July 7th



1456 - Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy. (Too bad she'd already been burned at the stake for it 25 years earlier.)

1534 - European colonization of the Americas: The first known exchange between Europeans and natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in New Brunswick. (Unless you count the uneasy co-habitation between the Norsemen and the natives of Newfoundland over 500 years earlier.)

1543 - French troops invaded Luxembourg.

1798 - Quasi-War: The U.S. Congress rescinded treaties with France sparking the 'war.'

1799 - By this date Ranjit Singh's men had taken their positions outside Lahore.

1807 - Napoleonic Wars: "The Peace of Tilsit" between France, Prussia and Russia ends the Fourth Coalition.

1846 - Mexican War: Acting on instructions from Washington, DC, Commodore John Drake Sloat ordered his troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, so beginning the United States annexation of California.

1865 - American Civil War: 4 convicted conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were hanged.

1898 - US President William McKinley signed "The Newlands Resolution" annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1917 - Russian Revolution: Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov formed the "Russian Provisional Government" after the deposing of the tsar.

1930 - Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser began construction of the Boulder Dam (now known as the Hoover Dam).

1937 - Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces invaded Beijing, China following "The Battle of Lugou Bridge".

1941 - World War II: American forces landed in Iceland to forestall an invasion by Germany.

1947 -A downed UFO was believed to be found in the Roswell UFO incident.

1946 - Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini became the first American saint to be canonized.

1954 - In Memphis, Tennessee, WHBQ became the first radio station to air a recording made by Elvis Presley.

1958 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed "The Alaska Statehood Act" into United States law.

1959 - 14:28 UT Venus occulted the star Regulus. The rare event (which will next occur on October 1, 2044) was used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of the Venusian atmosphere. (Cool, huh?)

1969 - "The Official Languages Act" was adopted by the Canadian Government in which the French language was made equal to English throughout the Federal government.

1978 - The Solomon Islands gained independence from Britain.

1983 - Cold War: Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, travelled to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Premier Yuri Andropov.

1991 - "The Brioni Agreement" ended a ten-day war of independence in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1994 - Aden was occupied by troops from North Yemen, completing the reunification of Yemen.

2004 - The last patent on the LZW compression algorithm expired (in Canada).

2005 - Terrorist explosions intended to coincide with G8 summit in Scotland occurred in both the London Underground network and on area buses.


Born this day:

1752 - Joseph-Marie Jacquard, French inventor (d. 1834)

1855 - Ludwig Ganghofer, writer (d. 1920)

1860 - Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (d. 1911)

1884 - Lion Feuchtwanger, German dramatist and narrator (d. 1958)

1887 - Marc Chagall, Belarusian-born painter (d. 1985)

1893 - Miroslav Krleža, Croatian writer (d. 1981)

1899 - George Cukor, American director (d. 1983)

1901 - Vittorio De Sica, Italian director (d. 1974)

1901 - Sam Katzman, American film producer (d. 1973)

1906 - William Feller, Croatian mathematician (d.1970)

1907 - Robert Heinlein, American science fiction writer (d. 1988)

1911 - Gian Carlo Menotti, Italian-born composer

1915 - Yul Brynner, Russian-born actor (d. 1985)

1922 - Pierre Cardin, French fashion designer

1927 - Doc Severinsen, American composer and musician

1937 - Tung Chee-Hwa, first chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

1940 - Ringo Starr, English drummer and singer (The Beatles)

1941 - Bill Oddie, English comedian and ornithologist

1945 - Michael Ancram, British politician

1947 - Howard Rheingold American author

1959 - Ben Linder, American engineer (murdered) (d. 1987)

1966 - Gundula Krause, German folk violinist

1967 - Jackie Neal, American blues singer

1979 - Jeremy Seideman, American Software Engineer


Died this day:

1129 - Emperor Shirakawa of Japan (b. 1053)

1304 - Pope Benedict XI, (possibly poisoned) (b. 1240)

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

1537 - Madeleine de Valois, queen of James V of Scotland (b. 1520)

1572 - King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland (b. 1520)

1816 - Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish playwright and politician (b. 1751)

1880 - Lydia Child, American novelist and abolitionist (b. 1802)

1901 - Johanna Spyri, Swiss author (b. 1827)

1924 - Calvin Coolidge. Jr, son of President Calvin Coolidge
(b. 1908)

1930 - Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer (b. 1859)

1949 - Bunk Johnson, American jazz musician (b. 1879)

1956 - Gottfried Benn, German poet (b. 1886)

1965 - Moshe Sharett, second Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1894)

1967 - Vivien Leigh, actress (b. 1913)

1971 - Claude Gauvreau, Canadian writer (b. 1925)

1971 - Ub Iwerks, American artist, director, and cartoonist (b1901)

1972 - King Talal, King of Jordan (b. 1909)

1972 - Athenagoras, Patriarch of Constantinople (b. 1886)

1973 - Veronica Lake, American actress (b. 1919)

1973 - Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (b. 1895)

1980 - Dore Schary, American film producer, writer (b. 1905)

2000 - Kenny Irwin, Jr., American race car driver (b. 1969)

2003 - Izhak Graziani, Bulgarian-born conductor (b. 1924)

July 8th



1099 - First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mocked them. The Muslim's jesting came to an abrupt end later the same month when the Crusaders captured the city.

1283 - The naval "Battle of Malta" took place in the entrance to Grand Harbor, Valetta, when a galley fleet commanded by Roger of Lauria (Ruggiero di Lauria) defeated a fleet of Angevin galleys commanded by William Cornut and Bartholomew Bonvin. Cornut was killed in the engagement.

1497 - Vasco da Gama set sail on first direct European voyage to India.

1663 - Charles II of England granted John Clarke a Royal Charter to Rhode Island.

1680 - The first confirmed tornado in America killed a servant at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1709 - At "The Battle of Poltava" forces under Peter I of Russia defeated the army of Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava. This effectively ended Sweden's role as a major military power in Europe.

1716 - The naval "Battle of Dynekilen" took place during the Great Northern War, when a light Danish force under Tordenskjold trapped and defeated a similar Swedish force in Dynekilen fjord (just north of Strömstad), on the west coast of Sweden. The Swedes had been escorting troops from Göteborg (Gothenburg) to Fredrikstad.

1758 - French and Indian War: French forces held Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.

1760 - French and Indian War: At "The Battle of the Ristigouche" the British defeated French forces in last naval battle in New France.

1775 - "The Olive Branch Petition" was adopted by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.

1776 - The Liberty Bell was rung to summon citizens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.

1822 - The Chippewas turned over a huge tract of land in Ontario to Britain.

1859 - King Charles XV / Carl IV acceded to the throne of Sweden-Norway.

1889 - The first issue of the Wall Street Journal was published.

1889 - During the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain after 75 rounds. (Nope, not a typo...75 rounds.)

1892 - St. John's, Newfoundland was devastated in "The Great Fire of '92".

1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivered his "Cross of Gold" speech in Chicago.

1932 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22 at closing bell.

1947 - Reports were broadcast that a UFO had crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

1966 - King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi was deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.

1969 - IBM "CICS" was made generally available for the 360 mainframe computer.

1980 - The "State of Origin" Rugby League was born.

1997 - Mayo Clinic researchers warned that the dieting-drug "fen-phen" could cause severe heart and lung damage.

1997 - NATO invited the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance in 1999.

2000 - "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", the fourth book in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series, was published.

Born this day:

1545 - Don Carlos of Spain, son of Philip II of Spain (d. 1568)

1593 - Artemisia Gentileschi, Italian painter (d. 1651)

1621 - Jean de la Fontaine, French writer (d. 1695)

1760 - Christian Kramp, French mathematician (d. 1826)

1819 - Francis Leopold McClintock, British naval officer and explorer (d. 1907)

1836 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician (d. 1914)

1838 - Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)

1839 - John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1937)

1851 - Arthur Evans, English archaeologist (d. 1941)

1867 - Käthe Kollwitz, German painter and graphic artist (d. 1945)

1882 - Percy Grainger, Australian composer (d. 1961)

1885 - Ernst Bloch, German philosopher (d. 1977)

1895 - Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)

1904 - Henri Cartan, French mathematician

1908 - Louis Jordan, American singer and saxophonist (d. 1975)

1908 - Nelson A. Rockefeller, Vice President of the United States (d. 1979)

1914 - Billy Eckstine, American jazz singer and bandleader (d. 1993)

1919 - Walter Scheel, German politician

1933 - Marty Feldman, English comedian and actor (d. 1982)

1935 - Vitali Sevastyanov, cosmonaut

1942 - Phil Gramm, American politician

1945 - Micheline Calmy-Rey, member of the Swiss Federal Council


Died this day:

810 - Pepin, King of Italy (b. 773)

975 - King Edgar of England

1153 - Pope Eugene III

1623 - Pope Gregory XV (b. 1554)

1695 - Christiaan Huygens, Dutch scientist (b. 1629)

1822 - Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (b. 1792)

1826 - Luther Martin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States (b. 1748)

1850 - Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (b. 1774)

1855 - Sir William Edward Parry, British admiral and Arctic explorer (b. 1790)

1859 - King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (b. 1799)

1905 - Walter Kittredge, American musician and composer (b. 1834)

1917 - Tom Thomson, Canadian painter, member of "The Group of Seven" (b. 1877)

1933 - Anthony Hope, British author (b. 1863)

1939 - Havelock Ellis, British physician and psychologist (b. 1859).

1943 - Jean Moulin, French Resistance leader in World War II. Of undisclosed causes while in the custody of the Gestapo. (b. 1899)

1950 - Othmar Spann, Austrian philosopher and economist (b. 1878)

1957 - Grace Coolidge, First Lady of the United States (b. 1879)

1959 - Major Dale R. Buis, the first U.S. soldier to die in Vietnam.

1979 - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)

1994 - Kim Il Sung, North Korean leader (b. 1912)

1999 - Pete Conrad, American astronaut (b. 1930)

2001 - John O'Shea, New Zealand director (b. 1920)

2002 - Ward Kimball, American animator (b. 1914)

2004 - Paula Danziger, American author (b. 1944)

July 9th



455 - Roman military commander Avitus was proclaimed emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

1357 - Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor assisted laying the foundation stone of the Charles Bridge in Prague.

1540 - Henry VIII of England annulled his marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.

1749 - The naval settlement of Halifax, Nova Scotia was founded as the British response to France's Louisbourg.

1755 - French and Indian War: During "The Braddock Expedition" British troops and colonial militiamen were ambushed and suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of French and Native American forces. During the battle, British General Edward Braddock was mortally wounded. Colonel George Washington survived.

1789 - In Versailles, the National Assembly reconstituted itself as "The National Constituent Assembly" and began preparations for a French constitution.

1790 - Russo-Swedish War: At "The Second Battle of Svensksund" in the Baltic Sea, the Swedish Navy captured one third of the Russian fleet.

1793 - "The Act Against Slavery" was passed in Upper Canada and importation of slaves into Lower Canada was prohibited.

1815 - Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Benevente became Prime Minister of France.

1816 - Argentina declared its independence from Spain.

1846 - By an Act of Congress, the Washington, DC area south of the Potomac River (39 mi² or about 100 km²) was returned to Virginia.

1850 - President Zachary Taylor died and Millard Fillmore became the 13th President of the United States.

1900 - Great Britain's Queen Victoria gave royal assent to an act creating the Commonwealth of Australia. This united separate colonies on the continent under one federal government.

1918 - "The Great train wreck": In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collided with an outbound express killing 101 and injuring 171 people. This made it the deadliest railway accident in United States history.

1922 - Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100 meters freestyle in 58.6 seconds breaking a world swimming record and the 'minute barrier'.

1942 - Holocaust: Anne Frank's family went into hiding in an attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1943 - World War II: Operation Husky - Allied forces launched a successful amphibious invasion of Sicily.

1944 - World War II: During "The Battle of Normandy" British and Canadian forces captured Caen, France.

1945 - A forest fire broke out in "The Tillamook Burn" (Oregon), the third fire in that area since 1933. Evidence of the fire is still visible 60 years later.

1955 - "The Russell-Einstein Manifesto" was released by Bertrand Russell in London.

1968 - The official opening of Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank.

1979 - A car bomb destroyed a Renault owned by famed Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claimed responsibility.

1982 - A Boeing 727 carrying Pan Am Flight 759 crashed in Kenner, Louisiana killing all 146 people on board and eight others on the ground.

1989 - Two bombs exploded in Mecca, killing one pilgrim and wounding 16 others.

1991 - International Human Rights Federation cited human rights violations committed by police and military personnel during "The Oka Crisis" in Quebec.

1991 - South Africa was reintroduced into the Olympic movement after 30 years of exclusion.

1992 - Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton announced that Tennessee Senator Al Gore would be his running mate.

1997 - Mike Tyson's boxing license was suspended for at least a year and he was fined $3 million for biting Evander Holyfield's ear in a televised match. (Truly, an idiot of lengendary proportions!)

1999 - Days of student protests began after Iranian police and Islamic hardliners attacked a student dormitory at the University of Tehran.

