher and evangelist (d. 1892)

1838 - Friedrich von Hessing, engineer (d. 1918)

1861 - Douglas Haig, British soldier and senior commander during World War I, 1st Earl Haig

1861 - José Rizal, poet, Filipino national hero

1865 - Dame May Whitty, entertainer (d. 1948)

1882 - Guenter von Kluge, German field marshal, (d. 1944)

1896 - Wallis Warfield (Simpson), Duchess of Windsor (d. 1986)

1897 - Moe Howard, actor, comedian; member of "The Three Stooges" (d. 1975)

1898 - James Joseph Sweeney, Roman Catholic prelate

1902 - Guy Lombardo, bandleader (d. 1977)

1903 - Lou Gehrig, United States baseball player (d. 1941)

1914 - Alan Cranston, United States politician (d. 2000)

915 - Julius Schwartz, United States editor and agent

1924 - Anneliese Rothenberger, soprano

1928 - Barry Took, British comedy writer and broadcaster (d. 2002)

1945 - Aung San Suu Kyi, politician and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1991)

1947 - Salman Rushdie, author

1955 - Timothy-Allen Albertson, National Security Expert on Islamic Terrorism

1957 - Anna Lindh, Swedish politician and minister of foreign affairs (d. 2003)

1964 - Boris Johnson, British politician and journalist

1978 - Garfield, lazy, lasagna eating cat


Died this day:

1692 - Rebecca Nurse, accused American witch (hanged)

1747 - Giovanni Bononcini Italian composer

1820 - Joseph Banks, naturalist and botanist

1902 - Frederick Augustus Albert, King of Saxony

1937 - J. M. Barrie, author

1939 - Grace Abbott, social worker, activist

1966 - Ed Wynn, entertainer

1968 - James Joseph Sweeney, Roman Catholic prelate

1977 - Ali Shariati, sociologist

1977 - Lady Olave Baden-Powell, Chief Girl Guide

1993 - William Golding, English novelist (b. 1911)

1996 - G. David Schine, investigator and businessman

June 20th



451- At "The Battle of Chalons" Flavius Aetius achieved a decisive victory over Attila the Hun.

1214 - The University of Oxford received its charter.

1631 - The sacking of Baltimore: the Irish village of Baltimore was attacked by Algerian pirates.

1685 - Monmouth Rebellion: The Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater.

1756 - A British garrison was imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

1782 - The U.S. Congress adopted "The Great Seal of the United States".

1791 - The Flight to Varennes began.

1819 - The US vessel "Savannah" arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. She is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, most of the journey was made under sail.

1837 - Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne.

1862 - Barbu Catargiu was assassinated.

1863 - West Virginia was admitted as the 35th U.S. state.

1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installed the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario.

1919 - 150 died at the Teatro Yaguez fire, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1939 - Benny Goodman's "Song School" ended its radio series.

1948 - "Toast of the Town", later The Ed Sullivan Show, debuted.

1956 - A Venezuelan "Commir" (Lockheed Super-Constellation) crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Ashbury Park, New Jersey killing 74 people.

1960 - Independence is granted to Mali and Senegal.

1963 - The so-called "red telephone" was established between Soviet Union and United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1966 - Canada sold 336 million bushels of wheat to Soviet Union in the first of what would prove to be ongoing annual sales that still take place.

1969 - Jacques Chaban-Delmas became Prime Minister of France.

1977 - Oil began to flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).

1980 - Roberto Duran started his classic boxing trilogy with Sugar Ray Leonard by defeating him in a 15 round decision, to gain the WBC world Welterweight championship.

1981 - Iran is taken over by what is now known as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

1983 - The LZW patent was filed in USA.

1990 - The asteroid "Eureka" was discovered.

1991 - The German parliament decided to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.

2001 - Pervez Musharraf became the president of Pakistan.

2003 - The LZW patent expired in the US.

2003 - Bounce premiered at the Goodman Theatre.

2003 - The formation of "Wikimedia Foundation" is announced.


Born this day:

1561 - Sigismund, king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (d. 1632)

1634 - Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy (d. 1675)

1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, composer

1763 - Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot

1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, philanthropist, entrepreneur (d. 1820)

1797 - Sophie (Frémiet) Rude, French artist (d. 1867)

1808 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi (d. 1888)

1819 - Jacques Offenbach, composer (d. 1880)

1887 - Kurt Schwitters, painter (Dadaist), writer (d. 1948)

1899 - Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II.

1905 - Lillian Hellman, playwright (d. 1984)

1909 - Errol Flynn, actor (d. 1959)

1912 - Anthony Buckeridge, author (d. 2004)

1937 - Donald Sullivan, priest

1940 - Eugen Drewermann, theologian

1941 - Ulf Merbold, physicist and astronaut

1942 - Brian Wilson, bass player and singer for The Beach Boys

1945 - Shekhar Mehta, racer, winner of the Safari Rally

1946 - Bob Vila, television home improvement/renovation personality

1952 - John Goodman, U.S. actor

1970 - Prince Moulay Rachid, prince of Morocco


Died this day:

451 - Theodorid, King of the Visigoths

840 - Louis the Pious, King of the Franks, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 778)

1597 - Willem Barentsz, navigator

1787 - Karl Friedrich Abel, German composer

1820 - Manuel Belgrano, Argentine lawyer and politician

1837 - King William IV of Britain

1866 - Bernhard Riemann, mathematician (b. 1826)

1945 - Bruno Frank, author

1947 - Bugsy Siegel, U.S. gangster (from lead poisoning)

1958 - Kurt Alder, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)

1993 - Vince Foster, Deputy White House Counsel (apparent suicide)

1995 - Emil Cioran, Romanian-born French philosopher and essayist

1998 - Conrad Schumann, East German borderguard, the most famous escapee from East Germany.

1999 - Clifton Fadiman, author

2002 - Erwin Chargaff, biochemist

2003 - Bob Stump, U.S. Congressman from Arizona

June 21st


524 - At "The Battle of Vezerone" Burgundy triumphed over the French.

1665 - The first soldiers of "Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières" arrived at Quebec to invade Iroquois territories.

1734 - In Montreal in New France (today primarily Quebec), a black slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, was tortured then hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony that involved her disgrace and the amputation of a hand. (The French were such benevolent overseers.)

1749 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, was founded.

1788 - New Hampshire ratified the Constitution and was admitted as the 9th state in the United States.

1798 - Irish Rebellion of 1798: The British Army defeated Irish rebels at "The Battle of Vinegar Hill".

1813 - During the Peninsular War "The Battle of Vitoria" took place.

1813 - Laura Secord set out to warn British forces of an impending U.S. attack on Queenston, Ontario.

1824 - During the Greek War of Independence, Egyptian forces captured Psara in the Aegean Sea.

1859 - Franco-Austrian War: "The Battle of Solférino" was fought. Witnessed by Henri Dunant, the result was both the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.

1864 - Maori Wars: The "Tauranga Campaign" ended.

1877 - "The Molly Maguires", ten Irish immigrants who were labor activists, were hanged in the Carbon County, Pennsylvania Prison.

1887 - Queen Victoria's golden jubilee took place.

1898 - Guam became a U.S. territory.

1915 - The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in "Guinn v. United States" (238 US 347 1915), striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.

1919 - In one of Canada's darker moments The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fired a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg General Strike.

1919 - Admiral Ludvig von Reuter scuttled the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.

1939 - The New York Yankees baseball team announced Lou Gehrig's retirement.

1940 - World War II: France surrendered unconditionally to Germany.

1940 - The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage began at Vancouver British Columbia.

1942 - World War II: Tobruk fell to Rommel's "Afrika Korps".

1942 - World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaced near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against the U.S. mainland.

1945 - World War II: "The Battle of Okinawa" ended.

1947 - A seaman named Harold Dahl claimed to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island, United States. The next morning Dahl reported the first modern MIB encounter. (MIB...Men In Black?)

1957 - Ellen Louks Fairclough was sworn in as Canada's first woman Cabinet Minister.

1964 - Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

1965 - Folk rock band "The Byrds" release their highly influencial debut album Mr. Tambourine Man.

1973 - In handing down the decision in "Miller v. California" (413 US 15), the Supreme Court of the United States established the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.

1982 - John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

1982 - The "Fête de la Musique" street music festival was inaugurated in France by Jack Lang.

1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Texas v. Johnson" that flag burning is free speech, protected under the United States Constitution.

2000 - "Section 28" was repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.

2003 - Deputy Justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi of the Afghan Supreme Court announced that "Aftab" editor Sayed Madawi and his deputy Ali Payam Sestani would be tried for "libelling Islam". (Obviously NOT protected under free speech in Afghanistan...)

2003 - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series was published.

2004 - "SpaceShipOne" became the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.