2002 - The African Union was established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The first chairman was Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa.

2004 - After José Manuel Durão Barroso's appointment to the European Commission, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio announced that he would invite the second-in-line leader of PSD, Pedro Santana Lopes to form a government.


Born this day:

1249 - Emperor Kameyama of Japan (d. 1305)

1578 - Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1637)

1764 - Ann Radcliffe, English writer (d. 1823)

1775 - Matthew Lewis, English novelist (d. 1818)

1808 - Alexander William Doniphan, American lawyer and soldier (d. 1887)

1819 - Elias Howe, American inventor (d. 1867)

1836 - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of Britain (d. 1908)

1858 - Franz Boas, German anthropologist (d. 1942)

1894 - Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)

1900 - Ida Ehre, actress (d. 1989)

1901 - Dame Barbara Cartland, English novelist (d. 2000)

1911 - Mervyn Peake, British writer and illustrator (d. 1968)
1916 - Edward Heath, Prime Minister of Great Britain

1925 - Peter Ludwig, entrepreneur and art collector (d. 1996)

1926 - Ben Roy Mottelson, American-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1927 - Ed Ames, American singer and actor

1929 - King Hassan II of Morocco, (d. 1999)

1932 - Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense

1936 - June Jordan, American writer and teacher (d. 2002)

1937 - David Hockney, English artist

1943 - John Casper, astronaut

1945 - Dean R. Koontz, American author

1952 - John Tesh, American composer

1956 - Tom Hanks, American actor

1957 - Kelly McGillis, American actress

1971 - Marc Andreessen, American software developer

1976 - Fred Savage, American actor (Kevin, on "The Wonder Years".


Died this day:

518 - Anastasius I, Byzantine emperor

1228 - Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury

1386 - Duke Leopold III of Autria (killed in battle) (b. 1351)

1737 - Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1671)

1797 - Edmund Burke, British philosopher and statesman (b. 1729)

1850 - Báb, Persian founder of the Bábi Faith (b. 1819)

1850 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)

1856 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)

1856 - James Strang, Mormon splinter group leader (assassinated) (b. 1813)

1932 - King C. Gillette, developed and patented the safety razor (b. 1885)

1937 - Oliver Law, first African-American commander of U.S. troops, (killed in battle - Spanish Civil War) (b. 1899)

1938 - Benjamin Cardozo, American jurist (b. 1870)

1949 - Fritz Bennicke Hart, English-born Australian composer (b. 1874)


1974 - Earl Warren, Governor of California, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (b. 1891)

1979 - Cornelia Otis Skinner, American actress and author (b. 1899)

1985 - Jimmy Kinnon, Scottish founder of Narcotics Anonymous (b. 1911)

1992 - Eric Sevareid, American reporter (b. 1912)

1996 - Melvin Belli, American attorney (b. 1907)

2002 - Laurence Janifer, American science fiction writer (b. 1933)

2003 - Winston Graham, American author (b. 1908)

2004 - Paula Danziger, American author (b. 1944)

2004 - Paul Klebnikov, American journalist (b. 1963)

2004 - Isabel Sanford, American actress (b. 1917)

July 10th

48 BC - At "The Battle of Dyrrhachium", Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia.

1584 - William I of Orange was assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland.

1778 - Louis XVI of France declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1789 - Alexander Mackenzie reached what is now known as "The Mackenzie River Delta", on the shores of the Arctic ocean.

1821 - The United States took possession of its recently purchased territory of Florida, from Spain.

1832 - President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill that would have re-chartered "The Second Bank of the United States".

1850 - Millard Fillmore was inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States.

1890 - Wyoming was admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

1913 - Death Valley, California reached 134 °F (56.7 °C), which, to date, is the highest temperature ever recorded in the United States.

1925 - The "Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union" (TASS), the official news agency of the Soviet Union , was established.

1925 - In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Scopes Monkey Trial" began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

1938 - Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.

1940 - World War II: The Vichy France (puppet) government was established by the Nazis.

1940 - World War II: The German Luftwaffe began hitting British convoys in the English Channel. This is generally acknowledged as being the start of "The Battle of Britain".

1951 - Korean War: At Kaesong, the armistice negotiations began.

1951 - Randy Turpin became the middleweight boxing champion after defeating Sugar Ray Robinson.

1962 - Launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral "Telstar" was put into orbit as the world's first communications satellite. (It's still up there.)

1967 - Uruguay became a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. (THIS AGAIN!)

1968 - Maurice Couve de Murville became Prime Minister of France.

1973 - The Bahamas gained full independence within the British Commonwealth.

1985 - The Greenpeace protest ship "Rainbow Warrior" was bombed and sunk in Auckland, New Zealand Harbor by French DGSE agents. One Greenpeace crew member was killed. (murdered)

1985 - In response to market demand, Coca-Cola re-introduced it's original formula cola as "Coca-Cola Classic".

1991 - Boris Yeltsin began his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.

1992 - In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison upon his conviction of drug and racketeering charges.

1997 - London, scientists reported their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which supported the "Out of Africa" theory of human evolution. This placed an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1998 - The remains of United States Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie were returned to his family in St. Louis, Missouri from "The Tomb of the Unknowns" upon identification through DNA analysis. The remains had been in the first tomb since 1984.

1998 - Catholic priests' sex abuse scandal: The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by (former) priest Rudolph Kos.

2000 - A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline exploded, killing about 250 villagers scavenging spilt gasoline.

2000 - EADS, the world's second largest aerospace group was formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.

2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" was sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Kenneth Thomson.

2003 - A Neoplan bus, owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, collided with a truck and fell off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road in Hong Kong. It plunged into the underlying valley, killing 21 people. This is the deadliest bus accident to date in Hong Kong.


Born this day:

1452 - King James III of Scotland (d. 1488)

1509 - John Calvin, religious reformer (d. 1564)

1625 - Jean Herauld Gourville, French adventurer (d. 1703)

1830 - Camille Pissarro, French painter (d. 1903)

1832 - Alvan Graham Clark, American telescope maker and astronomer (d. 1897)

1834 - James McNeil Whistler, American painter (d. 1903)

1835 - Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (d. 1880)

1842 - Adolphus Busch, German-born brewer (d. 1913)

1856 - Nikola Tesla, Croatian physicist (d. 1943)

1871 - Marcel Proust, French writer (d. 1922)

1888 - Giorgio de Chirico, Italian painter (d. 1978)

1895 - Carl Orff, German composer (d. 1982)

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

1903 - John Wyndham, British author (d. 1969)

1914 - Joe Shuster, cartoonist

1915 - Saul Bellow, Canadian writer (d. 2005)

1920 - David Brinkley, American television reporter (d. 2003)

1920 - Owen Chamberlain, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1921 - Harvey Ball, American inventor (d. 2001)

1921 - Eunice Kennedy Shriver, American social activist

1923 - Jean Kerr, American author (d. 2003)

1923 - Earl Hamner Jr., American author and television producer

1926 - Fred Gwynne, American actor, "Herman Munster" (d. 1993)

1928 - Moshe Greenberg, American-Israeli Bible scholar

1931 - Alice Munro, Canadian writer

1938 - Paul Andreu, French architect

1939 - Ahmet Taner Kislali, Turkish politician, journalist, and educator (d. 1999)

1940 - Helen Donath, American soprano

1942 - Pyotr Klimuk, cosmonaut

1942 - Ronnie James Dio, American musician

1943 - Arthur Ashe, American tennis player, AIDS activist (d. 1993)

1945 - Virginia Wade, British tennis player

1947 - Arlo Guthrie, American musician

1951 - Cheryl Wheeler, American singer and songwriter

1980 - Adam Petty, American race car driver (d. 2000)


Died this day:

138 - Hadrian, Roman Emperor (b. 76)

1559 - Henry II of France (b. 1519)

1584 - William I of Orange, Dutch leader (b. 1533)

1590 - Archduke Charles II of Austria, regent of Inner Austria (b. 1540)

1686 - John Fell, English churchman (b. 1625)

1806 - George Stubbs, British painter (b. 1724)

1884 - Paul Morphy, American chess player (b. 1837)

1920 - Jackie Fisher, British admiral (b. 1841)

1941 - Jelly Roll Morton, American jazz musician (b. 1890)

1978 - John D Rockefeller III, American businessman (b. 1906)

1979 - Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (Boston Pops" (b. 1894)

1987 - John Hammond, American record producer (b. 1910)

1989 - Mel Blanc, voice actor of Warner Bros. animation fame (b. 1908)

2003 - Lord Shawcross, Britain's chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (b. 1902)

July 11th



1302 - At "The Battle of the Golden Spurs" (Guldensporenslag in Dutch) the Flemish cities defeated the king of France's army.

1346 - Charles IV of Luxembourg was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1405 - Chinese fleet commander Zheng He set sail to explore the world for the first time.

1576 - Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland.

1616 - Samuel de Champlain returned to Quebec.

1533 - King Henry VIII of England was excommunicated.

1740 - All Jews were expelled from Little Russia.

1750 - Halifax, Nova Scotia was almost completely destroyed by fire.

1776 - Captain James Cook began his third voyage.

1796 - The U.S. took possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of "The Jay Treaty".

1798 - The United States Marine Corps was re-established; they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

1804 - Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr killed Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel, after Hamilton's gun misfired.

1811 - Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro published his memoir about the molecular content of gases.

1848 - The Waterloo railway station in London opened.

1859 - "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens was first published.

1864 - Confederate forces attempted an invasion of Washington DC.

1893 - The first cultured pearl was obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.

1895 - The brothers Lumière showed the first ever movie film " La sortie des usines Lumière" before an audience of scientists.

1897 - Salomon August Andrée left Spitsbergen in an attempt to reach the North pole by balloon. He later crashed and died enroute. (Well...so much for that scheme.)

1914 - Babe Ruth debuted in Major league baseball.

1919 - The eight-hour working day and free Sunday was made into law in the Netherlands.

1921 - A truce was called in "The Irish War of Independence".

1921 - Former US President William Howard Taft was sworn in as the 10th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice.

1921 - Mongolia became independent from China.

1936 - The Triborough Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic.

1940 - World War II: The "Vichy France" regime was formally established. Henri Philippe Pétain became Prime Minister (lead puppet) of France.

1943 - World War II: During the Allied invasion of Sicily German troops launched a counter-attack on Allied forces.

1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that he would run for a fourth term as President of the United States.

1955 - The phrase "In God We Trust" was added to all US currency.

1957 - Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherited the office of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismaili worlwide. This after the passing of Sir Sultam Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III.

1960 - Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was first published.

1962 - The first transatlantic satellite television transmission took place thanks to "Telstar".

1971 - All copper mines in Chile were nationalised.

1973 - A Brazilian Boeing 707 crashed near Paris on approach to Orly Airport, killing 122 people.

1975 - Chinese archeologists discovered a large burial site containing 6,000 clay statutes of warriors from 221 BC.

1977 - Martin Luther King was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom.

1979 - The space station "Skylab" returned to Earth. (The hard way!)

1982 - Football World Cup: Italy defeated West Germany 3–1 at Santiago Bernabéu stadium, Spain to win the Football World Cup.

1983 - A Boeing 727 crashed into hilly terrain after a tail strike in Cuenca, Ecuador, claiming 119 lives.

1987 - According to the United Nations, the world population crosses the 5,000,000,000 mark. (That's "billion" for anyone who asks.)

1991 - A Nationair DC-8 crashed during an emergency landing at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 261. The Canadian charter was ferrying Hajj pilgrims on behalf of Nigeria Airways.

1991 - A total solar eclipse was observed in Hawaii.

1995 - Full diplomatic relations were established between the United States and Vietnam. (No comment)

1995 - Srebrenica Genocide: A Serbian army from Yugoslavia and Bosnia, captured the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. More than eight thousands inhabitants, supposedly under UN protection, were murdered. This is generally regarded to be the most horrific event in recent European history.

1995 - A Cubana de Aviacion Antonov AN-24 crashed into the Caribbean off southeast Cuba killing 44 people.


Born this day:

1274 - Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (d. 1329)

1628 - Tokugawa Mitsukuni, Japanese warlord (d. 1701)

1657 - King Frederick I of Prussia (d. 1713)

1754 - Thomas Bowdler, English physican and censor (d. 1825)

1767 - John Quincy Adams, President of the United States (d. 1848)

1844 - King Peter of Serbia (d. 1921)

1857 - Alfred Binet, French psychologist (d. 1911)

1897 - Eugene "Bull" Connor, sheriff of Birmingham, Alabama (d. 1973)

1899 - E. B. White, American writer (d. 1985)

1906 - Herbert Wehner, German politician (d. 1990)

1913 - Cordwainer Smith, American writer (d. 1966)

1916 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)

1916 - Gough Whitlam, twenty-first Prime Minister of Australia

1926 - Frederick Buechner, American author

1929 - Hermann Prey, German baritone (d. 1998)

1930 - Harold Bloom, American literary critic

1934 - Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer

1939 - Seth Gaaikema, Dutch comedian

1949 - Liona Boyd, English-born classical guitarist


Died this day:

472 - Anthemius, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire

937 - Rudolph II of Burgundy

969 - Olga of Kiev

1679 - William Chamberlayne, English poet (b. 1619)

1804 - Alexander Hamilton, United States Secretary of the Treasury (duel) (b. 1757)

1937 - George Gershwin, American composer (b. 1898)

1971 - John W. Campbell, writer and editor (b. 1910)

1974 - Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate

1994 - Gary Kildall, American computer programmer (b. 1942)

1989 - Sir Laurence Olivier, English actor (b. 1907)

2000 - Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1921)

2001 - Herman Brood, Dutch singer and artist (b. 1946)

2004 - Laurance Rockefeller, American conservationist and philanthropist (b. 1910)

2005 - Frances Langford, American actress and singer, "Over There" and "I'm in the Mood for Love" (b. 1914)

July 12th



1573 - Spanish forces under the Duke of Alva captured Haarlem after a seven month siege.

1690 - During The Williamite War "The Battle of the Boyne" took place. The army of William III of England defeated that of the deposed King James VII of Scotland (James II of England).

1759 - Seven Years' War: At "The Battle of Quebec" British cannon began firing on the French at Quebec City, from Lévis, Quebec.

1812 - War of 1812: US forces invaded British controlled Canada at Windsor, Ontario.

1862 - "The Medal of Honor" was authorized by the United States Congress.

1892 - A hidden lake burst out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing some 200 villagers and holidayers in Saint Gervais.

1932 - Lambeth Bridge in London was opened by King George V.

1933 - Congress passed the first federal minimum wage law in the United States. It was 33 cents per hour.

1943 - World War II: "The Battle of Kursk" begins. German and Soviet forces engaged in largest tank engagement of all time.

1950 - René Pleven became Prime Minister of France.

1960 - Orlyonok, the main "Young Pioneer" camp of the Russian SFSR, was founded.

1967 - Four days of race riots began in Newark, New Jersey. They claimed the lives of 27 people.

1973 - "The National Archives Fire" destroyed the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center.

1975 - São Tomé and Príncipe declared independence.

1979 - The island nation of Kiribati declared independence.

1993 - A magnitude 7.8 earthquake off the shore of Hokkaido, Japan launched a devastating tsunami, killing 202 on the small island of Okushiri.

1998 - KDE 1.0 was released.

2002 - The Superior Court of Ontario ordered the Ontario government to recognize same-sex marriages.

2004 - Pedro Santana Lopes was officially appointed the Prime Minister of Portugal.

2005 - Prince Albert II was enthroned as ruler of the Principality of Monaco.


Born this day:

100 BC - Gaius Julius Caesar, Roman soldier and politician (d. 44 BC)

1394 - Ashikaga Yoshinori, Japanese shogun (d. 1441)

1468 - Juan del Encina, poet and composer

1730 - Josiah Wedgwood, English potter (d. 1795)

1807 - Thomas Hawksley, English civil engineer (d. 1893)

1817 - Henry David Thoreau, American writer and philosopher (d. 1862)

1819 - Charles Kingsley, English writer (d. 1875)

1824 - Eugène Boudin, French painter (d. 1898)

1849 - Sir William Osler, Canadian physician, author, professor of medicine (d. 1919)

1850 - Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (d. 1912)

1852 - Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina (d. 1933).

1854 - George Eastman, American inventor (d. 1932)

1861 - George Washington Carver, American botanist (d. 1943)

1868 - Stefan George, German poet (d. 1933)

1870 - Louis II of Monaco (d. 1949)

1876 - Max Jacob, French poet (d. 1944)

1880 - Tod Browning, American film director (d. 1962)

1884 - Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1920)

1886 - Jean Hersholt, Danish film director and actor (d. 1956)

1892 - Bruno Schulz, Polish writer and painter (d. 1942)

1892 - Harry Piel, actor, film director, and producer (d. 1963)

1895 - Kirstin Flagstad, Norwegian soprano (d. 1962)

1895 - R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect (d. 1983)

1895 - Oscar Hammerstein II, American lyricist (d. 1960)

1902 - Günther Anders, philosopher and writer (d. 1992)

1904 - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, Nobel Prize recipient (d. 1973)

1908 - Milton Berle, American comedian (d. 2002)

1913 - Willis Lamb, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1917 - Andrew Wyeth, American artist

1920 - Pierre Berton, Canadian journalist and writer (d. 2004)

1922 - Mark Hatfield, U.S. Senator from Oregon

1925 - Roger B. Smith, American automobile executive

1930 - Gordon Pinsent, Canadian actor, director, and writer

1933 - Donald E. Westlake, American author

1934 - Van Cliburn, American pianist

1937 - Bill Cosby, American comedian and actor

1937 - Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France

1943 - Christine McVie, singer, musician, and songwriter (Fleetwood Mac)


Died this day:

783 - Bertrada, wife of Pippin III (b. 720)

1441 - Ashikaga Yoshinori, Japanese shogun (b. 1394)

1536 - Erasmus, Dutch writer and philosopher

1682 - Jean Picard, French astronomer (b. 1620)

1712 - Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (b. 1626)

1773 - Johann Joachim Quantz, German flutist and composer (b. 1697)

1845 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian author (b. 1808)

1910 - Charles Stewart Rolls, British engineer and aviator (b. 1887)

1918 - Dragutin Lerman, Croatian explorer (b. 1864)

1926 - Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator (b. 1868)

1931 - Nathan Söderblom, Swedish clergyman, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (b. 1866)

1935 - Alfred Dreyfus, French military officer (b. 1859)

1949 - Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland (b. 1860)

1962 - Roger Wolfe Kahn, American band leader (b. 1907)

1988 - Josh Logan, film director and writer

1996 - John Chancellor, American television journalist (b. 1927)

July 13th



1174 - William the Lion of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173-1174, was captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.

1558 - In France, at "The Battle of Gravelines", Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeated the French army of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines.

1573 - Eighty Years' War: The Siege of Haarlem ended after seven months.

1643 - At "The Battle of Roundway Down", during the English Civil War, Lord Henry Wilmot's (Earl of Rochester) Royalist forces, won a crushing victory over the army of Parliamentarian Sir William Waller.

1772 - HMS Resolution, under the command of Captain James Cook, set sail from Plymouth, England.

1787 - The Continental Congress enacted "The Northwest Ordinance" establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also established procedures for the admission of new states and limited the expansion of slavery.

1793 - Jean Paul Marat, one of the leaders of the French revolution, was murdered.

1794 - "The Battle of the Vosges" between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria took place.

1822 - Greeks defeat Ottoman forces at Thermopylae during their war of independance.

1837 - Britain's Queen Victoria moved into the first Buckingham Palace in London and was the first British monarch to live there.

1854 - At the battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stopped the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon.

1863 - New York Draft Riots: In New York City, opponents of conscription began three days of rioting which would be later regarded as the worst in United States history.

1878 - Treaty of Berlin: The European powers redrew the map of the Balkans. Serbia and Montenegro become completely independent of the Ottoman empire.

1900 - Boxer Rebellion: In China, Tientsin was retaken by European Allies from the rebelling Boxers.

1908 - Women competed in modern Olympics for the first time.

1909 - Gold was discovered near Cochrane, Ontario.

1919 - The British airship "R-34" landed in Norfolk, England after completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic, in 182 hours of flight.

1923 - The Hollywood Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally read "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters were dropped after renovation work in 1949.

1930 - The first FIFA World Cup began in Uruguay.

1936 - A heat wave struck the Midwestern United States. The all-time highest temperatures for the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana were all recorded on this date.

1941 - World War II: Montenegrins started the first popular uprising in Europe against the Axis Powers.

1942 - World War II: German U-Boats sank three more merchant ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1955 - In British Columbia a railway disaster, due to a landslide, was narrowly averted when a stray horse wandered onto the tracks just short of where the slide occurred and would not move to let the train pass. So close to the slide was the horse that it was slightly injured by the falling rocks.

1967 - Tom Simpson, a top British road racing cyclist of the 1960's, died of exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during the 13th stage of the Tour de France.

1972 - The United States Democratic Party nominated George McGovern for president at its convention in Miami Beach, Florida but, because of an impassioned platform dispute, McGovern did not give his acceptance speech until the early morning hours of the 14th.

1972 - Grandad died.

1973 - Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.

1977 - In New York City, a blackout lasted for 25 hours and resulted in looting and other civil disorder.

1978 - Ford Motor Company President Lee Iacocca was fired by chairman Henry Ford II, ending a long dispute between the men. (Bet ya' came to regret THAT move, huh Hank?)

1982 - Montreal hosted the first baseball All-Star Game outside the United States.

1985 - The Live Aid benefit concert took place in London, Philadelphia, Sydney and Moscow as well as other venues.

1996 - A Garuda Indonesia Airways DC-10 crashed (as DC-10's are wont to do) on take-off from Fukuoka Airport, Japan, killing 3 passengers.

2002 - A lighting strike set off "The Sour Biscuit Fire" in Oregon and northern California, which had burned 499,570 acres (2,020 km2) when finally contained on September 5.

2005 - Three trains collided in the Ghotki rail crash in Ghotki, Pakistan, killing over 150 people.


Born this day:

AD 40 - Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman Governor of Britain (d. 93)

1527 - John Dee, English scientist

1590 - Pope Clement X (d. 1676)

1608 - Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1657)

1816 - Gustav Freitag, writer (d. 1895)

1841 - Otto Wagner, Austrian architect (d. 1918)

1864 - John Jacob Astor IV, American entrepreneur (d. 1912) (aboard HMRMS Titanic)

1894 - Isaac Babel, Ukrainian writer (d. 1940)

1900 - George Lewis, American jazz musician (d. 1969)

1913 - Dave Garroway, American television host (d. 1982)

1921 - Ernest Gold, film score composer (d. 1999)

1924 - Carlo Bergonzi, Italian tenor

1927 - Simone Veil, French politician

1928 - Bob Crane, radio personality, actor, "Col. Hogan" (d. 1978)

1928 - Mace Neufeld, film producer

1929 - Alan Civil, English French horn player (d. 1989)

1933 - David Malcolm Storey, writer

1934 - Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer

1934 - Aleksei Yeliseyev, cosmonaut

1935 - Jack Kemp, American Vice Presidential candidate

1936 - Albert Ayler, Jazz Musician, (d. 1970)

1942 - Harrison Ford, American actor, director, producer

1944 - Erno Rubik, Hungarian inventor, sculptor, and architect (Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic and Rubik's Clock)

1946 - Cheech Marin, American actor and comedian

1953 - Johnny Clegg, South African composer and musician

1954 - Sezen Aksu, Turkish singer and songwriter, Eurovision Song Contest winner

1957 - Cameron Crowe, American film director and writer


Died this day:

939 - Pope Leo VII

1205 - Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury and Justicier of England

1621 - Archduke Albert of Austria, governor of the Low Countries (b. 1559)

1683 - Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, English statesman (b. 1631)

1755 - Edward Braddock, British general

1793 - Jean Paul Marat, French revolutionary (murdered) (b. 1743)

1807 - Henry Benedict Stuart, the Cardinal-Duke of York and the last Jacobite Claimant (as Henry IX and I) to the thrones of England, Scotland, (France), and Ireland (b. 1725)

1896 - Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, German organic chemist (b. 1829)

1946 - Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer (b. 1864)

1951 - Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer (b. 1874)

1954 - Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter (b. 1907)
1967 - Tom Simpson, British cyclist (exhaustion) (b. 1937)

1974 - Patrick Blackett, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)

1980 - Seretse Khama, first President of Botswana (b. 1921)

1983 - Gabrielle Roy, Canadian author (b. 1909)

1993 - Davey Allison, American race car driver (b. 1961)

2002 - Yousuf Karsh, Turkish-born photographer (b. 1908)

2004 - Arthur Kane, musician (New York Dolls) (complications of leukemia) (b. 1951)

July 14th



1223 - In France, Louis VIII became King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II of France.

1789 - French Revolution: Citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille and freed seven prisoners.

1791 - The Priestley Riots drove Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England.

1798 - "The Sedition Act" became United States law making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government.

1827 - The first Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in the Hawaiian Islands by Fathers Abraham Armand and Alexis Bachelot of France as well as Patrick Short of the United Kingdom, members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. It would be the foundation of the present-day Diocese of Honolulu.

1933 - Gleichschaltung: In Germany, all political parties were outlawed except for the Nazi Party.

1940 - World War II: Andrew George Latta McNaughton took command of the 7th Army Corps consisting of British, Canadian and New Zealand troops.

1943 - In Joplin, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument became the first United States National Monument in honor of an American black.

1958 - Iraqi Revolution: In Iraq the monarchy was overthrown by Arab nationalists and Abdul Karim Kassem becomes the nation's new leader.

1960 - A fire at the Guatemala Mental Hospital killed 225 people. (The number of claimed dead varies from 170-235 depending on the source but 225 is the usual number given.)

1965 - The "Mariner 4" flyby of Mars took the first close-up photos of another planet.

1966 - In Chicago, Illinois, eight student nurses were murdered in their dormitory.