Born this day:

1002 - Pope Leo IX (d. 1054)

1639 - Increase Mather, New England Puritan minister (d. 1723)

1646 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, polymath

1676 - Anthony Collins, philosopher

1781 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, mathematician, physicist (d. 1840)

1736 - Enoch Poor, Brigadier General in the Continental Army (d. 1780)

1763 - Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, philosopher

1774 - Daniel D. Tompkins, entrepreneur, jurist, Congressman, Governor of New York, and the sixth Vice President of the United States

1805 - Charles Jackson, physician, chemist, pioneer geologist and mineralogist

1811 - Carlo Matteucci, physicist

1823 - Jean Chacornac, astronomer (d. 1873)

1839 - Machado de Assis, Brazilian writer (d. 1908)

1862 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince, administrator and historian (d. 1943)

1863 - Albert Sauveur, metallurgist (one of the founders of physical metallurgy)

1863 - Max Wolf, astronomer

1864 - Heinrich Wölfflin, art historian

1876 - William H. Keesom, physicist (pioneer in cryogenics)

1880 - Arnold Gesell, psychologist, pediatrician

1883 - Lluís Companys i Jover, President of Catalonia (d. 1940)

1884 - Claude Auchinleck, British Field Marshal (d. 1981)

1887 - Norman L. Bowen, petrologist (d. 1956)

1891 - Pier Luigi Nervi, architect (d. 1979)

1891 - Hermann Scherchen, German conductor (d. 1966)

1892 - Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian

1893 - Alois Hába, composer

1896 - Charles B. Momsen, inventor

1898 - Donald C. Peattie, botanist, writer

1903 - Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist (d. 2003)

1911 - Ralph Wendell Burhoe, theologian and scientist, first American to win the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion

1912 - Mary McCarthy, writer (d. 1989)

1914 - Ralf Parland, writer

1914 - William Vickrey, economist, awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

1916 - Herbert Friedman, astronomer

1916 - Joseph Cyril Bamford, inventor and industrialist

1919 - Gérard Pelletier, French journalist, politician and diplomat (d. 1997)

1919 - Vladimir Simagin, Chess International Grandmaster & Master, International Correspondence Chess Master, trainer

1921 - Helmut Heissenbüttel, German avant-garde novelist and poet

1927 - Carl Stokes, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, USA (d. 1996)

1934 - Wulf Kristen, writer and recipient of the 1989 Heinrich Mann Prize

1935 - Françoise Sagan, French writer

1939 - Ruben Berrios, politician

1941 - Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, Brazillian politician

1942 - Henry Taylor, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet

1948 - Ian McEwan, writer

1948 - Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy writer

1950 - Anne Carson, poet

1953 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (twice), first female Muslim head of government

1954 - Robert Menasse, Austrian writer

1955 - Tim Bray, pioneer computer programmer

1959 - Marcella Detroit, Singer, Musician & Song-writer (Shakespear's Sister)

1966 - Rudi Bakhtiar, journalist

1982 - Prince William of Wales (son to Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife, Diana)


Died this day:

1305 - King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Poland (b. 1271)

1377 - King Edward III of England

1527 - Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and political author (b. 1469)

1582 - Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (b. 1534)

1652 - Inigo Jones, architect (b. 1573)

1824 - Étienne Aignan, translator, political writer, librettist, playwright, and member of the Académie française (b. 1773)

1908 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (b. 1844)

1914 - Bertha von Suttner, winner of 1905 Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1843)

1934 - Thorne Smith, author

1951 - Charles Dillon Perrine, astronomer (b. 1867)

1952 - Wilfrid 'Wop' May, aviation pioneer

1964 - Andrew Goodman, civil rights activist (murdered by the Ku Klux Klan)

1964 - James Cheney, civil rights activist (murdered by the Ku Klux Klan)

1964 - Mickey Schwerner, civil rights activist (murdered by the Ku Klux Klan)

1970 - Sukarno, President of Indonesia (no comment)

1976 - Margaret Herrick, librarian and director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (b. 1902)

1980 - Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter

1985 - Tage Erlander, Swedish Prime Minister

1990 - Ross Munro, journalist, editor, and publisher

1992 - Yoshiko Uchida, Japanese-American writer (b. 1921)

1997 - Fidel Velázquez Sánchez, Mexican union leader (b. 1900)

2000 - Alan Hovhaness, American composer (b. 1911)

2001 - Carroll O'Connor, American actor, All in the Family, In the Heat of the Night

2001 - John Lee Hooker, blues musician

2004 - Leonel Brizola, Brazillian politician

2005 - Jaime Cardinal Sin, Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila, Philippines 1976-2003

June 22nd

1558 - The French take the French town of Thioville from the English.

1611 - English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present-day Hudson Bay by mutineers.

1772 - Slavery was outlawed in England.

1807 - British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, a provocation leading to the War of 1812.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated a second time.

1832 - J.I. Howe patented the pin machine.

1868 - Arkansas was re-admitted to the Union.

1870 - The U.S. Congress created the Department of Justice.

1874 - Dr. Andrew Taylor Still began the first known practice of osteopathy.

1909 - The first transcontinental auto race ended in Seattle, WA.

1911 - King George V of England was crowned.

1915 - Austro-German forces occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreat.

1925 - France and Spain agreed to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.

1933 - Germany became a one political party country when Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.

1939 - The first U.S. water-ski tournament was held at Jones Beach, on Long Island, New York.

1940 - France and Germany signed an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the Nazis.

1941 - Under the codename Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

1942 - A Japanese submarine shelled Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1942 - In France, Pierre Laval declared "I wish for a German vitory".

1942 - V-Mail, or Victory-Mail, was sent for the first time.

1944 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the "GI Bill of Rights" to provide broad benefits for veterans of the war.

1945 - During World War II, the battle for Okinawa officially ended after 81 days.

1946 - Jet airplanes were used to transport mail for the first time.

1956 - The battle for Algiers began as three buildings in Casbah were blown up.

1959 - Eddie Lubanski rolled 24 consecutive strikes in a bowling tournament in Miami, FL.

1964 - The U.S. Supreme Court voted that Henry Miller’s book, "Tropic of Cancer", could not be banned.

1969 - Judy Garland died from an accidental overdose of prescription sleeping aids. She was 47.

1970 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signed 26th amendment, lowering the voting age to 18.

1973 - Skylab astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space.

1977 - John N. Mitchell became the first former U.S. Attorney General to go to prison as he began serving a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. He served 19 months.

1978 - James W. Christy and Robert S. Harrington discovered the only known moon of Pluto. The moon is named Charon.

1980 - The Soviet Union announceed a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

1981 - Mark David Chapman pled guilty to killing John Lennon.

1989 - The government of Angola and the anti-Communist rebels of the UNITA movement agreed to a formal truce in their 14-year-old civil war.

1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that hate-crime laws that ban cross-burning and similar expressions of racial bias violated free-speech rights.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that evidence illegally obtained by authorities could be used at revocation hearings for a convicted criminal's parole.

1998 - The 75th National Marbles Tournament begins in Wildwood, NJ.

1999 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that persons with remediable handicaps cannot claim discrimination in employment under the Americans with Disability Act.

Birthdays


George Vancouver 1757
Erich Maria Remarque 1898
Carl Hubbell 1903
Billy Wilder 1906
Michael Todd 1907
Ann Morrow Lindbergh 1907
Mary Livingstone 1909
Joseph Papp 1921
Gower Champion 1921
Bill Blass 1922
Ralph Waite 1928
Roy Drusky 1930
Kris Kristofferson 1936
Ed Bradley 1941
Barry Serafin 1941
Michael Lerner 1941
Klaus Maria Brandauer 1944
Peter Asher (Peter and Gordon) 1944
Andrew Rubin 1946
David L. Lander 1947
Howard Kaylan (The Turtles) 1947
Todd Rungren 1948
Meryl Streep 1949
Allen Osmond 1949
Lindsay Wagner 1949
Graham Greene 1952
Chris Lemmon 1954
Freddie Prinze 1954
Green Gartside (Scritti Politti) 1956
Gary (INXS) Beers 1957
Bruce Campbell 1958
Alan Anton (Cowboy Junkies) 1959
Tracy Pollan 1960
Jimi Somerville 1961
Jimmy Sommerville (Bronski Beat, Communards) 1961
Amy Brenneman 1964
Mike Edwards (Jesus Jones) 1964
Tom Cunningham (Wet Wet Wet) 1965
Paula Irvine 1968
Stephen Page (Barenaked Ladies) 1970
Lindsay Ridgeway 1985

June 23rd

1683 - William Penn signed a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

1700 - Russia gave up its Black Sea fleet as part of a truce with the Ottoman Empire.

1758 - British and Hanoverian armies defeated the French at Krefeld in Germany.

1760 - The Austrians defeated the Prussians at Landshut, Germany.

1757 - Robert Clive defeated the Indians at Plassey and won control of Bengal.

1836 - The U.S. Congress approved the Deposit Act, which contained a provision for turning over surplus federal revenue to the states.

1848 - A bloody insurrection of workers in Paris erupted.

1860 - The U.S. Secret Service was created to arrest counterfeiters.

1865 - Confederate General Stand Watie, who was also a Cherokee chief, surrendered the last sizable Confederate army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.

1868 - Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention that he called a "Type-Writer."

1884 - A Chinese Army defeated the French at Bacle, Indochina.

1902 - Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy renewed the Triple Alliance for a 12 year duration.

1904 - The first American motorboat race got underway on the Hudson River in New York.

1926 - The first lip reading tournament in America was held in Philadelphia, PA.

1931 - Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane.

1934 - Italy gained the right to colonize Albania after defeating the country.

1938 - The Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.

1938 - Marineland opened near St. Augustine, Florida.

1947 - The U.S. Senate joined the House in overriding President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.

1951 - Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposed cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.

1952 - The U.S. Air Force bombed power plants on Yalu River, Korea.

1956 - Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.

1964 - Henry Cabot Lodge resigned as the U.S. envoy to Vietnam and was succeeded by Maxwell Taylor.

1964 - The burned car of three civil rights workers was found prompting the FBI to begin a search. The men had been missing since June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found on August 4, 1964.

1966 - Civil Rights marchers in Mississippi were dispersed by tear gas.

1972 - U.S. President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation.

1985 - All 329 people aboard an Air-India Boeing 747 were killed when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland. The cause was thought to be a bomb.

1989 - The movie "Batman" was released nationwide.

1992 - John Gotti was sentenced in New York to life in prison after being convicted of racketeering charges.

1993 - Lorena Bobbitt of Prince William County, VA, sexually mutilated her husband, John, after he allegedly raped her.

1997 - Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, died in New York of burns suffered in a fire set by her 12-year old grandson. She was 61.

2003 - Apple Computer Inc. unveiled the new Power Mac desktop computer.

2004 - The U.S. proposed that North Korea agree to a series of nuclear disarmament measures over a three-month period in exchange for economic benefits.

Birthdays

Josephine Marinique 1763
Adolphe Sax 1848
Irvin Cobb 1876
Alfred Kinsey 1894
Edward Patrick David 1894
Edward P. Morgan 1910
Jean Marie Anouilh 1910
David Ogilvy 1911
Alan Turing 1912
Irene Worth 1916
Larry Blyden 1925
Bob Fosse 1927
June Carter Cash 1929
Adam Faith 1940
Diana Trask 1940
Wilma Rudolph 1940
James Levine 1943
Rosetta Hightower (The Orlons) 1944
Ted Shackelford 1946
Bryan Brown 1947
Clarence Thomas 1948
Jim Metzler 1954
Frances McDormand 1957
Karin Gustafson 1959
Paul La Greca 1962
Richard Coles (Communards) 1962
Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) 1962M
Chico DeBarge 1970
Selma Blair 1972
Virgo Williams (Ghostowns DJs) 1975

June 24th

1314 - Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce won over Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland.

1340 - The English fleet defeated the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.

1664 - New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.

1509 - Henry VIII was crowned King of England.

1497 - Italian explorer John Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland.

1675 - King Philip's War began when Indians massacre colonists at Swansee, Plymouth colony.

1793 - The first republican constitution in France was adopted.

1812 - Napoleon crossed the Nieman River and invaded Russia.

1844 - Charles Goodyear was granted patent #3,633 for vulcanized rubber.

1859 - At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I in northern Italy.

1861 - Federal gunboats attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.

1862 - U.S. intervention saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.

1869 - Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant officially became the Vodoo Queen in San Francisco, CA.

1896 - Booker T. Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Howard University.

1910 - The Japanese army invaded Korea.

1913 - Greece and Serbia annulled their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.

1922 - The American Professional Football Association took the name of The National Football League.

1931 - The Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a treaty of neutrality.

1940 - France signed an armistice with Italy.

1940 - TV cameras were used for the first time in a political convention as the Republicans convened in Philadelphia, PA.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.

1947 - Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mt. Rainier, Washington.

1948 - The Soviet Union began the Berlin Blockade.

1953 - John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announced their engagement.

1955 - Soviet MIG's down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.

1962 - The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-7, after 22 innings.

1964 - The Federal Trade Commission announced that starting in 1965, cigarette manufactures would be required to include warnings on their packaging about the harmful effects of smoking.

1968 - "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington D.C., was closed down by authorities.

1970 - The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

1970 - The movie "Myra Breckinridge" premiered.

1971 - The National Basketball Association modified its four-year eligibility rule to allow for collegiate hardship cases.

1975 - 113 people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

1985 - Natalia Solzhenitsyn the wife of exiled, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, became a U.S. citizen.

1997 - 18-year-old Melissa Drexler was charged with murder in the death of her baby. Drexler had given birth during her prom.

1997 - The U.S. Air Force released a report on the "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.

1998 - AT&T Corp. struck a deal to buy cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc. for $31.7 billion.

1998 - Walt Disney World Resort admitted its 600-millionth guest.

2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the decision to give a convicted killer the death penalty.

2002 - A painting from Monet's Waterlilies series sold for $20.2 million.

2003 - In Paris, France, manuscripts by novelist Georges Simenon brought in $325,579. The original manuscript of "La Mort de Belle" raised $81,705.

Birthdays
Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac) 1942
John ‘Charlie’ Whitney (Family) 1944
Jeff Cease (The Black Crowes) 1967
John Illsley (Dire Straits) 1949
Derrick Simpson (Black Uhuru) 1950
Manny Albam 1922
Arthur Brown 1944
Colin Blunstone 1945
Glenn Medeiros 1970
Jeff Beck (Yardbirds) 1944
Astro (UB40) 1957
Andrew McCluskey (OMD) 1959
Curt Smith (Tears For Fears) 1961
Michele Lee 1942
Chief Dan George 1899
Jack Dempsey 1895
Ambrose Bierce 1842
E.I. Du Pont 1771
Norman Cousins 1912
Irving Kaufman 1910
John Ciardi 1916
Al Molinaro 1919
Peter Hamill 1935
Georg Stanford Brown 1943
Ellison S. Onizuka 1946
Phyllis George 1949
Nancy Allen 1950
Danielle Spencer 1965
Sherry Stringfield 1967
Billy Casper 1931

June 25th

0841 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeated Lothar at Fontenay.

1080 - At Brixen, a council of bishops declared Pope Gregory to be deposed and Archbishop Guibert as antipope Clement III.

1580 - The Book of Concord was first published. The book is a collection of doctrinal standards of the Lutheran Church.

1658 - Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.

1767 - Mexican Indians rioted as Jesuit priests were ordered home.

1788 - Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 10th state of the United States.

1844 - John Tyler took Julia Gardiner as his bride, thus becoming the first U.S. President to marry while in office.

1864 - Union troops surrounding Petersburg, VA, began building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.

1867 - Lucien B. Smith patented the first barbed wire.

1868 - The U.S. Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the Federal government.

1868 - Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union.

1870 - In Spain, Queen Isabella abdicated in favor of Alfonso XII.

1876 - Lt. Col. Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. The event is known as "Custer's Last Stand."

1877 - In Philadelphia, PA, Alexander Graham Bell demonstated the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition.

1906 - Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of coal and railroad baron William Thaw, shot and killed Stanford White. White, a prominent architect, had a tryst with Florence Evelyn Nesbit before she married Thaw. The shooting took place at the premeire of Mamzelle Champagne in New York.

1910 - The U.S. Congress authorized the use of postal savings stamps.

1917 - The first American fighting troops landed in France.

1920 - The Greeks took 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.

1921 - Samuel Gompers was elected head of the AFL for the 40th time.

1938 - Gaelic scholar Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as the first president of the Irish Republic.

1941 - Finland declared war on the Soviet Union.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh traveled to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.

1948 - The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.

1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea initiating the Korean War.

1951 - In New York, the first regular commercial color TV transmissions were presented on CBS using the FCC-approved CBS Color System. The public did not own color TV's at the time.

1952 - John Christie, the British murderer of 10 Rillington Place, was sentenced to death for killing six women.

1959 - The Cuban government seized 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.

1959 - Eamon De Valera became president of Ireland at the age of 76.

1962 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of unofficial non-denominational prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.

1966 - "Dark Shadows" began running on ABC-TV.

1968 - Bobby Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit a grand-slam home run in his first game with the Giants. He was the first player to debut with a grand-slam.

1970 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission handed down a ruling (35 FR 7732), making it illegal for radio stations to put telephone calls on the air without the permission of the person being called.

1973 - Erskine Childers Jr. became president of Ireland after the retirement of Eamon De Valera.

1973 - White House Counsel John Dean admitted that U.S. President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.

1975 - Mozambique became independent. Samora Machel was sworn in as president after 477 years of Portuguese rule.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.

1985 - ABC’s "Monday Night Football" began with a new line-up. The trio was Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.

1985 - New York Yankees officials enacted the rule that mandated that the team’s bat boys were to wear protective helmets during all games.

1986 - The U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

1987 - Austrian President Kurt Waldheim visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The meeting was controversial due to allegations that Waldheim had hidden his Nazi past.

1990 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. "The right to die" decision was made in the Curzan vs. Missouri case.

1991 - The last Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia 23 years after the Warsaw Pact invasion.

1991 - The Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 - Kim Campbell took office as Canada's first woman prime minister. She assumed power upon the resignation of Brian Mulroney.

1996 - Outside the Khobar Towers near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia a truck bomb exploded. The bomb killed 19 Americans and injured over 500 Saudis and Americans.

1997 - The Russian space station Mir was hit by an unmanned cargo vessel. Much of the power supply was knocked out and the station's Spektr module was severely damaged.

1997 - U.S. air pollution standards were significantly tightened by U.S. President Clinton.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the line-item veto thereby striking down presidential power to cancel specific items in tax and spending legislation.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those infected with HIV are protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

1998 - Microsoft's "Windows 98" was released to the public.

1999 - Germany's parliament approved a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin.

2000 - U.S. and British researchers announced that they had completed a rough draft of a map of the genetic makeup of human beings. The project was 10 years old at the time of the announcement.

2000 - A Florida judge approved a class-action lawsuit to be filed against American Online (AOL) on behalf of hourly subscribers who were forced to view "pop-up" advertisements.


Birthdays....

Rosie O'Neill 1874
Henry "Hap" Arnold 1886
George Abbott 1887
Lord Louis Mountbatten (Burma) 1900
Anne Revere 1903
George Orwell 1903
Peter Lind Hayes 1915
Johnny Smith 1922
Dorothy Gilman 1923
Sidney Lumet 1924
June Lockhart 1925
Eddie Floyd (Falcons) 1935
Barbara Montgomery 1939
Clint Warwick (The Moody Blues) 1940
Willis Reed 1942
Carly Simon 1945
Ian McDonald (Foreigner) 1946
Allen Lanier (Blue Oyster Cult) 1946
Jimmy Walker 1947
Michael Lembeck 1948
Phyllis George 1949
Tim Finn (Split Enz) 1952
David Paich (Toto) 1954
George Michael 1963
Dikembe Mutombo 1966
Richie Rich 1967
Candyman 1968
Sean Kelly (Sixpence None the Richer) 1971
Carlos Delgado 1972
Mario Calire (Wallflowers) 1974
Albert Costa 1975
Linda Cardellini 1975

June 26th


1096 - Peter the Hermit's crusaders forced their way across Sava, Hungary.

1243 - The Seljuk Turkish army in Asia Minor was wiped out by the Mongols.

1483 - Richard III usurped himself to the English throne.

1541 - Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish Conqueror of Peru, was murdered by his former followers.

1794 - The French defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus.

1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

1819 - The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr.

1870 - The first section of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, was opened to the public.

1894 - The American Railway Union called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

1900 - The United States announced that it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.

1900 - A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

1907 - Russia's nobility demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.

1908 - Shah Muhammad Ali's forces squelched the reform elements of Parliament in Persia.

1917 - General John "Black Jack" Pershing arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Force.

1925 - Charlie Chaplin's comedy, "The Gold Rush," premiered in Hollywood.

1926 - A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France was unveiled at St. Nazaire.

1924 - After eight years of occupation, American troops left the Dominican Republic.

1942 - The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter was flown for the first time.

1945 - The U.N. Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, CA.

1948 - The Berlin Airlift began as the U.S., Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin.

1951 - The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.

1959 - CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Lee Remick. It was his 500th and final guest on "Person to Person."

1959 - U.S. President Eisenhower joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1961 - A Kuwaiti vote opposed Iraq's annexation plans.

1963 - U.S. President John Kennedy announced "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) at the Berlin Wall.

1971 - The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers.

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency due to "deep and widespread conspiracy."

1976 - The CN (Canadian National) Tower in Toronto, Canada, opened.