1966 - A fire at a mental hospital in Guatemala City killed 225.

1967 - Eddie Mathews became the seventh member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California.

1968 - Hank Aaron became the eighth member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

1984 - New Zealand elected the Fourth Labour Government bringing in David Lange as Prime Minister. This broke nine years of National party governance under Robert Muldoon.


1992 - A major fire consumed an entire city block in the tourist destination Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The blaze destroyed the "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" Museum and several other local businesses and attractions in the process.

2000 - George Speight, the principal instigator of the Fiji coup of 2000, was arrested with 369 of his followers and charged with treason.

2001 - The International Olympic Committee voted for Beijing to be the host of the 2008 Olympics. This was the first time that China had been bestowed this (dubious) honor.

2002 - During Bastille Day celebrations, Jacques Chirac escaped an assassination attempt unscathed.


Born this day:

1602 - Jules Mazarin, French statesman and cardinal (d. 1661)

1610 - Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1670)

1634 - Pasquier Quesnel, French Jansenist theologian (d. 1719)

1829 - Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1896)

1857 - Emmeline Pankhurst, English suffragette (d. 1928)

1860 - Owen Wister, American author (d. 1938)

1862 - Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter and graphic artist (d. 1918)

1868 - Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator (d. 1926)

1904 - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish Yiddish author (d. 1991)

1910 - William Hanna, American animator (d. 2001)

1912 - Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic (d. 1991)

1912 - Woody Guthrie, American folk musician (d. 1967)

1913 - Gerald Ford, President of the United States

1916 - Natalia Ginzburg, writer (d. 1991)

1918 - Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film and theatre director

1918 - Arthur Laurents, American playwright, novelist, and director

1921 - Leon Garfield, English children's author (d. 1996)

1927 - John Chancellor, American television commentator (d. 1996)

1930 - Polly Bergen, American actress, singer, and entrepreneur

1932 - Roosevelt Grier, American football player, actor, and Christian minister

1938 - Jerry Rubin, American activist (d. 1994)

1939 - George E. Slusser, American scholar and writer

1941 - Maulana Karenga, American author and activist

1942 - Javier Solana, Spanish European Union foreign policy chief

1956 - Ran Andrews, Canadian painter

1971 - Chirag Bhimani, Structural and Environmental Engineer

1977 - Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden


Died this day:

664 - Deusdedit of Canterbury, Archbishop of Canterbury

1223 - King Philip II of France (b. 1165)

1270 - Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury

1723 - Claude Fleury, French historian (b. 1640)

1742 - Richard Bentley, English classical scholar (b. 1662)

1834 - Edmond Charles Genêt, French ambassador to the United States during the French Revolution (b. 1763)

1881 - Billy the Kid, American outlaw (b. 1860)

1887 - Alfred Krupp, German munitions manufacturer (b. 1812)

1907 - William Henry Perkin, English chemist and inventor of aniline dyes (b. 1838)

1904 - Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer (b. 1860)

1954 - Jacinto Benavente, Spanish writer (b. 1866)

1965 - Adlai Stevenson, U.S. presidential candidate (b. 1900)

1984 - Ernest Tidyman, American writer (b. 1928)

1998 - Dick McDonald, co-founder of McDonald's Corporation (b. 1909)

2000 - William Roscoe Estep, American Baptist historian (b. 1920)

2002 - Joaquín Balaguer, President of the Dominican Republic (b. 1906)

2002 - Qiqi, longest-living captive Chinese river dolphin

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

July 15th



1099 - First Crusade: In Jerusalem, Christian soldiers took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after a difficult siege.

1207 - John of England expelled the Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton.

1381 - John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II of England.

1410 - At "The Battle of Tannenberg" the power of the Teutonic Knights was broken forever with their defeat by an army of Poles and Lithuanians.

1685 - James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth, was executed at Tower Hill, England after his army's defeat at "The Battle of Sedgemore" on July 6th.

1789 - Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, was named colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris.

1799 - Rosetta Stone was found in the Egyptian village of Rosette by French Captain Pierre Bouchard.

1806 - Pike expedition: Near St. Louis, Missouri US Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west.

1815 - Napoléon Bonaparte surrendered from aboard "HMS Bellerophon".

1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces broke the naval blockade of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1870 - Georgia became the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1870 - Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company. The province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories were established from these vast territories.

1916 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporated Pacific Aero Products. The company would later be renamed "Boeing".

1918 - World War I: "The Second Battle of the Marne" began near the River Marne with a German attack.

1927 - 89 protesters were killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.

1929 - The first weekly radio broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio show, Music and the Spoken Word was aired.

1931 - "Kid Chocolate" became Cuba's first world boxing champion.

1954 - The Boeing 707, America's first jet passenger airliner, made its maiden flight.

1958 - In Lebanon, 5,000 US Marines landed in the capital Beirut providing military support to the pro-Western government there.

1974 - In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek-sponsored nationalists launched a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.

1975 - Apollo Soyuz Test Project: Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft took off for U.S.-Soviet link-up in space.

1979 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter gave his famous "malaise" speech, where he characterized the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."

1992 - A last of a major fire that consumed an entire city block in the tourist destination of Gatlinburg, Tennessee was finally extinguished.
The block was eventually rebuilt and re-opened in 1995.

1994 - Albert Belle of the Cleveland Indians was caught using a corked bat in a major league game.

1995 - Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: "Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought" by Douglas Hofstadter became the first item sold on Amazon.com

1996 - MSNBC cable-DBS channel was launched.

1996 - A Lockheed C-130 "Hercules" of the Royal Belgian Air Force carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashed on landing at Eindhoven Airport. Thirty-two people died in the flames, two people died of their injuries. Seven people sustained severe burns.

1999 - Safeco Field opened in Seattle, Washington. (And a damned impressive stadium it is!)

2002 - So-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh plead guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to the possession of explosives during the commission of a felony. Lindh agreed to serve 10 years in prison for each of the charges.

2002 - 4 suspects were convicted of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2003 - AOL Time Warner disbanded "Netscape Communications Corporation". The "Mozilla Foundation" was established on the same day.

2004 - Monorail service began in Las Vegas.

2004 - The Open Championship in golf, known in North America as "The British Open", took place in Troon, Scotland.

2004 - The BBC aired the documentary "The Secret Agent", exposing racism by members of the British National Party.

2005 - Jack Nicklaus played his last hole of competitive golf during The Open Championship at Hole 18 at St Andrews, finishing with a birdie.

Born this day:

1553 - Archduke Ernest of Austria (d. 1595)

1573 - Inigo Jones, English architect (d. 1652)

1606 - Rembrandt, Dutch artist (d. 1669)

1631 - Jens Juel, Danish diplomat (d. 1700)

1779 - Clement Clarke Moore, American educator, author, and poet (d. 1863)

1796 - Thomas Bulfinch, American mythologist (d. 1796)

1808 - Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, English Catholic archbishop (d. 1892)

1812 - James Hope-Scott, English barrister (d. 1873)

1848 - Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist and sociologist (d. 1923)

1850 - Mother Cabrini, Italian-born Roman Catholic saint (d. 1917)

1865 - Alfred Charles William Northcliffe, newspaper publisher (d. 1922)

1870 - Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, Russian publisher and politician (d. 1922)

1871 - Kunikida Doppo, Japanese writer (d. 1908)

1892 - Walter Benjamin, German literary critic and writer (d. 1940)

1899 - Sean F. Lemass, Irish leader (d. 1971)

1902 - Jean Rey, Belgian politician and President of the European Commission {d. 1983)

1911 - Edward Shackleton, English explorer (d. 1994)

1914 - Hammond Innes, English writer (d. 1998)

1918 - Bertram N. Brockhouse, Canadian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)

1919 - Iris Murdoch, English writer (d. 1999)

1922 - Leon M. Lederman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1926 - Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentine leader (dictator) (d. 2003)

1926 - Driss Chraïbi, Moroccan author

1928 - Carl Woese, American microbiologist

1930 - Jacques Derrida, French philosopher (d. 2004)

1930 - Stephen Smale, American mathematician

1931 - Clive Cussler, American author

1933 - Guido Crepax, Italian comics artist (d. 2003)

1934 - Harrison Birtwistle, English composer

1934 - Risto Jarva, Finnish filmmaker (d. 1977)

1944 - Millie Jackson, singer

1945 - Jürgen Möllemann, German politician (d. 2003)

1946 - Linda Ronstadt, American singer

1949 - Carl Bildt, Swedish politician
1951 - Jesse Ventura, Vietnam War veteran, former professional wrestler and Governor of Minnesota.

1953 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti

1953 - John Denham, British politician

1956 - Ian Curtis, British musician, singer and lyricist (Joy Division) (d. 1980)

1958 - Mac Thornberry, American politician

1961 - Scott Ritter, UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq


Died this day:

518 - Roman Emperor Anastasius I

1085 - Robert Guiscard, French adventurer

1262 - Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford

1291 - Rudolph I of Germany, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1218)

1381 - John Ball, English priest (murdered by the state)

1406 - William of Austria, Duke of Carinthia, Styria, and Carniola

1571 - Shimazu Takahisa, Japanese samurai and warlord (b. 1514)

1685 - James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II of England (b. 1649)

1767 - Michael Bruce, Scottish poet (b. 1746)

1782 - Farinelli, Italian castrato (b. 1705)

1828 - Jean Antoine Houdon, French sculptor (b. 1741)

1839 - Winthrop Mackworth Praed, English poet (b. 1802)

1844 - Claude Charles Fauriel, French historian (b. 1772)

1857 - Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (b. 1791)

1890 - Gottfried Keller, Swiss writer (b. 1819)

1904 - Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (b. 1860)

1919 - Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)

1929 - Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian writer (b. 1874)

1930 - Leopold Auer, Hungarian violinist and composer (b. 1845)

1931 - Ladislaus Bortkiewicz, Russian economist (b. 1868)

1933 - Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (b. 1865)

1947 - Walter Donaldson, American songwriter (b. 1893)

1948 - John J. Pershing, U.S. general (b. 1860)

1957 - James M. Cox, American politician (b. 1870)

1959 - Ernest Bloch, Swiss composer (b. 1880)

1961 - John E. Brownlee, Canadian politician (b. 1884)

1965 - Francis Cherry, American politician (b. 1908)

1992 - Hammer DeRoburt, first President of Nauru (b. 1922)

1997 - Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer (b. 1946)

2003 - Roberto Bolaño, Chilean writer (b. 1953)

July 16th



622 - Beginning of the Islamic calendar. The prophet Mohammed began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.

1661 - The first banknotes in Europe were issued by the Bank of Stockholm.

1769 - Father Junipero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California. The mission later evolved into the city of San Diego.

1779 - American Revolutionary War: United States forces led by General Anthony Wayne captured Stony Point, New York from British troops.

1782 - The first performance of Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio".

1783 - Grants of land (in present day Canada) to American "United Empire Loyalists" were announced.

1790 - The signing of "The Residence Bill" established a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia (seat of government) of the United States.

1862 - David G. Farragut became the first United States Navy rear admiral.

1880 - Dr. Emily Howard Stowe became the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada. (Good on you, girl!)

1914 - Hellenic Holocaust: Reported by the German Consul Kuchhoff, "The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has been exiled. Exile and extermination in Turkish are the same, for whoever is not murdered, will die from hunger or illness."

1918 - Russian Revolution: At Ekaterinburg, Bolsheviks executed Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family.

1930 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signed the first constitution of Ethiopia.

1942 - Holocaust: The Vichy France government headed by Pierre Laval ordered French police officers to round up 13,000-20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome. (The bastards did it, too.)

1945 - Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age began when the United States successfully detonated a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the "Trinity Site" near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1951 - The novel "Catcher in the Rye", by J. D. Salinger, was published.

1951 - King Leopold III of Belgium abdicated in favour of his son, Baudouin I of Belgium, to avoid internal social strife.

1957 - United States Marine Major John Glenn flew a F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds. This set a new transcontinental speed record.

1965 - The Mont Blanc tunnel linking France with Italy was opened.

1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 11 was launched from Cape Kennedy and became the first manned space mission to land on the moon.

1973 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informed the United States Senate committee investigating the scandal that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

1979 - Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigned and was replaced by Saddam Hussein.

1990 - In the Philippines, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter Scale killed over 1600 people.

1994 - The planet Jupiter was impacted by fragments of the "Shoemaker-Levy 9" comet.

1994 - The civil war in Rwanda came to an end. (Supposedly)

1997 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 63.17 to close at 8,038.88, the first closing above 8,000.

1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Mass. The Piper Saratoga aircraft was piloted by Kennedy Jr.

1999 - Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was released in Great Britain. (It should've been kept under wraps...)

1999 - First game at "Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium" in Newark, New Jersey was played.

2001 - The FBI arrested Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas, Nevada for violating a provision of the DMCA.

2002 - Simon & Garfunkel released the album "Live In New York City, 1967" a live recording of their January 22, 1967 concert at Philharmonic Hall.

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 - Millennium Park, considered the first and most ambitious architectural project in the early 21st century for Chicago, was opened to the public by Chicago Richard M. Daley.