1979 - Muhammad Ali, at 37 years old, announced that he was retiring as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1981 - In Mountain Home, Idaho, Virginia Campbell took her coupons and rebates and bought $26,460 worth of groceries. She only paid 67 cents after all the discounts.

1985 - Wilbur Snapp was ejected after playing "Three Blind Mice" during a baseball game. The incident followed a call made by umpire Keith O'Connor.

1987 - The movie "Dragnet" opened in the U.S.

1996 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women or forgo state support.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that made it illegal to distribute indecent material on the Internet.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws that allow for a ban on doctor-assisted suicides.

1998 - The U.S. and Peru open school to train commandos to patrol Peru's rivers for drug traffickers.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers are always potentially liable for supervisor's sexual misconduct toward an employee.

2000 - The Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corp. jointly announced that they had created a working draft of the human genome.

2000 - Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid declared a state of emergency in the Moluccas due to the escalation of fighting between Christians and Muslims.

2001 - Ray Bourque (Colorado Avalanche) announced his retirement just 17 days after winning his first Stanley Cup. Bouque retired after 22 years and held the NHL record for highest-scoring defenseman and playing in 19 consecutive All-Star games.

2002 - David Hasseloff checked into The Betty Ford Center for treatment of alcoholism.

2002 - WorldCom Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


Birthdays

Abner Doubleday 1819
Sidney Howard 1891
Pearl S. Buck 1892
William P. Lear 1902
Peter Lorre 1904
Col. Tom Parker 1909
Roy Plunkett 1910
Richard Maltby 1914
Babe Didrikson Zaharias 1914
Charlotte Zolotow 1915
Eleanor Parker 1922
Frances Rafferty 1922
Dave Grusin 1934
Billy Davis ( The 5th Dimension) 1940
Larry Taylor (Canned Heat) 1942
Pamela Bellwood 1943
Georgie Fame (Clive Powell) 1943
Mick Jones (Clash, Big Audio Dynomite) 1955
Chris Isaak 1956
Patty Smyth 1957
Greg LeMond 1961
Terri Nunn (Berlin) 1961
Harriet Wheeler (The Sundays) 1963
Colin Greenwood (Radiohead) 1969
Chris O'Donnell 1970
Jason Schwartzman 1980
Kaitlin Cullum 1986

June 27th

0363 - The death of Roman Emperor Julian brought an end to the Pagan Revival.

1693 - "The Ladies' Mercury" was published by John Dunton in London. It was the first women's magazine and contained a "question and answer" column that became known as a "problem page."

1743 - King George II of England defeated the French at Dettingen, Bavaria, in the War of the Austrian Succession.

1787 - Edward Gibbon completed "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It was published the following May.

1801 - British forces defeated the French and took control of Cairo, Egypt.

1844 - Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by mob in Carthage, IL.

1847 - New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.

1871 - The yen became the new form of currency in Japan.

1885 - Chichester Bell and Charles S. Tainter applied for a patent for the gramophone. It was granted on May 4, 1886.

1893 - The New York stock market crashed. By the end of the year 600 banks and 74 railroads had gone out of business.

1905 - The battleship Potemkin succumbed to a mutiny on the Black Sea.

1918 - Two German pilots were saved by parachutes for the first time.

1923 - Yugoslav Premier Nikola Pachitch was wounded by Serb attackers in Belgrade.

1924 - Democrats offered Mrs. Leroy Springs for vice presidential nomination. She was the first woman considered for the job.

1927 - The U.S. Marines adopted the English bulldog as their mascot.

1929 - Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York revealed a system for transmitting television pictures.

1931 - Igor Sikorsky filed U.S. Patent 1,994,488, which marked the breakthrough in helicopter technology.

1940 - Robert Pershing Wadlow was measured by Dr. Cyril MacBryde and Dr. C. M. Charles. They recorded his height at 8' 11.1." He was only 22 at the time of his death on July 15, 1940.

1942 - The FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from a submarine on New York's Long Island.

1944 - During World War II, American forces completed their capture of the French port of Cherbourg from the German army.

1949 - "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" premiered on the Dumont Television Network.

1950 - Two days after North Korea invaded South Korea, U.S. President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict. The United Nations Security Council had asked for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.

1954 - The world's first atomic power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.

1955 - The first "Wide Wide World" was broadcast on NBC-TV.

1955 - The state of Illinois enacted the first automobile seat belt legislation.

1957 - More than 500 people were killed when Hurricane Audrey hit the coastal area of Louisiana and Texas.

1958 - NBC's "Matinee Theatre" was seen for the final time.

1959 - The play, "West Side Story," with music by Leonard Bernstein, closed after 734 performances on Broadway.

1961 - Arthur Michael Ramsey was enthroned as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury.

1964 - Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman were married. It only lasted 38 days.

1967 - The world's first cash dispenser was installed at Barclays Bank in Enfield, England. The device was invented by John Sheppard-Barron. The machine operated on a voucher system and the maximum withdrawal was $28.

1967 - Two hundred people were arrested during a race riot in Buffalo, NY.

1969 - Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, clashed with police. This incident is considered to be the birth of the homosexual rights movement.

1972 - Bobby Hull signed a 10-year hockey contract for $2,500,000. He became a player and coach of the Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association.

1973 - Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an "enemies list" that was kept by the Nixon White House.

1973 - Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on bombing Cambodia.

1976 - Palestinian extremists hijacked an Air France plane in Greece. There were 246 passengers and 12 crew onboard. The plane eventually was taken to Entebbe, Uganda where Israeli commandos stormed it on July 4. The raid resulted in the deaths of seven pasengers.

1980 - U.S. President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.

1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual colleges could make their own TV package deals.

1984 - The Federal Communications Commission moved to deregulate U.S. commercial TV by lifting most programming requirements and ending day-part restrictions on advertising.

1985 - Officials decertified Route 66.

1985 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua.

1986 - The World Court ruled that the U.S. had broken international law by aiding Nicaraguan rebels.

1991 - Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson.

1992 - The body of kidnapped Exxon executive Sidney J. Reso was found buried in a makeshift grave in a state park in New Jersey. Arthur and Irene Seale were later convicted and sentenced to prison for the crime.

1995 - Qatar's Crown Prince Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani ousted his father in a bloodless palace coup.

1995 - Actor Hugh Grant was arrested in Los Angeles for engaging in "lewd behavior" with a prostitute in a rented BMW.

1998 - An English woman was impregnated with her dead husband's sperm after two-year legal battle over her right to the sperm.

1998 - In a live joint news conference in China U.S. President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin offered an uncensored airing of differences on human rights, freedom, trade and Tibet.

2002 - In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission required companies with annual sales of more than $1.2 billion to submit sworn statements backing up the accuracy of their financial reports.


Birthdays

Louis XII (France) 1462
Charles XII (Sweden) 1682
Charles Stewart Parnell 1846
Mildred J. Hill 1859
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872
Helen Keller 1880
John McIntire (actor) 1907
Audrey Christie 1911
Willie Mosconi 1913
Ben Homer 1917
I.A.L. Diamond 1920
Elmo Hope 1923
Rosalie Allen 1924
Jerome ‘Doc’ Pomus 1925
Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan 1927
H. Ross Perot 1930
Charles Bronfman 1931
Anna Moffo 1934
Shirley Anne Field 1938
Sandra Smith 1940
Frank Mills 1942
Bruce Johnston (The Beach Boys) 1944
Norma Kamili 1945
Julia Duffy 1951
Isabelle Adjani 1955
Lorrie Morgan 1959
Brian Dillinger 1960
Tobey Maguire 1975
Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer) 1976
Madylin Sweeten 1991

June 28th



1098 - Forces of the First Crusade defeated the army of Kerbogha of Mosul.

1243 - Innocent IV became Pope.

1389 - Ottoman forces crushed the armies of Christian Europe in Kosovo, opening the way for the Ottoman conquest of Southeastern Europe.

1519 - Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1635 - Guadeloupe became a French colony.

1651 - "The Battle of Beresteczko", between Poles and Ukrainians, began. It was the largest battle of the 17th century.

1859 - The first dog show was held in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.

1880 - Ned Kelly, the Australian bushranger, was captured at Glenrowan.

1887 - Minot, North Dakota was incorporated as a city.

1894 - Labor Day became an official US holiday.

1895 - El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua formed the Central American Union.

1914 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophia were killed by a Serbian nationalist, this was used by Germany as justification for starting World War I.

1919 - The Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I with Germany.

1936 - The Japanese puppet state of Mengjiang was formed in northern China.

1938 - A 450 metric tonne (500 ton) meteorite struck the earth in a empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

1940 - Romania ceded Bessarabia (current-day Moldova) to the Soviet Union.

1950 - Seoul was captured by troops from North Korea.

1956 - Anti-communist demonstrations took place in Poznan. (June of Poznan).

1960 - US-owned oil refineries in Cuba were confiscated and nationalised by the Castro regime.

1964 - Malcom X formed "The Organization of Afro-American Unity".

1967 - Israel annexed East Jerusalem.

1969 - The "Stonewall riots" in New York city marked the beginning of the modern gay rights era.

1978 - The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (438 US 265 1978), barred quota systems in college admissions but affirmed the constitutionality of programs giving advantage to minorities.

1988 - Four workers were asphyxiated at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana. It was the worst "confined-space industrial accident" in U.S. history. A fifth victim died two days later.

1990 - Paperback Software, a company founded by Adam Osborne, was found guilty by a U.S. court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program.

1997 - Boxer (and world class idiot) Mike Tyson was disqualified from his WBA title re-match after for biting off part of the ear of his opponent, Evander Holyfield.

2004 - Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia joined the ERM II.

2004 - Sovereign power was handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the U.S.-led rule of that nation.

2005 - Canada's lower house paved the way for same-sex marriage to be legalized there, and make it the third country to do so.


Born this day:

1476 - Pope Paul IV (d. 1559)

1490 - Albert of Mainz, bishop and elector of Mainz (d. 1545)

1491 - Henry VIII, king of England (d. 1547)

1577 - Peter Paul Rubens, German painter (d. 1640)

1703 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (d. 1791)

1712 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher (d. 1778)

1806 - Napoleon Coste, French guitarist and composer (d. 1883)

1807 - Anton Philipp Reclam, German publisher (d. 1895)

1831 - Joseph Joachim, Austrian violinist (d. 1907)

1867 - Luigi Pirandello, Italian dramatist and narrator, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature (d. 1936)

1902 - Richard Rodgers, composer (d. 1979)

1906 - Maria Goeppert-Mayer, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics (d. 1972)

1913 - Franz Antel, Austrian filmmaker

1914 - Lester Flatt, bluegrass musician (d. 1979)

1921 - P. V. Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister of India 1991 - 1996

1926 - Mel Brooks, filmmaker

1932 - Pat Morita, actor

1943 - Klaus von Klitzing, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics

1946 - Gilda Radner, actress (d. 1989)

1947 - Mark Helprin, American writer

1972 - Drew Jenkins, Government Contractor, Gardener, Frustrated Writer (Yada yada yada...!)


Died this day:

767 - Pope Paul I

1598 - Abraham Ortelius, cartographer (b. 1527)

1836 - James Madison, president of the US (b. 1751)

1914 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (assassination) (b. 1863)

1914 - Countess Sophie Chotek, wife of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (assassination) (b. 1868)

1960 - Jake Swirbul, co-founder of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation

1965 - Red Nichols, jazz musician (b. 1905)

1975 - Rod Serling, scriptwriter, host of The Twilight Zone (b. 1924)

1980 - José Iturbi, musician, conductor (b. 1895)

1981 - Terry Fox, cancer activist, cross-Canada marathon runner (b. 1958)

1989 - Joris Ivens, filmmaker (b. 1898)

1992 - Mikhail Tal, chess player (b. 1936)

2001 - Mortimer Adler, philosopher (b. 1902)

2001 - Jim Ellis, co-creator of Usenet

2004 - Anthony Buckeridge, author (b. 1912)

June 29th



1613 - The Globe Theatre burnt to the ground.

1749 - The new Governor, Charles de la Ralière Des Herbiers, arrived at Isle Royale (Cape Breton Island).

1786 - Alexander Macdonnell and more than five hundred Catholic highlanders left Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario.

1850 - Coal was discovered in the colony of Vancouver Island.

1863 - George Custer was appointed as a U.S. Union brigadier-general, a rank he would hold until the end of the Civil War.

1864 - Ninety-nine people were killed in Canada's worst railway disaster near St-Hilaire.

1880 - France annexed Tahiti.

1891 - The National Forest Service was organized.

1891 - The street railway in Ottawa commenced operation.

1895 - Doukhobors burnt their weapons as a protest against conscription by the Tsarist Russian government.

1905 - Moonlight Graham made his only major league baseball appearance, in a game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Superbas.

1914 - Jina Guseva attempted to assassinate Grigori Rasputin at his home town in Siberia.

1922 - France granted 1 suare kilometre at Vimy Ridge "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes".

1925 - Canada House opened in London.

1927 - The first test of Wallace Turnbull's variable-pitch propeller took place, it was a complete success.

1933 - Italian boxer Primo Carnera knocked out American Jack Sharkey to become the heavyweight champion of the world.

1937 - Joseph-Armand Bombardier received a patent for the sprocket and track traction system used in snow vehicles.

1945 - Carpathian Ruthenia was annexed by the Soviet Union.

1976 - The Seychelles gained independence from Great Britain.

1986 - Argentina won the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

1995 - The Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.

1995 - The Sampoong Department Store collapsed in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, killing 501 and injuring 937.


Born this day:

1397 - John II of Aragon (d. 1479)

1596 - Emperor Go-Mizunoo of Japan (d. 1680)

1746 - Joachim Heinrich Campe, pedagogue (d. 1818)

1798 - Giacomo Leopardi, Italian poet (d. 1837)

1858 - George Goethals, American army engineer (d. 1928)

1861 - Dr. William Mayo, American surgeon and founder of the Mayo Clinic

1868 - George Ellery Hale, astronomer (d. 1938)

1880 - Ludwig Beck, general (d. 1944)

1890 - Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, world's oldest woman

1900 - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French pilot and writer (d. 1944)

1903 - Alan Blumlein, electronics engineer (d. 1942)

1908 - Leroy Anderson, American composer (d. 1975)

1910 - Frank Loesser, composer (d. 1969)

1911 - Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (d. 2004)

1911 - Bernard Herrmann, composer (d. 1975)

1914 - Rafael Kubelik, Czech conductor (d. 1996)

1920 - Ray Harryhausen, film maker

1921 - Reinhard Mohn, publisher

1922 - Vasko Popa, Yugoslav poet (d. 1991)

1941 - Kwame Ture, (born "Stokeley Carmichael"), civil rights activist

1943 - Little Eva, singer (d. 2003)

1956 - Pedro Santana Lopes, Portuguese former prime minister (2004-05)

1963 - Anne-Sophie Mutter, violinist

1971 - Matthew Good, rock musician and social activist

1972 - Samantha Smith, U.S. social activist, actress (d. 1985)


Died this day:

67 - St. Peter, apostle (traditional) (crucified)

1252 - King Abel of Denmark (b. 1218)

1315 - Ramon Llull, philosopher (b. 1235)

1620 - John Aerts, Flemish sculptor

1725 - Arai Hakuseki, Japanese Confucianist, poet, politician, and writer (b. 1657)

1861 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (b. 1806)

1895 - Thomas Henry Huxley, scientist (b. 1825)

1933 - Fatty Arbuckle, actor (b. 1887)

1940 - Paul Klee, Swiss artist (b. 1879)

1941 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist and composer (b. 1860)

1967 - Jayne Mansfield, actress (car wreck) (b. 1933)

1969 - Moise Thsombe, Premier of Congo

1992 - Mohammed Boudiaf, Algerian president (assassinated)

1994 - Kurt Eichhorn, conductor (b. 1908)

1994 - Ray Crane, trumpeter

1995 - Lana Turner, actress (b. 1921)

1999 - Allan Carr, film producer, writer

2002 - Rosemary Clooney, actress, singer extraordinaire (b. 1928)

2002 - Ole-Johan Dahl, computer scientist (b. 1931)

2003 - Katharine Hepburn, actress (b. 1907)

June 30th



1651 - "The Battle of Beresteczko" ended with a Polish victory.

1805 - The U.S. Congress organized Michigan Territory.

1864 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation."

1905 - Albert Einstein published the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", where he introduced special relativity.

1908 - The "Tunguska Impact Event" occurred in Siberia.

1934 - "The Night of the Long Knives", Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place.

1936 - "Gone with the Wind", by Margaret Mitchell, was published.

1956 - A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collided above the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing 128.

1960 - The Congo gained its independence from Belgium.

1971 - The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve.

1971 - The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18, was ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it.

1990 - East and West Germany merged their economies.

1997 - China resumed sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule.

2002 - Brazil defeated Germany 2-0 in Yokohama, Japan, to earn a record fifth title in the 17th Football World Cup.

2005 - Spain legalized same-sex marriages.


Born this day:

1470 - King Charles VIII of France (d. 1498)

1685 - John Gay, English writer (d. 1732)

1685 - Dominikus Zimmermann, master builder (d. 1766)

1775 - Paul de Barras, politician (d. 1829)

1789 - Horace Vernet, painter and graphic artist (d. 1863)

1807 - Friedrich Theodor von Vischer, narrator, lyricist, and philosopher (d. 1887)

1817 - Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanist (d. 1911)

1843 - Ernest Mason Satow, author (d. 1929)

1893 - Walter Ulbricht, politician (d. 1973)

1899 - Harry Shields, jazz musician (d. 1971)

1911 - Czesław Miłosz, Polish poet, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 2004)

1944 - Raymond Moody, parapsychologist

1958 - Esa-Pekka Salonen, Finnish conductor and composer


Died this day:

1607 - Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and historian (b. 1538)

1961 - Lee DeForest, American inventor

1971 - Viktor Patsayev, Georgi Dobrovolski, and Vladislav Volkov, the cosmonauts of Soyuz 11

1974 - Vannevar Bush, engineer and politician (b. 1890)

1984 - Lillian Hellman, playwright (b. 1905)

1993 - George "Spanky" McFarland, child actor of "Our Gang" fame (b. 1928)

1995 - Gale Gordon, actor "Mr. Mooney" (b. 1906)

1995 - Georgi Beregovoi, cosmonaut (b. 1921)

2001 - Chet Atkins, musician, master of country and western guitar (b. 1924)

2003 - Buddy Hackett, American comic (b. 1924)

2003 - Robert McCloskey, children's book writer and illustrator (b. 1915)

July 1st



1097 - At "The Battle of Dorylaeum" the Crusaders, under Bohemond of Taranto, defeated a Turkish army under Qilich Arslan I.

1690 - During the Williamite War, "The Battle of the Boyne" took place (Julian calendar).

1782 - American privateers attacked Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

1858 - The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society was made.

1862 - The Russian State Library was founded.

1863 - American Civil War: In Pennsylvania "The Battle of Gettysburg" began.

1867 - The British North America Act took effect as the constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation; John A. Macdonald was sworn in as the first Prime Minister.

1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally came into existence.

1873 - Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation.

1878 - Canada joined the Universal Postal Union.

1881 - The world's first international telephone call was made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick in Canada, and Calais, Maine in the US.

1881 - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, came into effect.

1885 - The United States terminated its reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada.

1890 - Canada and Bermuda were linked by telegraph cable.

1904 - The games of the III Olympiad opened in Saint Louis, Missouri.

1916 - On the first day of "The Battle of the Somme" some 20,000 soldiers of the British Army were killed, and 40,000 wounded.

1931 - The Official opening of Milan Central Station.

1923 - The Canadian Parliament (in its infinite wisdom) suspended all Chinese immigration.

1935 - Regina, Saskatchewan police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambushed strikers/protesters participating in the "On-to-Ottawa-Trek".

1947 - The Australian real estate franchise L. J. Hooker listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

1948 - The official opening date of New York International Airport (now known as John F. Kennedy International Airport) at Idlewild.

1957 - "The International Geophysical Year" began. It lasted until December 31, 1958.

1958 - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation linked television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.