2004 - Barclays Bank froze the bank accounts of the British National Party.

2004 - A fire at a private school in Kumbakonam, India kills more than 80 people.

2005 - J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" was released.


Born this day:

1486 - Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter (d. 1530)

1796 - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, French painter (d. 1875)

1821 - Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader (d. 1910)

1834 - Franz Adolf Lüderitz, politician (d. 1886)

1862 - Ida B. Wells, American journalist and anti-lynching crusader (d. 1931)

1872 - Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer (d. 1928)

1888 - Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)

1889 - Larry Semon, film comedian (d. 1928)

1896 - Trygve Lie, first United Nations Secretary General (d. 1968)

1902 - George Schwarz, writer (d. 1991)

1903 - Carmen Lombardo, Canadian singer, saxophonist, composer, and arranger (d. 1971)

1907 - Dr. Frances Horwich, American television personality (d. 2001)

1907 - Orville Redenbacher, American farmer, businessman and popcorn king0 (d. 1995)

1907 - Barbara Stanwyck, American actress (d. 1990)

1911 - Ginger Rogers, American actress and dancer (d. 1995)

1919 - Choi Kyuha, President of South Korea

1926 - Irwin Rose, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

1948 - Rubén Blades, Panamanian actor, musician, and politician

1948 - Pinchas Zukerman, Israeli violinist

1956 - Tony Kushner, American playwright

1963 - Fatboy Slim, English musician

1967 - Will Ferrell, Comedian


Died this day:

1647 - Masaniello, Italian rebel (b. 1622)

1691 - François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, French war minister (b. 1641)

1770 - Francis Cotes, English painter (b. 1726)

1882 - Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (b. 1818)

1953 - Hilaire Belloc, French writer and journalist (b. 1870)

1979 - Alfred Deller, English countertenor (b.
1912)

1985 - Heinrich Böll, German writer (b. 1917)

1989 - Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (b. 1908)

1991 - Frank Rizzo, mayor of Philadelphia (b. 1920)

1994 - Julian Schwinger, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)

1995 - Stephen Spender, American poet (b. 1909)

1998 - John Henrik Clarke, American historian and scholar (b. 1915)

1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr., son of John F. Kennedy (b. 1960)

2002 - John Cocke, American computer scientist (b. 1925)

2003 - Carol Shields, Canadian author (b. 1935)

July 17th



180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa, were executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world. (And not a very encouraging one at that!)

1203 - The Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople by assault; the Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus fled from his capital into exile.

1453 - Hundred Years' War: A French army under Jean Bureau utterly destroyed the English forces under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was killed in "The Battle of Castillon" at Gascony.

1762 - Catherine II became tzar of Russia upon the death (murder) of Peter III of Russia.

1771 - Massacre at Bloody Falls: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee's warrior party, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his arctic overland journey, massacred a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

1791 - The massacre at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution. 1200-1500 people were killed, men, women and children.

1815 - Napoleonic Wars: In France, Napoleon surrendered at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces.

1816 - The French passenger ship Medusa ran aground off the coast of Senegal, with 140 lives lost in the botched rescue that took weeks. This led to a scandal in the French government.

1897 - The Klondike gold rush began when the first successful prospectors returned to Seattle, Washington.

1898 - Spanish-American War: At "The Battle of Santiago Bay" troops under US General William R. Shafter took the city of Santiago de Cuba from the Spanish.

1899 - NEC Corporation was organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.

1917 - King George V of Great Britain issued a Proclamation stating that the male line of descendants of the British royal family would bear the surname Windsor.

1936 - Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain started the Spanish civil war.

1944 - Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war exploded in Port Chicago, California killing 232.

1944 - World War II: The largest convoy of the war embarked from Halifax, Nova Scotia under Royal Canadian Navy protection.

1945 - World War II: At the Potsdam Conference, the three main Allied leaders began their final summit of the war. The meeting would end on August 2.

1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.

1962 - The "Small Boy" test shot (Little Feller I) became the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

1975 - Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft docked with each other in orbit. This marked the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1975 - East Timor was annexed, and became the 27th province of Indonesia.

1979 - Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigned and fled to Miami.

1981 - Two skywalks filled with people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed into a crowded atrium lobby killing 114.

1984 - Laurent Fabius became Prime Minister of France.

1995 - The Midwestern heat wave in the United States reached its peak. Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, amongst other cities, set all-time high temperature records. The heat claimed over 400 lives on this day alone.

1995 - The Nasdaq stock index closed above the 1,000 mark for the first time.

1996 - Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound Boeing 747 carrying TWA flight 800 exploded, killing all 230 on board.

1997 - The F.W. Woolworth Company closed after 117 years in business.

1998 - In St. Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel 80 years after they were murdered by the Bolsheviks.

1998 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroyed 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500 and leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for. Thousands more were left homeless.

1998 - Biologists reported in the journal "Science" how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.


Born this day:

1674 - Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter (d. 1748)

1698 - Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician (d. 1759)

1787 - Friedrich Krupp, industrialist (d. 1826)

1839 - Ephraim Shay, Inventor (Shay locomotive) (d. 1916)

1877 - Ernst von Dohnanyi, Hungarian conductor (d. 1960)

1888 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer (d. 1970)

1899 - James Cagney, actor (d. 1986)

1899 - Erle Stanley Gardner, author (d. 1970)

1901 - Bruno Jasieoski, Polish poet (d. 1938)

1912 - Art Linkletter, television host

1917 - Phyllis Diller, comedienne

1917 - Margarete Mitscherlich, physician

1920 - Juan Antonio Samaranch, former chairman of the International Olympic Committee

1920 - Kenneth Wolstenholme, sports commentator (d. 2002)

1928 - Vince Guaraldi, musician, composer (d. 1976)

1938 - Franz Alt, journalist

1941 - Jürgen Flimm, theatre chain director and manager

1947 - Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (formerly Parker Bowles), now wife of Prince Charles

1948 - Luc Bondy, film and theatre director

1954 - J. Michael Straczynski, science fiction author

1956 - Peter D'Adamo, physician, author

1960 - Mark Burnett, reality TV producer

1971 - Cory Doctorow, author, activist


Died this day:

1070 - Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders (b. 1030)

1704 - Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, French fur trader and explorer

1709 - Robert Bolling, English settler in Virginia (b. 1646)

1790 - Adam Smith, Scottish economist

1878 - Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet (b. 1812)

1887 - Dorothea Dix, American social activist (b. 1802)

1917 - Hector Malot, French writer

1918 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia

1918 - Grand Duchess Olga of Russia

1918 - Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia

1918 - Tsarevich Alexei of Russia

1918 - Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia

1918 - Tsarina Alexandra of Russia

1918 - Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia

1959 - Billie Holiday, American jazz singer (b. 1915)

1959 - Eugene Meyer, American businessman and newspaper publisher (The Washington Post) (b. 1875)

1967 - John Coltrane, American jazz musician (b. 1926)

1975 - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor

1980 - Boris Delaunay, Soviet/Russian mathematician (b. 1890)

1995 - Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian race car driver amd legend of the Formula 1 circuit (b. 1911)

2001 - Katharine Graham, Washington Post publisher (b. 1917)

2003 - Hans Abich, German TV producer

2003 - Antje, walrus, long-time mascot of German TV station NDR

2003 - Rosalyn Tureck, American pianist and harpsichordist

2003 - Dr. David Kelly, UN weapons inspector

2005 - Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970-74 (b. 1916)

July 18th



390 BC - At "The Battle of the Allia" a Roman army was defeated by raiding Gauls. This led to the subsequent sacking of Rome.

64 - Great fire of Rome: A fire broke out in the merchant section of Rome and soon burned completely out of control. Emperor Nero reportedly played his lyre and sang while watching the blaze from a safe distance.

1195 - At "The Battle of Alarcos" a great victory was won by the forces of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur over the army of Castilian King Alfonso VIII.

1536 - The authority of the Pope was declared void in England.

1830 - Uruguay adopted its first constitution.

1857 - Louis Faidherbe, the French governor of Senegal, arrived with reinforcements to relieve French troops at Kayes, this effectively ended El Hajj Umar Tall's war on the French.

1863 - American Civil War: The first formal black military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unsuccessfully assaulted Confederate-held Fort Wagner but their valiant fighting still proved the worth of black soldiers during the war.

1872 - Britain introduced voting by secret ballot.

1873 - Oscar II of Sweden-Norway was crowned king of Norway in Trondheim.

1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie announced the discovery of a new element and proposed to call it "polonium".

1914 - The US Army's Signal Corps was formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.

1925 - Adolf Hitler published his personal manifesto "Mein Kampf".

1938 - Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrived in Ireland.

1942 - World War II: The Luftwaffe test flew the Messerschmitt "Me-262", using only its jet engines, for the first time.

1944 - World War II: Hideki Tojo resigned as Prime Minister of Japan due to the mounting setbacks in the war effort.

1947 - US President Harry S. Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act into law which placed the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.

1966 - Gemini 10 was launched.

1968 - Vietnam War: The two-day "Honolulu Conference" began in Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.

1968 - Intel was incorporated.

1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died.

1969 - Apollo 11 made preparations for landing on the Moon.

1976 - In Montreal, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci (aged 14) scored the first ever perfect "10" at the Olympics.

1977 - Vietnam joined the United Nations.

1982 - 268 campesinos (countryside people) were slain in the "Plan de Sánchez Massacre" in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.

1984 - McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food resturant, a gunman killed 21 people and injured 19 others before being shot dead by police.

1986 - A tornado was broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot made a chance encounter.

1986 - The motion picture "Alien" opened in theaters.

1989 - Rebecca Schaeffer was shot by a crazed fan, prompting California to pass America's first anti-stalking law (in 1990).

1992 - The ten victims of the "La Cantuta Massacre" disappeared from their university in Lima.

1994 - In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroyed a building housing several Jewish organizations killing 85 and injuring many more.

1994 - A court upheld the NBA's salary cap and draft rights.

1995 - On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the "Soufriere Hills Volcano" erupted. Over the course of the next few years it devastated the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.

1996 - Storms provoked severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec, beginning one of Canada's costliest natural disasters ever.

1996 - In an event very similar to the Oklahoma tornado that would occur three years later, an F5 tornado hit the town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.

1997 - 8000 low-caste Indians rioted in Mumbai (Bombay) following a funeral for 10 children who had been killed by police.

1998 - A 23-foot tsunami wave killed nearly 3,000 people in Papua New Guinea.

2001 - In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailed in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasted for days and virtually shut down Baltimore's downtown core.

2003 - David Kelly was discovered dead after committing suicide.


Born this day:

1501 - Isabella of Burgundy, queen of Christian II of Denmark (d. 1526)

1552 - Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor

1634 - Johannes Camphuys, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1695)

1635 - Robert Hooke, English scientist (d. 1703)

1670 - Giovanni Bononcini, Italian composer (d. 1747)

1811 - William Makepeace Thackeray, English author (d. 1863)

1821 - Pauline Garcia-Viardot, singer and composer (d. 1910)

1845 - Tristan Corbière, French poet (d. 1875)

1853 - Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)

1864 - Ricarda Huch, writer (d. 1947)

1864 - Phillip Snowden, British politician (d. 1937)

1890 - Frank Forde, fifteenth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1983)

1894 - Isaac Babel, Ukrainian writer (d. 1940)

1902 - Nathalie Sarraute, French writer (d. 1999)

1902 - Jessamyn West, writer (d. 1984)

1906 - Clifford Odets, writer (d. 1963)

1906 - S. I. Hayakawa, American semanticist and politician (d. 1992)

1909 - Andrei Gromyko, Soviet diplomat and President (d. 1989)

1909 - Mohammed Daoud Khan, Afghani President (d. 1978)

1913 - Red Skelton, radio and television personality, actor, comedian and world class clown (d. 1997)

1918 - Nelson Mandela, South African revolutionary and president

1921 - John Glenn, American astronaut and politician

1922 - Thomas Kuhn, American philosopher (d. 1996)

1923 - Jerome H. Lemelson, American inventor (d. 1997)

1927 - Ludwig Harig, writer

1927 - Kurt Masur, Silesian-born conductor

1933 - Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet

1935 - Jayendra Saraswathi, Hindu religious leader

1937 - Roald Hoffman, chemist and Nobel Prize laureate

1937 - Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author (d. 2005)

1947 - Steve Forbes, entrepreneur, politician

1950 - Sir Richard Branson, entrepreneur

1963 - Martín Torrijos Espino, President of Panama


Died this day:

1610 - Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Italian artist (b. 1573)

1623 - Pope Gregory XV

1695 - Johannes Camphuys, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (b. 1634)

1698 - Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss theologian (b. 1633)

1721 - Antoine Watteau, French painter

1792 - John Paul Jones, American naval commander (b. 1747)

1817 - Jane Austen, English novelist (b. 1775)

1863 - Robert Gould Shaw Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts infantry.

1872 - Benito Juárez, President of Mexico

1892 - Thomas Cook, pioneer travel agent

1949 - Vítozslav Novák, composer

1990 - Yoon Boseon, President of South Korea

2001 - Fabio Taglioni, Italian automotive engineer

2004 - Paul Foot, British journalist

July 19th



711 - Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeated the Visigoths led by their king, Roderic.

1333 - "The Battle of Halidon Hill" was fought. This was the final battle of the Wars of Scottish Independence and resulted in a crushing Scottish defeat.

1544 - The Siege of Boulogne began.

1553 - Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having the title for just nine days.

1848 - Women's rights: The two day "Women's Rights Convention" opened in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" were introduced at the feminist convention.

1862 - American Civil War: At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north was mostly thwarted when a large group of his men were captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.

1870 - Franco-Prussian War: France declared war on Prussia. (You fools!)

1873 - William Gosse became the first European to discover Ayers Rock (Uluru) and named it in honour of South Australian Premier Sir Henry Ayers.

1879 - Doc Holliday killed for the first time after a man shot up Holliday's New Mexico saloon.

1912 - A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg (420 lb) exploded over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona. Approximately 16,000 pieces of debris rained down upon the town.

1940 - World War II: "The Battle of Cape Spada", between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina, resulted in the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni being sunk. There were 121 casualities.

1942 - World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered the last U-boats to withdraw from their positions along the US Atlantic coast. This was in response to the effective American convoy system.

1943 - World War II: Rome was bombed by the Allies for the first time in the war.

1945 - Montgomery Ward was seized by United States Army troops at the direction of Attorney General Francis Biddle. This because of its refusal to obey "National War Labor Board" orders. Montgomery Ward chairman Seward Avery was carried out of his office by troops.

1947 - Burmese nationalist Aung San was assassinated.

1948 - The games of the XIV Olympiad opened in London.

1964 - Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh called for expanding the war into North Vietnam.

1967 - A Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727 and a Cessna 310 collided in mid-air over Hendersonville, North Carolina killing 82.

1976 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal was created.

1979 - The Sandinista rebels overthrew the US-backed government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.

1985 - US Vice President George H. W. Bush announced that New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe would become the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the Space Shuttle (Challenger).

1985 - 268 people were killed after an artificial lake broke up in Val di Stava, Italy.

1989 - A Douglas DC-10 carrying United Airlines flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112. Due to extraordinary efforts by pilots and his crew, 184 on board survived.

2001 - UK politician and novelist Jeffrey Archer, Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.


Born this day:

1670 - Richard Leveridge, English bass and composer (d. 1758)

1692 - Rebecca Nurse, accused witch (b. 1621)

1789 - John Martin, English painter

1814 - Samuel Colt, American firearms inventor (d. 1862)

1819 - Gottfried Keller, Swiss writer (d. 1890)

1834 - Edgar Degas, French painter (d. 1917)

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

1883 - Max Fleischer, animator and film producer (d. 1972)

1893 - Vladimir Mayakovsky, poet (d. 1930)

1894 - Khawaja Nazimuddin, second Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1965)

1896 - A.J. Cronin, writer (d. 1981)

1898 - Herbert Marcuse, communist philosopher (d. 1979)

1917 - William Scranton, U.S. politician

1921 - Rosalyn Yalow, medical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1922 - George McGovern, U.S. Presidential candidate

1924 - Stanley K. Hathaway, U.S. politician

1934 - Francisco Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal (1980)

1950 - Per-Kristian Foss, Norwegian Minister of Finance


Died this day:

1061 - Pope Nicholas II

1374 - Petrarch, poet (b. 1304)

1415 - Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal (the plague)

1742 - William Somervile, English poet (b. 1675)

1814 - Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer of the coasts of Australia (b. 1774)

1857 - Stefano Franscini, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1796)

1810 - Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Queen of Prussia

1850 - Margaret Fuller, writer (b. 1810)

1910 - Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer (b. 1812)

1947 - Aung San, Burmese nationalist (assassinated)

1965 - Syngman Rhee, first President of South Korea

1972 - Hezekiah M. Washburn, missionary (b. 1884)

1980 - Nihat Erim, Prime Minister of Turkey (assassinated)

1985 - Janusz A. Zajdel, Polish writer

2002 - Alan Lomax, American documenter of blues and folk songs (b. 1915)

2003 - Pierre Graber, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1908)

2003 - Bill Bright, evangelist, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ

2004 - Reverend Francis Marzen, Roman Catholic prelate

2005 - John Tyndall, British National Party founder (b. 1934)

July 20th



514 - Pope Hormisdas assumed the papacy.

1304 - The forces of England's Edward I took the last rebel stronghold in "The Wars of Scottish Independence".

1738 - French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reached the western shore of Lake Michigan.

1810 - Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declared independence from Spain.

1861 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America began sitting in Richmond, Virginia.

1864 - American Civil War: At "The Battle of Peachtree Creek", near Atlanta, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attacked Union troops under the command of General William T. Sherman.

1866 - Austro-Prussian War: At "The Battle of Lissa" the Austrian navy, led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeated the Italian navy near the island of Vis.

1871 - British Columbia joined the confederation of Canada.

1872 - The United States Patent Office awarded the first patent for wireless telegraphy to Mahlon Loomis.

1881 - Sioux Chief Sitting Bull led the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford in Montana.

1885 - The Football Association legalised professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association.

1898 - In Hong Kong, Felipe Agoncillo wrote a letter to Apolinario Mabini expressing his apprehension regarding the supposed "alliance" between the Americans and the Filipinos.

1914 - Russia: Czar Nicholas II welcomed France's President Raymond Poincaré.

1917 - "The Corfu Declaration", which led to the creation of the post-war "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", was signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.

1917 - Alexander Kerensky became Prime Minister and President of the Russian provisional government and survived an assassination attempt the same day. (Think I woulda gone out and bought a lottery ticket myself.)

1917 - In the United States, the first military draft numbers were drawn for World War I.

1920 - The funeral of Empress Eugenie of France was held in St. Michael's Abbey near Farnborough, England.

1921 - Air mail service began between New York City and San Francisco.

1922 - The League of Nations awarded the mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to Great Britain. (Like they had the damned right to do either.)

1925 - In Cleveland, Tennessee, Clarence Darrow questioned William Jennings Bryan in "The Scopes Monkey Trial" during a session held out of doors about the literal truth of the Bible.

1927 - Michael I became King of Romania at age five upon the death of his grandfather Ferdinand I.

1932 - German President Paul von Hindenburg signed a decree ordering Franz von Papen to take control of the Prussian state government and declare martial law.

1932 - In Washington, D.C., police fired tear gas at World War I veterans, part of "The Bonus Expeditionary Force" who attempted to march to the White House.

1933 - Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli signed a concordat on behalf of their respective nations.

1933 - In Britain, 500,000 marched against anti-Semitism in London.

1933 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered new regulations on the trading of grain in order to curb speculators.

1933 - In Germany, two-hundred Jewish merchants were arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets as a public spectacle.

1936 - "The Montreux Convention" was signed in Montreux, Switzerland. This authorized Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteed free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.

1940 - Denmark abandoned "The League of Nations".

1940 - Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart". The first number one song was Frank Sinatra's "I'll Never Smile Again".

1940 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill, "The Hatch Act", limiting political activity by Federal employees.

1941 - Joseph Stalin consolidated the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and named Lavrenti Beria as its chief.

1942 - World War II: Red Army troops took bridgeheads over the Don River near Voronezh.

1943 - World War II: American and Canadian troops conquered Enna on Sicily.

1943 - World War II: Axis leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred in northern Italy. (The Little Tramp strutted and Il Duce slapped his own forehead!)

1944 - World War II: "The July 20th Plot", in which German Führer Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1944 - World War II: American troops landed on Guam near Port Apra.

1944 - In Bombay, Indian health authorities announced a cholera epidemic had killed 34,000 in three months.

1944 - The United States Democratic Party nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term as president.

1945 - The U.S. Congress approves "The Bretton Woods Agreement".

1946 - The U.S. Congress's "Pearl Harbor Committee" said former US Franklin D. Roosevelt was completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and called for a unified command structure in the armed forces.

1947 - Pope Pius XII canonized a French saint, Blessed Louis-Marie Gregnon de Montort.

1948 - US President Harry S. Truman issued the first peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union.

1948 - In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA were indicted under "The Smith Act" including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall.

1949 - Israel and Syria signed a truce to end their nineteen month war.

1950 - In Belgium, Parliament authorized king Leopold III to return from exile in Austria.

1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.

1952 - The Egyptian prime minister, Hussein Sirry Pasha resigned.

1952 - The 15th Olympic Games began in Helsinki, Finland.

1953 - The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make "UNICEF" a permanent agency.

1954 - United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy accepted the resignation of his aide Roy Cohn. (Like he had a choice...)

1957 - The Soviets closed Peter the Great Bay, which provided access to Vladivostok, to all foreign ships.

1959 - The Organization for European Economic Cooperation (EEC) admitted Spain as a fully entrenched member.

1960 - The Polaris missile was successfully launched from a submarine, the "USS George Washington" (SSBN-598), for the first time.

1960 - In Lebanon, Saeb Salem was named Prime Minister.

1961 - The Arab League admitted Kuwait into its membership.

1964 - In California, NASA successfully tested the first electric rocket engine.

1965 - Elias Tsirimokos became Prime Minister of Greece.

1969 - Project Apollo: Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to walk on its surface.

1972 - In the Netherlands, the entire cabinet of Prime Minister Barend Biesheuvel resigned in a dispute over the budget.

1973 - The United States Senate passed "The War Powers Act".

1973 - United States Assistant Secretary of Defense, Jerry Friedheim, admitted in testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that the US Defense Department had lied to the United States Congress about bombing Cambodia.

1973 - Palestianian terrorists hijacked a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Tokyo and force the crew to land in Dubai.

1973 - Indiana was found guilty of operating segregated schools by federal judge S. Hugh Dillin, who ordered the state to immediately begin developing a desegregation plan for Indianapolis's schools.

1974 - Forces from Turkey invaded Cyprus after the Greek Cypriots' attempt at enosis. NATO's Council praised the US and Britain for attempting to settle the dispute. Syria and Egypt put their militaries on alert.

1976 - The Viking 1 lander successfully landed on Mars.

1977 - The Central Intelligence Agency released documents under "The Freedom of Information Act" revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.

1979 - Diana Nyad swam the sixty miles from the Bahamas to Florida.

1980 - Takieddih Solh was named Lebanon's new prime minister.

1980 - The United Nations Security Council voted 14-0 that member states should not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

1980 - The United States Air Force revealed that it had a stealth plane.

1981 - The US suspended sales of F-16 fighter jets to Israel.

1984 - Officials of the Miss America pageant asked Vanessa Williams to resign after Penthouse published nude photos of her.

1987 - The United Nations Security Council demanded a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War. (But, as usual for them, did nothing to back it up.)

1988 - The Democrats nominated Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts for President.

1990 - Iran Contra: All of Colonel Oliver North's convictions for perjury and other offenses were overturned by an appeals court.

1992 - Václav Havel resigned as President of Czechoslovakia.

1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's "Fragment Q1" hit Jupiter.

2000 - The leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to win the 2002 Winter Olympics were indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud, and racketeering. (But they got the games anyway, didn't they?)

2001 - The London Stock Exchange went public.

2001 - The 27th G8 summit summit opened in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, was shot by police.

2002 - The United States Senate confirmed Roger L. Gregory as the first black to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

2004 - Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger resigned as an advisor to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign after it was revealed he stole classified documents from the National Archives.

2004 - PETA releases a video of gross cruelty to chickens taken at "Pilgrim's Pride", one of KFC's suppliers in West Virginia. The company pledged to investigate the claims.

2004 - Ahmed Qurei, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, agreed to withdraw his resignation only three days after tendering it.

2004 - Human Rights Watch released a report stating that Sudanese government documents confirmed support for the Arab "Janjaweed" militia in their campaign of ethnic cleansing against African Muslims in Darfur.