1958 - Flooding of the St. Lawrence Seaway began.

1960 - Somalia gained its independence.

1962 - Rwanda and Burundi gained their independence.

1963 - ZIP Codes were introduced for all United States mail.

1963 - The British Government admitted that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.

1963 - U.S President John F. Kennedy arrived in Rome.

1966 - The first colour television transmission in Canada originated in Toronto.

1967 - The European Community was formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission.

1968 - The CIA's Phoenix Program was officially established.

1968 - The "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" was signed by about sixty countries in Geneva, Switzerland.

1968 - Formal separation of the United Auto Workers with the AFL-CIO took place.

1969 - The rock group "The Band" released their influential debut "Music From Big Pink".

1972 - Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins of "The Red Army Faction" were captured in Frankfurt after a shootout with police.

1979 - Sony introduced the Walkman.

1983 - A North Korean "Ilyushin Il-62M" jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashed into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.

1986 - In an interview with Playboy magazine, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke came out as a bisexual. (Yeah, that and $1.25 will get you a stale coffee down at the gas bar.)

1987 - Excavation began on "The Chunnel" between Great Britain and France.

1988 - Bologna, Italy: Quartetto Cetra's last concert after more than a forty year musical career.

1990 - East Germany accepted the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany. (Ya! Das mooch bayter den der crap weeze vust yousingst before!)

1991 - The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved.

1997 - Great Britain handed over sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.

1999 - At the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament in nearly three centuries, Winnie Ewing opened with the famous words, "The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened."

2000 - Vermont's civil unions law went into effect.

2002 - A Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev TU-154 and a DHL (German cargo) Boeing 757 collided in mid-air over southern Germany, killing 71.

2003 - 500,000 people took part in a march in Hong Kong to protest, amongst other things, the government's handling of the plans to implement a new anti-subversion law required under Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law.

2004 - 530,000 people took part in a march in Hong Kong to urge for faster pace of democratisation and universal suffrage, according to Article 45 and Article 68 of Hong Kong's Basic Law.

2004 - The Saturn Orbit Insertion of Cassini-Huygens began at 01:12 UT and ended at 02:48 UT.

2005 - Microsoft announced plans to end official support of Windows 2000.

2005 - Britain took over the Presidency of "The Council of the European Union".


Born this day:

1646 - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German mathematician and philosopher (d. 1716)

1804 - George Sand (Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin), writer (d. 1876)

1863 - William Stairs, Victorian era explorer (d. 1892)

1869 - William Strunk Jr., grammarian (d. 1946)
1872 - Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (d. 1936)

1899 - Charles Laughton, Academy Award-winning actor (d. 1962)

1899 - Thomas A. Dorsey, father of gospel music (d. 1993)

1902 - William Wyler, three-time Academy Award-winning director (d. 1981)

1903 - Amy Johnson, aviator (d. 1941)

1906 - Estée Lauder, cosmetics pioneer (d. 2004)

1912 - David R. Brower, environmentalist (d. 2000)

1916 - Olivia de Havilland, actress

1917 - Rolf Rodenstock, industrialist (d. 1977)

1921 - Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana

1929 - Hans Werner Henze, German composer

1934 - Sydney Pollack, film director, producer, actor

1934 - Jamie Farr, actor, "Cpl. Klinger"

1941 - Twyla Tharp, choreographer

1941 - Alfred G. Gilman, scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1942 - Andraé Crouch, singer, conductor, actor

1945 - Deborah Harry, singer, musician, (Blondie)

1961 - Kalpana Chawla, astronaut and engineer (d. 2003)

1961 - Diana, Princess of Wales, (d. 1997)

1961 - Carl Lewis, American athletics legend, nine-time Olympic gold medalist

1961 - Michelle Wright, singer/guitarist, songwriter, drummer

1965 - Harald Zwart, Norwegian film director


Died this day:

868 - Ali al-Hadi, Shia Imam (b. 828)

1109 - Alfonso VI of Castile

1277 - Baibars, Mameluk sultan of Egypt

1566 - Nostradamus, French astrologer (b. 1503)

1708 - Emperor Tekle Haymanot I of Ethiopia (assassinated)

1782 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1730)

1784 - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (b. 1710)

1819 - Jemima Wilkinson, preacher

1894 - Allan Pinkerton, American private detective

1896 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author

1925 - Erik Satie, French composer

1944 - Tanya Savicheva, Russian diarist

1950 - Eliel Saarinen, Finnish architect, father of Eero Saarinen (b. 1873)

1961 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (b. 1894)

1964 - Pierre Monteux, French conductor (b. 1875)

1974 - Juan Domingo Perón, President of Argentina (b. 1895)

1981 - Carlos de Oliveira, Portuguese writer (b. 1921)

1983 - R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect and philosopher

1984 - Moshe Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born educator

1995 - Wolfman Jack, radio personality, actor, social activist (b. 1939)

1996 - William T. Cahill, Governor of New Jersey

1997 - Robert Mitchum, actor

1999 - Edward Dmytryk, director

1999 - Forrest Mars Sr., American candy magnate

2000 - Walter Matthau, actor

2003 - Herbie Mann, jazz flutist

2004 - Marlon Brando, American actor

July 2nd



1578 - Martin Frobisher first sighted Baffin Island in the Arctic Ocean.

1613 - The first English expedition against Acadia left from Massachusetts. It was led by Samuel Argall.

1644 - "The Battle of Marston Moor" in the English Civil War took place.

1679 - The first Europeans, led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth, arrived in Minnesota and saw the headwaters of the Mississippi.

1776 - The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with Great Britain, though a formal Declaration of Independence was not adopted until July 4.

1777 - Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery.

1808 - Simon Fraser reached the Pacific Ocean (Georgia Strait) at present day Richmond BC.

1819 - "The Factory Act" was passed in Britain, creating restrictions on child labor.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque took over the slave ship "Amistad".

1850 - The self-contained gas mask was patented by Benjamin J. Lane.

1853 - The Russian Army invaded Turkey, sparking the Crimean War.

1863 - The second day of "The Battle of Gettysburg".

1881 - U.S. President James Garfield was shot. He eventually died from infection on September 19.

1890 - The U.S. Congress passed "The Sherman Anti-Trust Act".

1900 - The first Zeppelin flight took place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1917 - 48 died in riots incited by unequal pay in East St. Louis, Illinois. Lower-paid black laborers clashed with whites.

1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator.

1947 - An object, most commomnly suspected of being an alien spacecraft, crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. To this day the United States Air Force claims it was only a weather balloon.

1950 - Henri Queuille became Prime Minister of France.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed "The Civil Rights Act" into law.

1973 - James R. Schlesinger was sworn in as the 12th United States Secretary of Defense.

1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since
1954, reunited to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1979 - The first U.S. coin to honor a woman, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, was introduced.

1982 - Larry Walters used 45 helium balloons and a lawnchair to propel himself to 16,000 feet. (See? There IS one born every minute!)

1985 - Andrei Gromyko is appointed the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.

2000 - Vicente Fox Quesada was elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) after more than 70 years of continuous rule from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

2002 - Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.


Born this day:

419 - Valentinian III, Roman Emperor (d. 455)

1262 - Arthur II, Duke of Brittany (d. 1312)

1489 - Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1556)

1644 - Abraham a Santa Clara, court vicar (d. 1709)

1714 - Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (d. 1787)

1724 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (d. 1803)

1821 - Sir Charles Tupper, sixth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1915)

1862 - William Henry Bragg, English physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics (d. 1942)

1865 - Lily Braun, German writer (d. 1916)

1877 - Hermann Hesse, German writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature (d. 1962)

1884 - Alfons Maria Jakob, German neurologist (d. 1931)

1903 - King Olav V of Norway (d. 1991)

1903 - Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)

1906 - Hans Bethe, Nobel Prize-winning German-born nuclear physicist

1908 - Thurgood Marshall, U. S. Supreme Court justice (d. 1993)

1916 - Ken Curtis, American actor and singer, "Festus" (d. 1991)

1916 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel, highly decorated German pilot during World War II (d. 1982).

1923 - Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature

1925 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (d. 1961)

1925 - Medgar Evers, American civil rights activist (d. 1963)

1927 - Ruth Berghaus, choreographer and film director (d. 1996)

1929 - Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines

1930 - Carlos Menem, President of Argentina

1932 - Dave Thomas, Of "Wendy's" fame, American fast food entrepreneur (d. 2002)

1937 - Richard Petty, American race car driver

1939 - John H. Sununu, former U.S. Secretary of State

1942 - Vicente Fox, President of Mexico

1946 - Richard Axel, Nobel Prize-winning American scientist

1947 - Larry David, American television producer

1958 - Thomas Bickerton, American Methodist bishop

1971 - Evelyn Lau, Canadian author

1974 - Matthew Reilly, Australian author

1981 - Alex Koroknay-Palicz, American youth rights activist


Died this day:

862 - St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester

1298 - Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg

1778 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher (b. 1712)

1833 - Gervasio Antonio de Posadas, Argentine leader

1932 - King Manuel II of Portugal (b. 1889)

1937 - Amelia Earhart, American aviator (disappeared) (b. 1897)

1961 - Ernest Hemingway, American author, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (suicide) (b. 1899)

1966 - Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet (b. 1900)

1972 - Joseph Fielding Smith, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1876)

1973 - Betty Grable, American actress (b. 1916)

1977 - Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born writer (b. 1899)

1989 - Andrei Gromyko, Soviet foreign minister (b. 1909)

1997 - James Stewart, American actor (b. 1908)

1999 - Mario Puzo, American author (b. 1920)

2004 - Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Portuguese writer and poet (b. 1919)

July 3rd



323 - At "The Battle of Adrianople" Constantine the Great's army soundly defeated the forces of Licinius, who then fled to Byzantium.

533 - At "The Battle of the Tenth Milestone" the army of Byzantine general Belisarius defeated the Vandals near Carthage.

987 - Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty which ruled France till the French Revolution in 1792.

1250 - Louis IX of France was captured by Baibars' Mamluk army at "The Battle of Fariskur" while he was in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade; he later had to ransom himself.