Born this day:

1304 - Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet (d. 1374)

1519 - Pope Innocent IX

1620 - Nikolaes Heinsius, Dutch scholar (d. 1681)

1659 - Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (d. 1743)

1661 - Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, French founder of the colony of Louisiana (d. 1706)

1673 - John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, Scottish soldier and diplomat (d. 1747)

1754 - Destutt de Tracy, French philosopher (d. 1836)

1797 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873)

1838 - George Otto Trevelyan, British statesman and biographer (d. 1928)

1838- Augustin Daly, American playwright (d. 1899)

1847 - Max Liebermann, painter and graphic artist (d. 1935)

1849 - Robert Anderson Van Wyck, Mayor of New York City (d. 1918)

1868 - Miron Cristea, first patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (d. 1939)

1873 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator (d. 1932)

1889 - John Reith, BBC director-general

1890 - King George II of Greece (d. 1947)

1895 - László Moholy-Nagy, painter, photographer, sculptor (d. 1946)

1897 - Tadeus Reichstein, Polish chemist and Nobel prize winner (d. 1996)

1902 - Jimmy Kennedy, Irish composer (d. 1984)

1919 - Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountain climber

1920 - Elliot Richardson, American politician (d. 1999)

1923 - Stanisław Albinowski, Polish economist and journalist (d.2005)

1924 - Mort Garson, Canadian composer

1924 - Thomas Berger, American novelist

1925 - Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission

1932 - Otto Schily, German politician

1933 - Nelson Doubleday, American book publisher and baseball executive

1933 - Cormac McCarthy, American author

1934 - Uwe Johnson, German writer

1936 - Barbara Mikulski, U.S. Senator from Maryland

1938 - Natalie Wood, American actress (d. 1981))

1938 - Dame Diana Rigg, British actress "Mrs. Peel"

1939 - Judy Chicago, American feminist artist

1945 - Kim Carnes, American singer and songwriter

1945 - Larry Craig, U.S. Senator from Idaho

1946 - Peter Simons, Belgian director

1947 - Gerd Binnig, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1947 - Carlos Santana, Mexican guitarist

1973 - Haakon Magnus, Crown Prince of Norway


Died this day:

985 - Pope Boniface VII

1031 - King Robert II of France (b. 972)

1398 - Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (b. 1374)

1454 - King John II of Castile (b. 1405)

1524 - Queen Claude of France (b. 1499)

1704 - Peregrine White, first English child born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1620)

1752 - Johann Christoph Pepusch, German composer (b. 1667)

1870 - Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, French writer

1897 - Jean Ingelow, English poet (b. 1820)

1901 - William Cosmo Monkhouse, poet and critic (b. 1840)

1903 - Pope Leo XIII (b. 1810)

1908 - Demetrius Vikelas, Greek International Olympic Committee president (b. 1835)

1922 - Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (b. 1856)

1923 - Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (assassinated) (b. 1878)

1926 - Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, head of the Soviet secret police (b. 1877)

1927 - King Ferdinand of Romania (b. 1865)

1937 - Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor (b. 1874)

1941 - Lew Fields, American vaudeville performer (b. 1867)

1945 - Paul Valéry, French author and poet (b. 1871)

1951 - Friedrich Wilhelm Hohenzollern, Crown Prince of Germany (b. 1882)

1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan (b. 1882)

1953 - Dumarsaid Estime, President of Haiti (b. 1900)

1953 - Jan Struther, British author (b. 1901)

1957 - Dr. Alfred Einstein Cohen, American cardiologist

1959 - William D. Leahy, American admiral (b. 1875)

1967 - Albert Lutuli, South African civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

1968 - Bray Hammond, American historian

1973 - Bruce Lee, actor and martial artist (b. 1940)

1991 - Earl Robinson, American singer and composer

1992 - John Bratby, British painter

1996 - Colin Mitchell, British Member of Parliament

1993 - Vincent Foster Jr., White House deputy counsel (b. 1945)

2001 - Carlo Giuliani, Italian social activist

2003 - Nicolas Freeling, English writer (b. 1927)

2004 - Adi Lady Lala Mara, Fijian chieftainess, wife of Kamisese Mara (b. 1931)

2005 - James Doohan, Canadian-born war veteran, actor, Star Trek's "Scotty" (b. 1920)

July 21st



1298 - The combined armies of England's King Edward I defeated Scottish rebels led by William Wallace at "The Battle of Falkirk".

1403 - At "The Battle of Shrewsbury" forces under King Henry IV of England defeated rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.

1568 - At "The Battle of Jemmingen" Troops of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, defeated Louis of Nassau's army. (Lot of battles on this date...!)

1579 - Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, was discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan.

1718 - "The Treaty of Passarowitz" between the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Republic of Venice was signed.

1774 - Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed "The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji" ending the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774).

1831 - The inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians, was held.

1861 - American Civil War: "The First Battle of Bull Run" - At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war began. It resulted in a Confederate victory.

1865 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shot Dave Tutt dead in what is now regarded as the first true western showdown.

1873 - In Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pulled off the first successful train robbery of the American West.

1877 - After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of 9 rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh staged a sympathy strike that was met with an assault by the state militia.

1925 - At "The Scopes Monkey Trial" In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

1931 - CBS's New York City station began broadcasting the first regular seven days per week television schedule in the U. S.

1944 - World War II: "The Battle of Guam" began with American troops landing on the beaches. Fighting on Guam lasted until the US achieved total victory on August 10.

1954 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

1961 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" became the second American to go into orbit around the Earth.

1963 - Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was elected Pope Paul VI by the College of Cardinals.

1970 - After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed.

1976 - Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, was assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

1984 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushed a worker against a safety bar in what was the first robot-related death in North America.

1994 - Tony Blair was declared the winner of the leadership election of the British Labour Party, paving the way for him to become Prime Minister in 1997.

1995 - "The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis": The People's Liberation Army (PROC) began firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.

1997 - The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrated her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.

2002 - Telecom giant "WorldCom" filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the largest such filing in United States history.

2003 - The last of the original 1933 body style Volkswagen "Beetle" rolled off an assembly line at Puebla, Mexico.

2004 - The British government published "Delivering Security in a Changing World", a paper detailing wide-ranging reforms to the country's armed forces.

2005 - Clarence Richard Silva was ordained to the episcopate as bishop of Honolulu.

2005 - Four attemped terrorist bombings, occurring exactly two weeks after the similar July 7 bombings, targeted London's public transportation system. All four bombs failed to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers initially escaped.


Born this day:

1414 - Pope Sixtus IV (d. 1484)

1620 - Jean Luc Picard, French astronomer (d. 1682) <<< Doesn't that name sound familiar for some reason?

1664 - Matthew Prior, English poet and diplomat (d. 1721)

1810 - Henri Victor Regnault, French chemist and physicist (d. 1878)

1858 - Lovis Corinth, German painter and graphic artist (d. 1925)

1870 - Emil Orlik, Czech painter and graphic artist (d. 1932)

1893 - Hans Fallada, German writer (d. 1947)

1899 - Hart Crane, American poet (d. 1932)

1899 - Ernest Hemingway, American author (d. 1961)

1903 - Roy Neuberger, American financier and art collector

1911 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author (d. 1980)

1920 - Isaac Stern, World renowned Ukrainian violinist (d. 2001)

1922 - Kay Starr, American jazz and popular singer

1924 - Don Knotts, American actor and comedian

1926 - Norman Jewison, Canadian film director

1933 - John Gardner, American author (d. 1982)

1935 - Norbert Blüm, German politician

1938 - Janet Reno, United States Attorney General

1941 - Martin Bandier, music publisher

1944 - Tony Scott, film director

1944 - Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (d. 2002)

1946 - Kenneth Starr, American lawyer and former judge

1948 - Garry Trudeau, American cartoonist

1951 - Robin Williams, American comedian

1957 - Jon Lovitz, American comedian

1983 - Eivør Pálsdóttir, Faroese singer and composer


Died this day:

1425 - Manuel II Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1350)

1796 - Robert Burns, Scottish poet (b. 1759)

1870 - Josef Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1827)

1899 - Robert G. Ingersoll, American political leader and orator, American Civil War Colonel (b. 1833)

1938 - Owen Wister, American author (b. 1860)

1948 - David Wark Griffith, American film director (b. 1875)

1967 - Basil Rathbone, English actor, "Sherlock Holmes" (b. 1892)

1968 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer, choreographer (b. 1878)

1982 - Dave Garroway, American television host (b. 1913)

1998 - Alan Shepard, American astronaut (b. 1923)

1998 - Robert Young, American actor (b. 1907)

2003 - Walter M. "Matt" Jefferies, film art director

2003 - John Davies, president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee

2004 - Elder Neal A. Maxwell, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

2004 - Jerry Goldsmith, American film score composer (b. 1929)

July 22nd



1499 - At "The Battle of Dornach" the Swiss achieved a decisive victory over the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I.

1587 - Colony of Roanoke: A second group of English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island off of North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.

1793 - Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico.

1796 - Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.

1805 - Napoleonic Wars: During the War of the Third Coalition the inconclusive "Battle of Cape Finisterre" was fought between a combined French and Spanish fleet, under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve of Spain, and a British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder.

1812 - Napoleonic Wars: During the Peninsular War, at "The Battle of Salamanca", British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeated French troops near Salamanca, Spain.

1864 - American Civil War: "The Battle of Atlanta" - Outside of Atlanta, Confederate General John Bell Hood led an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman, on Bald Hill.

1908 - Albert Fisher established the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies.

1916 - In San Francisco, a bomb exploded on Market Street during a "Preparedness Day" parade killing 10 and injuring 40.

1933 - Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1934 - In an ambush outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger was shot dead by FBI agents.

1937 - The United States Senate voted down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.

1942 - The US government began compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime needs of the military. <<< This is totally incorrect. In fact there was never a shortage of fuel anywhere in North America during the Second World War. America was, at the time, entirely self-sufficient in oil production. It was the shortage of rubber, needed for tire production, that necessitated the rationing of gasoline.

1942 - Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Nazi death camps began.

1943 - Allied forces captured the Italian city of Palermo.

1944 - The Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland.

1946 - King David Hotel bombing: Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British civil and military administration, killing 90.

1962 - Mariner program: The "Mariner 1" spacecraft began to fly erratically only minutes after launch and had to be destroyed in air.

1977 - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was restored to power.

1992 - Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison, fearing extradition to the United States. (Enjoy the freedom while you can, Pablo...it won't last!)

1997 - The second "Blue Water Bridge" opened between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.

2003 - Members of US 101st Airborne, aided by Special Forces, attacked a compound in Iraq killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year old son, and a bodyguard. (It's too bad about the 14 year old kid.)

2005 - A man, later shown to not be associated with the incidents, was shot dead by police as the hunt began for the London bombers.

2005 - Microsoft releases the final name for its next-gen operating system, Longhorn. The name will be "Windows Vista".


Born this day:

1519 - Pope Innocent IX (d. 1591)

1621 - Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, English politician (d. 1683)

1784 - Friedrich Bessel, mathematician

1822 - Gregor Mendel, Austrian geneticist (d. 1884)

1844 - William Archibald Spooner, known for verbal inversions called spoonerisms (d. 1930)

1859 - Emma Lazarus, American poet (d. 1887)

1882 - Edward Hopper, painter (d. 1967)

1887 - Gustav Ludwig Hertz, German quantum physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)

1890 - Rose Kennedy, mother of John F. Kennedy (d. 1995)

1893 - James Whale, film director (d. 1957)

1894 - Oskar Maria Graf, writer (d. 1967)

1898 - Stephen Vincent Benét, American author (d. 1943)

1898 - Alexander Calder, American artist (d. 1976)

1908 - Amy Vanderbilt, author on etiquette

1913 - Gorni Kramer, Italian bandleader and songwriter

1923 - Bob Dole, U.S. Senator from Kansas and Presidential candidate

1928 - Orson Bean, American film actor

1932 - Oscar De la Renta, fashion designer

1934 - Louise Fletcher, Academy Award-winning actress in 1976

1936 - Tom Robbins, author

1939 - Erhard Walther, artist

1940 - Alex Trebek, Canadian-born game show host

1941 - Ron Turcotte, World class jockey and horse breeding proponent

1943 - Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Senator from Texas

1944 - Rick Davies, member of the rock group "Supertramp "

1947 - Albert Brooks, comedian

1947 - Danny Glover, American actor, comedian, social activist

1947 - Don Henley, drummer, singer, and songwriter

1948 - Otto Waalkes, comedian

1948 - S.E. Hinton, author "The Outsiders"

1949 - Alan Menken, composer

1964 - David Spade, American actor, comedian and producer

1973 - Rufus Wainwright, singer and songwriter

1975 - Markus Metzenthin, economist, financial analyst,

1977 - Brian Rohr, acclaimed artist

1987 - Joshua Small, singer, composer


Died this day:

1461 - Charles VII of France (b. 1403)

1645 - Gaspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, Duke of San Lucar

1676 - Pope Clement X

1734 - Peter King, 1st Baron King, Lord Chancellor of England

1802 - Marie François Xavier Bichat, French anatomist (b. 1771)

1832 - Napoleon II of France

1916 - James Whitcomb Riley, American author and poet (b. 1849)

1922 - Jokichi Takamine, chemist

1932 - Florenz Ziegfeld, theatrical producer (b. 1867)

1950 - William Lyon Mackenzie King, tenth Prime Minister of Canada

1967 - Carl Sandburg, American poet (b. 1878)

1974 - Wayne Morse, former Senator from Oregon

1990 - Manuel Puig, author

2003 - Wahome Muthahi, Kenyan humourist and social commentator

2004 - George Kidd, Canadian diplomat

July 23rd



1632 - 300 colonists bound for New France departed Dieppe, France.

1829 - In the United States, William Austin Burt patented the first typewriter.

1862 - American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck took command of the Union Army.

1903 - Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago, Illinois became the first owner of a Ford Model A. (Not to be confused with the second series "Model A" introduced by Ford in late 1927.)

1914 - Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia allowing the Austrians to find out who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When Serbia denied Austria-Hungary their demands World War I was sparked on July 28, 1914. (A slightly watered down version of events in favor of Austria-Hungary.)

1926 - Fox Film bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.