1608 - Quebec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 - George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity to French forces during the French and Indian War. He was allowed to retain his colors and march out of the fort with full honors the following day.

1844 - The last pair of "Great Auks" in the world were killed.

1863 - The final and bloodiest day of "The Battle of Gettysburg", and the fall of besieged Vicksburg to the army of U.S. General Grant.

1866 - The Austro-Prussian War was decided at "The Battle of Königgratz", resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.

1886 - The New York Tribune became the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.

1890 - Idaho was admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

1938 - The world record for a steam railway locomotive was set in England, by the "Mallard", which reached a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph).

1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signed "The Civil Rights Act of 1964", which prohibited segregation in public places.

1969 - Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones drowned in his swimming pool. The band played a concert at Hyde Park two days later in his honor.

1970 - A British chartered jetliner crashed near Barcelona, Spain killing 112.

1971 - Singer Jim Morrison of "The Doors" was found dead of a heart attack in his bathtub.

1976 - Israeli commandos rescued 105 hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda.

1988 - United States Navy warship "USS Vincennes" shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

2001 - A Vladivostokavia Tupolev TU-154 jetliner crashed on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145.

2004 - The official opening of Bangkok's subway system took place.


Born this day:

1423 - King Louis XI of France (d. 1483)

1728 - Robert Adam, Scottish architect (d. 1792)

1738 - John Singleton Copley, American painter (d. 1815)

1854 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (d. 1928)

1870 - Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1947)

1875 - Ferdinand Sauerbruch, German surgeon (d. 1951)

1883 - Franz Kafka, Austrian writer (d. 1924)

1893 - Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)

1908 - M. F. K. Fisher, American writer (d. 1992)

1909 - Stavros Spiros Niarchos, shipping magnate (d. 1996)

1913 - Dorothy Kilgallen, American newspaper columnist, and television personality (d. 1965)

1927 - Ken Russell, English director

1928 - Günter Bruno Fuchs, writer (d. 1977)

1934 - Manfred Bieler, writer

1935 - Harrison Schmitt, astronaut

1937 - Tom Stoppard, Czech-born playwright

1946 - Leszek Miller, Prime Minister of Poland

1947 - Dave Barry, American writer

1957 - Laura Branigan, American singer (d. 2004)

1964 - Joanne Harris, English author


Died this day:

1904 - Theodor Herzl, Austrian Zionist (b. 1860)

1914 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician

1918 - Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire

1933 - Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina

1935 - André Citroën, French automobile pioneer

1979 - Louis Durey, French composer

1986 - Rudy Vallee, singer

1989 - Jim Backus, producer, director, actor (Mr. Magoo and Thurston J. Howell III)

1998 - Danielle Bunten Berry, software developer

2001 - Mordecai Richler, author

2003 - Gaetano Alibrandi, papal diplomat

2004 - Andrian Nikolayev, cosmonaut

2005 - Alberto Lattuada, Italian film director

2005 - Gaylord Nelson, former U.S. senator who founded Earth Day

July 4th



993 - Saint Ulrich of Augsburg was canonized.

1054 - A supernova was observed by the Chinese and Amerindians near the star ζ Tauri. For several months it remained bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants formed the Crab Nebula.

1187 - Saladin defeated Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, at "The Battle of Hattin".

1636 - The city of Providence, Rhode Island was formed.

1712 - 12 slaves were executed in New York for starting an uprising that killed 9 whites.

1776 - American Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress approved a Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain forming the United States of America.

1802 - At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy opened.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people.

1810 - Napoleon's army occupied Amsterdam.

1817 - At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal began.

1826 - The Fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, upon which John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of America's Founding Fathers, died. (Luther Martin, another Founding Father would die a few days later, on July 8, 1826.)

1827 - Slavery was abolished in New York State.

1837 - Grand Junction Railway, world's first long-distance railway, opened between Birmingham and Liverpool.

1838 - The Iowa Territory was organized.

1840 - The Cunard Line's 700 ton wooden paddle steamer "HMRMS Britannia" departed from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia on the first transatlantic passenger cruise.

1845 - Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond.

1855 - In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems titled "Leaves of Grass" was published.

1859 - During the Franco-Piedmontese War "The Battle of Magenta" began.

1862 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) went on a boating picnic with Alice Liddell, who asked to be entertained with a story. The ensuing story grew into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequels.

1863 - American Civil War: At "The Battle of Vicksburg" Ulysses S. Grant's Union Army captured the Confederate city Vicksburg, Mississippi after the town surrendered. The siege had lasted 47 days.

1865 - "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was published.

1881 - In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opened.

1894 - The short-lived Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.

1910 - In a heavyweight boxing match, black boxer Jack Johnson totally destroyed white boxer Jim Jeffries before finally knocking him out. The incident sparked race riots across the United States.

1918 - Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascended to the throne.

1918 - The Bolsheviks murder Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).

1927 - The initial flight of the Lockheed "Vega" was made.

1934 - Joe Louis won his first professional boxing match.

1934 - Leo Szilard patented the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1939 - Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considered himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" as he announces his retirement from major league baseball.

1941 - A mass murder of Polish scientists and writers was committed by the Nazis in the captured Polish city of Lwów.

1946 - After 381 years of colonial rule, the Philippines was granted full independence by the United States.

1950 - The first broadcast by "Radio Free Europe" was made.

1959 - With the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state earlier in the year, the short lived "49-Star Flag" of the United States debuted in Philadelphia.

1960 - Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the "50-Star Flag" of the United States made its debut in Philadelphia almost ten and a half months later.

1966 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signed "The Freedom of Information Act" into United States law. The act came into effect the next year.

1976 - Israeli commandos raided Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing most of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers.

1976 - The United States celebrated its bicentennial.

1984 - NASCAR driver "King Richard" Petty won his 200th career victory at the Firecracker 400 race in Daytona, Florida, in front of a record crowd that included NASCAR's first presidential patron, Ronald Reagan.

1987 - In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (aka the "Butcher of Lyon") was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1993 - (soccer) The Argentine national football team won the "Copa América 1993" championship game 2-1 against Jorge Campos' Mexico national football team in Guayaquil.

1997 - NASA's Pathfinder space probe landed on the surface of Mars.

1998 - Lin "Spit" Newborn and Daniel Shersty were murdered by neonazis in the desert just outside Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

2002 - Three people were shot at the "El Al" check-in booth at Los Angeles International Airport. The gunman was shot and killed by a security officer.

2002 - A Prestige Airlines cargo "Boeing 707" crashed just short of the runway in Bangui, Central African Republic killing 25.

2004 - The cornerstone of "The Freedom Tower" was laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. This was largely a symbolic event as actual construction did not start for several weeks.

2005-The "Deep Impact" (space mission) collider scored a direct hit on the comet Tempel 1.


Born this day:

1330 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira, Ashikaga shogun (d. 1367)

1546 - Murat III, Ottoman Emperor (d. 1595)

1799 - Joseph François Oscar Bernadotte, French general and King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (d. 1859)

1804 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (d. 1864)

1807 - Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian patriot (d. 1882)

1826 - Stephen Foster, American songwriter (d. 1864)

1845 - Thomas Barnardo, Irish founder of homes for underprivileged children (d. 1905)

1854 - Victor Babe, Romanian bacteriologist (d. 1926)

1847 - James Anthony Bailey, American circus impresario (d. 1906)

1872 - Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (d. 1933)

1878 - George M. Cohan, American singer, dancer, composer, actor, and writer (d. 1942)

1883 - Rube Goldberg, American cartoonist (d. 1970)

1902 - George Murphy, American dancer, actor, and Senator from California (d. 1992)

1905 - Irving Johnson, author, adventurer, sail training pioneer (d. 1991)

1911 - Mitch Miller, American bandleader and television personality

1918 - Ann Landers, American advice columnist (d. 2002)

1918 - Abigail Van Buren, American advice columnist and twin sister to Ann Landers

1921 - Tibor Varga, violinist and conductor

1923 - Rudolf Friedrich, member of the Swiss Federal Council

1930 - George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees

1943 - Konrad "Conny" Bauer, German jazz trombonist

1946 - Ron Kovic, American peace activist

1951 - Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, American politician

1961 - Richard Garriott, English video game designer


Died this:

965 - Pope Benedict V

1187 - Raynald of Chatillon, (executed)

1623 - William Byrd, English composer

1821 - Richard Cosway, English artist (b. 1742)

1826 - John Adams 2nd President of the United States (b. 1735)

1826 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (b. 1743)

1831 - James Monroe, 5th President of the United States (b. 1758)

1838 - Colonel José Antonio Vidaurre, Chilean revolutionary (shot)

1848 - François-René de Chateaubriand, French writer and diplomat (b. 1768)

1850 - William Kirby, English entomologist (b. 1759)

1857 - William L. Marcy, American statesman (b. 1786)

1882 - Joseph Brackett, Shaker religious leader and composer (b. 1797)

1891 - Hannibal Hamlin, U.S. Vice President (b. 1809)

1901 - Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (b. 1843)

1902 - Swami Vivekananda, Indian spiritual leader (b. 1863)

1910 - Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian astronomer (b. 1835)

1926 - Pier Giorgio Frassati, Italian mountaineer (b. 1901)

1931 - Buddie Petit, American jazz musician

1934 - Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Polish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry and physics (b. 1867)

1970 - Barnett Newman, American artist (b. 1905)

1971 - August Derleth, American writer and editor (b. 1909)

1975 - Georgette Heyer, English author (b. 1902)

1976 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (b. 1895)

1986 - Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician (b. 1899)

1991 - Dr. Victor Chang, Australian physician (murdered) (b. 1936)

1995 - Eva Gabor, Hungarian-born actress (b. 1919)

1997 - Charles Kuralt, American television reporter (b. 1934)

2002 - Benjamin O. Davis Jr., American general (b. 1912)

2003 - Barry White, American singer and record producer (b. 1944)

2004 - Jean-Marie Auberson, Swiss conductor (b. 1920)

Now that Groupee seems to FINALLY have their damned act back to gether again...I can hopefully get this up on the boards.

July 5th



1610 - John Guy set sail from Bristol with 39 other colonists for Newfoundland.

1687 - Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" was published.

1803 - "The Convention of Artlenburg" led to the French occupation of Hanover, which had been ruled by the British king.

1811 - Venezuela was the first South American country to declare its independence from Spain.

1813 - War of 1812: Three weeks of British raids on Fort Schlosser, Black Rock and Plattsburgh, New York began.

1814 - War of 1812: At "The Battle of Chippewa" American Major General Jacob Brown's forces defeated those British General Phineas Riall at Chippewa, Ontario.

1830 - France invaded Algeria.

1865 - William Booth founded the Christian Mission. It was later renamed to the Salvation Army.

1865 - The world's first maximum speed law was enacted in England.

1884 - Germany took possession of Cameroon.

1934 - "Bloody Thursday" - Police opened fire on striking longshoremen in San Francisco.

1937 - The highest recorded temperature in Canada, happens at Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan: 113 °F (45 C).

1940 - World War II: Great Britain and the puppet government of Vichy France broke off diplomatic relations.

1941 - World War II: German troops reached the Dniepr River.

1943 - World War II: "The Battle of Kursk", the largest tank battle in history, and a turning point in the war began.

1943 - World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sailed for Sicily (Operation Husky, July 10, 1943).

1945 - World War II: The liberation of the Philippines was declared.

1946 - The bikini was introduced. (Truly one of the greatest days in history!)

1948 - "The British National Health Service Act" was enacted.

1950 - Korean War: "Task Force Smith", the first clash between American and North Korean forces occurred.

1950 - Zionism: The Knesset passed the "Law of Return" which granted all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.

1951 - William Shockley invented the junction transistor.

1954 - Elvis Presley had his first commercial recording session. He sang "That's All Right (Mama)" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky".

1954 - The BBC broadcast its first television news bulletin.

1958 - the first ascent of Gasherbrum I, 11th highest peak on the earth.

1962 - Algeria became independent from France.

1970 - An Air Canada DC-8 crashed near Toronto International Airport killing 108 people. (Good Lord, has it really been 35 years?)

1971 - Right to vote: the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years, was formally certified by President Richard Nixon.

1975 - Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title.

1975 - Cape Verde gained its independence from Portugal.

1989 - Iran-Contra Affair: Oliver North was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service.

1994 - The United States announced it would refuse further unrestricted immigration from Haiti.

1998 - Japan launched a probe to Mars, and joined the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.

2003 - Taiwan was the last territory to be removed from the WHO's list of SARS affected areas.

2004 - First Indonesian presidential election, by the nation.

2004 - Éric Gagné's consecutive baseball saves streak came to an end at 84 games.


Born this day:
1794 - Sylvester Graham, American inventor of Graham cracker (d. 1851)

1810 - Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum, American circus owner (d. 1891)

1853 - Cecil Rhodes, South African politician (d. 1902)

1865 - Hans Ziemann, physician (d. 1939)

1880 - Jan Kubelík, Czech violinist (d. 1940)

1886 - Willem Drees, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1988)

1888 - Herbert Spencer Gasser, American psychologist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1889 - Jean Cocteau, French writer (d. 1963)

1890 - Frederick Lewis Allen, American social historian (d. 1954)

1891 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)

1902 - Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., U.S. diplomat (d. 1985)

1904 - Harold Acton, writer and dilettante (d. 1994)

1911 - Georges Pompidou, President of France (d. 1974)

1918 - George Rochberg, American classical composer (d. 2005)

1924 - Janos Starker, Hungarian cellist

1941 - Barbara Frischmuth, writer

1958 - Bill Watterson, American cartoonist

1996 - Dolly the sheep, first cloned mammal (d. 2003)


Died this day:

1681 - Feodor Aleksejevitch, Tsar of Russia

1833 - Nicéphore Niépce, French inventor

1904 - Abai Kunanbaiuli, Kazakh poet

1908 - Jonas Lie, Norwegian author

1920 - Max Klinger, artist

1945 - John Curtin, fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia

1948 - Georges Bernanos, French writer (b. 1888)

1957 - Charles Sherwood Noble, inventor

1966 - George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1885)

1969 - Walter Gropius, German architect (b. 1883)

1975 - Otto Skorzeny, German commando who rescued Benito Mussolini

1983 - Harry James, musician

1991 - Howard Nemerov, poet (b. 1920)

2001 - Hannelore Kohl, wife of Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl

2002 - Ted Williams, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1918)

2004 - Rodger Ward, auto racer (b. 1921)

July 6th



1253 - Mindaugas was crowned king of Lithuania.

1483 - Richard III was crowned king of England.

1484 - Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão found the mouth of the Congo River.

1560 - "The Treaty of Edinburgh" was signed by Scotland and England.

1573 - Córdoba, Argentina was founded by Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera.

1609 - Bohemia was granted freedom of religion.

1630 - Thirty-Years War: 4,000 Swedish troops under Gustavus Adolphus landed in Germany.

1777 - American Revolutionary War: At "The Battle of Ticonderoga" a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne forced an American retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1785 - The dollar was unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States. It was the first time a nation had adopted a decimal currency system.


1799 - Ranjit Singh's 25,000 men started their march towards Lahore. Babu Varghese, Kerala, India.

1801 - At "The Battle of Algeciras" the French navy defeated the British Royal Navy for the last time in history.

1854 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party was held.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies. The patient was one Joseph Meister, a young boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

1887 - David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was forced at gunpoint, by the Americans, to sign "The Bayonet Constitution" giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.

1892 - Dadabhai Naoroji was elected as first Indian Member of Parliament in Britain.

1905 - Alfred Deakin became Prime Minister of Australia for the second time.

1908 - Robert Peary's Arctic expedition set sail. He later succeeded in reaching the North Pole.

1917 - World War I: Arabian troops led by Lawrence of Arabia and Auda ibu Tayi captured Aqaba from the Turks during the Arab Revolt.

1919 - The British dirigible R-34 landed in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic by an airship.

1923 - "The Treaty of Union" was signed by Russia, Transcaucasia, Ukraine and Belarus, establishing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1928 - The world's largest known hailstones fell in Potter, Nebraska.

1933 - The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played in Chicago's Comiskey Park. The American League defeated the National League, 4 to 2.

1939 - Holocaust: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed.

1944 - The Hartford Circus Fire, one of America's worst fire disasters, killed 168 people and injured over 700 in Hartford, Connecticut.

1957 - Althea Gibson won the Wimbledon championships, becoming the first black athlete to do so.

1957 - John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met.

1964 - The first Beatles film, "A Hard Day's Night", premiered.

1964 - Malawi declares its independence from Britain.

1966 - Malawi became a republic.

1967 - Biafran War: Nigerian forces invaded Biafra, on the opening day of the war.

1974 - The radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" made its first live broadcast.

1975 - The Comoros declared independence from France.

1988 - The "Piper Alpha" drilling platform in the North Sea was destroyed by explosions and fires, killing 167 oil workers.

1988 - Carlos Salinas won the controversial Mexican presidential election.

2003 - The Corsicans rejected a referendum for increased autonomy from France by a very thin majority: 50.98 percent against, and 49.02 percent for.

2004 - In an "exclusive", The New York Post erroneously reported that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry had selected Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt as his running mate.

2005 - The International Olympic Committee announced that London had won the bid to host the XXX Olympiad Summer Olympic Games in 2012. (That damned Afenton was behind this I tell you!)


Born this day:

1632 - Albert Schap, composer

1766 - Alexander Wilson, Scottish-born poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and painter (d. 1813)

1785 - William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)

1796 - Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (d. 1855)

1818 - Adolf Anderssen (d. 1879)

1838 - Vatroslav Jagic, Croatian scholar (d. 1923)

1859 - Verner von Heidenstam, Swedish writer (d. 1940)

1884 - Harold Vanderbilt, businessman

1887 - Walter Flex, writer (d. 1917)

1898 - Hanns Eisler, German composer (d. 1962)

1907 - Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter (d. 1954)

1915 - LaVerne Andrews, singer (the Andrews Sisters)

1918 - Sebastian Cabot, English actor (d. 1977)

1919 - Ernst Haefliger, Swiss tenor

1921 - Nancy Reagan, actress and First Lady of the United States

1923 - Wojciech Jaruzelski, President of Poland

1925 - Merv Griffin, American game show developer and television show host

1925 - Bill Haley, American singer (Bill Haley and the Comets) (d. 1981)

1927 - Janet Leigh, American actress (d. 2004)

1927 - Dolores Claman, musician and composer

1927 - Pat Paulsen, American comedian and Presidential candidate (d. 1997)

1935 - Tenzin Gyatso, fourteenth Dalai Lama

1936 - Dave Allen, Irish comedian (d. 2005)

1937 - Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russian pianist and conductor

1946 - George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States


Died this day:

1189 - Henry II of England (b. 1133)

1249 - Alexander II of Scotland (b. 1198)

1415 - Jan Hus, Bohemian reformer (burned at the stake)

1476 - Regiomantus, German astronomer and mathematician (b. 1436)

1533 - Ludovico Ariosto, Italian poet (b. 1474)

1535 - Sir Thomas More, English writer and philosopher (executed) (b. 1478)

1553 - King Edward VI of England (b. 1537)

1583 - Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury

1762 - Tsar Peter III of Russia (murdered) (b. 1728)

1893 - Guy de Maupassant, French author (b. 1850)

1916 - Odilon Redon, French painter (b. 1840)

1932 - Kenneth Grahame, English children's author (b. 1859)

1960 - Aneurin Bevan, British politician (b. 1897)

1962 - William Faulkner, American novelist (b. 1897)

1971 - Louis Armstrong, American jazz icon and acclaimed all time master of the trumpet (b. 1901)

1973 - Otto Klemperer, German conductor (b. 1885)

1989 - János Kádár, Hungarian politician (b. 1912)

1998 - Roy Rogers, American cowboy actor and singer (b. 1911)

1999 - Joaquin Rodrigo, Spanish composer (b. 1901)

2002 - John Frankenheimer, American film director (b. 1930)

2003 - Buddy Ebsen, actor, dancer, "Uncle Jed" (b. 1908)

2004 - Thomas Klestil, President of Austria (b. 1932)

2005 - L. Patrick Gray III, former FBI head. (b. 1916)