1940 - US Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issued a declaration on the US non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation, and incorporation, of three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1942- The Treblinka extermination camp became operational.

1952 - General Muhammad Naguib led "The Free Officers Movement" (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser - the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.

1956 - "The Loi Cadre" was passed by the French Republic in order to control French overseas territorial affairs.

1962 - "Telstar" relayed the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.

1967 - 12th Street Riot: In Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history began on 12th Street in the predominantly black inner city. 43 were killed, 342 injured and more than 1,400 buildings burned.

1970 - Qaboos ibn Sa’id, became Sultan of Oman.

1972 - The United States launched "Landsat 1", the first Earth-resources satellite.

1973 - Robert Anton Wilson, the occultist/philosopher, either achieved contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius or started a long-term period of having wild hallucinations. (I'm puttin' my money on option #2.)

1982 - The International Whaling Commission decided to end commercial whaling by 1985-86. (Terribly decent of them, no?)

1983 - "The Gimli Glider": An Air Canada 767 (flight #143) eastbound out of Edmonton, Alberta runs out of fuel in mid-air. This was caused by the plane having to be refuelled in Edmonton via intank dripstick method due to non-functioning fuel guages onboard. The confusion over the actual fuel load aboard arose from the new "imperial to metric" conversion procedures that were used during refueling. The large Boeing widebody glided for over 100 miles before setting down on a small airfield in Gimli, Manitoba.

1984 - Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrenderd her crown after nude photos of her appeared in "Penthouse" magazine.

1986 - In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.

1997 - Digital Equipment Company filed antitrust charges against computer chipmaker Intel.

1999 - Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan, was crowned King Mohammed VI of Morroco at the death of his father.

1999 - The hijack of ANA Flight 61 in Tokyo.

2001 - Megawati Soekarnoputri became the fifth President of Indonesia, replacing Abdurrahman Wahid.

2003 - "Operation Warrior Sweep" was the first major military deployment of the Afghan National Army.

2004 - 11 years after its destruction, "Stari Most" (the Old Bridge) in Mostar was reopened.


Born this day"

1301 - Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria

1649 - Pope Clement XI (d. 1721)

1777 - Philipp Otto Runge, painter (d. 1810)

1796 - Franz Berwald, composer (d. 1868)

1865 - Max Heindel (born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Denmark); Christian occultist, astrologer and mystic (d. 1919)

1886 - Salvador de Madariaga, League of Nations disarmament chief (d. 1978)

1888 - Raymond Chandler, American author of crime stories and novels (d. 1959)

1892 - Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1975)

1893 - Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (d. 1990)

1899 - Gustav Heinemann, politician, President of the Federal Republic of Germany (d. 1976)

1906 - Vladimir Prelog, Croat chemist, Nobel Prize (d. 1998)

1933 - Bert Convy, American game show host, actor and singer (d. 1991)

1936 - Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Punjabi revolutionary (d. 1973)

1936 - Anthony Kennedy, U.S. Supreme Court justice

1940 - Don Imus, American talk radio host

1943 - Tony Joe White, R&B singer-songwriter

1947 - Gardner Dozois, science fiction author

1950 - Alex Kozinski, US circuit court Judge

1957 - Theo van Gogh, film director (d. 2004)

1961 - Woody Harrelson, American writer, actor, comedian

1961 - Martin Gore, musician, songwriter

1970 - Thea Dorn, German writer

1971 - Dalvin DeGrate aka "Mr. Dalvin", R&B sonwriter, singer

1973 - Monica Lewinsky, Congressional intern (Biting my tongue...!)


Died this day:

1373 - Saint Birgitta, saint

1727 - Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt,
Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

1757 - Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer (b. 1685)

1773 - George Edwards, naturalist (b. 1693)

1885 - Ulysses S. Grant, general, 18th President of the United States

1916 - Sir William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)

1920 - Conrad Kohrs, rancher, pioneer in scientific agriculture

1924 - Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (b. 1850)

1942 - Adam Czerniakow, Polish engineer (suicide) (b. 1880)

1948 - D. W. Griffith, film director

1951 - Henri Philippe Pétain, leader of Vichy France (Too bad he didn't "off" 11 years ealier.)

1955 - Cordell Hull, Secretary of State

1966 - Montgomery Clift, actor

1973 - Eddie Rickenbacker, aviation pioneer

1982 - Vic Morrow, actor

1983 - Georges Auric, French composer (b. 1899)

1989 - Donald Barthelme, American author (b. 1931)

1999 - King Hassan II of Morocco

2001 - Eudora Welty, author (b. 1909)

2002 - Dr. William L. Pierce, author, leader of the National Alliance

2002 - Chaim Potok, American novelist

2003 - James E. Davis, New York City councilman (murdered)

2004 - Carlos Paredes, musician and composer

July 24th



311 - The end of the fifth year of reign of Constantine the Great. (Hmmm, must have been a slow news day.)

1216 - Cencio Savelli was consecrated as Pope Honorius III.

1411 - "The Battle of Harlaw", one of the bloodiest battles on Scottish soil, was an inconclusive engagement fought near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire. Donald, Lord of the Isles (Macdonald), and his invading Highlanders engaged an army of Lowlanders commanded by the Earl of Mar.

1487 - Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands went on strike against a ban on foreign (mainly imported German) beer.

1567 - Mary Queen of Scots was deposed and replaced by her 1 year old son King James VI.

1701 - Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Ft. Pontchartrain, which later became the city of Detroit.

1814 - War of 1812: British General Phineas Riall advanced toward Niagara to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.

1832 - Benjamin Bonneville led the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using Wyoming's "South Pass".

1847 - After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young led 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah's Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.

1864 - American Civil War: At "The Battle of Kernstown" Confederate General Jubal Early's forces defeated Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep Yankees out of the Shenandoah Valley.

1866 - Reconstruction: Tennessee became the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.

1901 - O. Henry was released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.

1910 - James MacGillivray published the first account of "Paul Bunyan" in the Detroit News.

1911 - Hiram Bingham III re-discovered Machu Picchu "The Lost City of the Incas".

1915 - In Chicago, the passenger ship "Eastland" capsized in 19 feet of water and just 20 feet off the wharf, with the loss of 845 lives.

1923 - "The Treaty of Lausanne", that saw the settling of the boundaries of modern Turkey, was signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War.

1927 - "The Menin Gate" war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.

1929 - "The Kellogg-Briand Pact", renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, went into effect. It was first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers.

1931 - A fire at the "Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania killed 27 people and injuired another 217. (confirmed)

1935 - The dust bowl heat wave reached its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (44°C) in Chicago, Illinois and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1937 - Alabama dropped rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys."

1943 - World War II: "Operation Gomorrah" began. RAF and RCAF formations bombed Hamburg by night, The US 8th Air Force by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of (mostly incinderary) explosives would have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

1956 - At New York City's "Copacabana Club", Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed their last comedy show together (which started on July 25, 1946).

1959 - At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, US vice-president Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev have a "kitchen debate."

1965 - Vietnam War: Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi were the first targets of antiaircraft missiles during the war. One was shot down and the other three sustained damage.

1967 - During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declared to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal, "Vive le Québec libre!" (Long live a free Quebec!). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and most English Canadians. de Gualle was never permitted into Canada again.

1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

1974 - Watergate Scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they ordered him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1983 - George Brett, batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, had a game-winning home run nullified in "The Pine Tar Incident".

1998 - A gunman burst into the United States Capitol and opened fire, killing two police officers. He was later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.

2001 - Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, and became the only monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.

2001 - "The Taiwan Solidarity Union" was established.

2002 - James Traficant was expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.

2002 - Alfred Moisiu became President of Albania.

2005 - In his last professional race ever, Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France.


Born this day:

1660 - Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, English politician (d. 1718)

1725 - John Newton cleric and hymnist (d. 1807)

1783 - Simón Bolívar, South American liberator (d. 1830)

1786 - Joseph Nicollet, mathematician and explorer (d. 1843)

1802 - Alexandre Dumas père, French writer (d. 1870)

1803 - Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (d. 1856)

1853 - William Gillette, actor and author (d. 1937)

1860 - Alfons Mucha, artist (d. 1939)

1864 - Frank Wedekind, German writer (d. 1918)

1878 - Lord Dunsany, writer (d. 1957)

1880 - Ernest Bloch, Swiss composer (d. 1959)

1895 - Robert Graves, English author (d. 1985)

1896 - Hermann Kasack, writer (d. 1966)

1898 - Amelia Earhart, American aviator (d.

1937 (disappeared))

1899 - Chief Dan George, Native Canadian actor and aboriginal proponent (d. 1981)

1908 - Cootie Williams, American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter (d. 1985)

1914 - Edwin "Honest Ed" Mirvish, retailer and impresario

1916 - John D. MacDonald, American novelist, (d. 1986)

1917 - Robert Farnon, conductor, composer and arranger (d. 2005)

1918 - Ruggiero Ricci, American classical violinist

1920 - Bella Abzug, U.S. Congresswoman (d. 1998)

1929 - Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and author

1931 - Ermanno Olmi, Italian director

1934 - Rudy Collins, drummer (Dizzy Gillespie Quintet)

1935 - Pat Oliphant, political cartoonist

1936 - Ruth Buzzi, American actress and comedienne, producer

1940 - Stanley Hauerwas, Christian theologian

1947 - Peter Serkin, American pianist

1949 - Michael Richards, writer, comedian

1951- Chris Smith, British politician

1952 - Gus Van Sant, film director


Died this day:

1115 - Matilda, countess of Tuscany (b. 1046)

1292 - St. Kinga (b. 1224)

1568 - Don Carlos of Spain (b. 1545)

1739 - Benedetto Marcello, Italian composer (b. 1686)

1768 - Nathanial Lardner, English theologian (b. 1684)

1862 - Martin Van Buren, eighth President of the United States (b. 1782)

1927 - Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Japanese writer (b. 1892)

1969 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (b. 1904)

1974 - James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)

1980 - Peter Sellers, British comedian and actor (b. 1925)

1991 - Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jewish author, Nobel Prize laureate

1996 - Mohammed Farah Aidid, Somali warlord (Good riddance!)

1997 - William J. Brennan, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (b. 1906)

2005 - Richard Doll, Epidemiologist and pioneering Cancer researcher (b. 1912)

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

July 25th


Happy Birthday, Bonster!

306 - Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

1261 - The city of Constantinople was recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Michael VIII Palaeologus, this re-established the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines also succeeded in capturing Thessalonica and the rest of the Latin Empire.

1547 - Henry II of France was crowned.

1567 - Don Diego de Losada founded the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.

1593 - Henry IV of France publicly converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. (Those French keep giving me all these easy ones!)

1722 - The "Three Years War" began along the Maine and Massachusetts border.

1758 - French and Indian War: The island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia was silenced and all French warships were destroyed or taken.

1759 - French and Indian War: In present day Ontario, Canada, British forces captured Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandoned Fort Rouillé.

1797 - British Admiral Horatio Nelson lost more than 300 men, and his right arm, during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife Island (Spain).

1799 - At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon's French army defeated 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.

1814 - War of 1812: At "The Battle of Lundy's Lane", reinforcements arrived near Niagara for General Riall's British force. A bloody all-night battle with Jacob Brown's Americans commenced at 18:00. Eventually the Americans retreated to Fort Erie.

1853 - Joaquin Murietta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", was killed.

1861 - American Civil War: "The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution" was passed by the U.S. Congress stating that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

1866 - The U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing the rank of "General of the Army" (now called "5-star general"). Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant was the first to receive this rank.

1868 - Wyoming became a United States territory.

1869 - The Japanese "daimyo" begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.


1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War began when the Japanese fired upon a Chinese warship.

1897 - Writer Jack London sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he would write his first successful string of stories.

1898 - The United States invasion of Puerto Rico began with U.S. troops landing at Guánica Bay.

1907 - Korea became a protectorate of Japan.

1908 - Ajinomoto was born. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovered that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG) and patented a process for manufacturing it.

1909 - Louis Bleriot mades the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine. The flight from Calais to Dover took 37 minutes.

1917 - Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" war measures act. The lowest bracket was 4% and highest was 25%. (My but how things have changed.)

1920 - Telecommunications: The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast was completed.

1934 - Nazis assassinated Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.

1943 - World War II: Benito Mussolini was forced out of office by his own "Italian Grand Council" and was replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

1944 - World War II: Operation Spring - One of the bloodiest days for Canadians during the war: 18,444 casualties, including 5,021 killed.

1946 - Nuclear testing: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the "USS Saratoga" was sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean when the US detonated the "Baker Day" device.

1946 - At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a comedy team.

1952 - Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

1956 - 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner "SS Andrea Doria" sank after colliding with the "SS Stockholm" in heavy fog. 51 were killed in the incident, all aboard the Andrea Doria.

1965 - Newport Folk Festival: Bob Dylan went "electric" for the first time.

1969 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declared "The Nixon Doctrine" stating that the United States now expected its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.

1973 - The Soviet "Mars 5" space probe was launched.

1976 - The first performance of the Philip Glass opera "Einstein on the Beach" was performed.

1977 - A supposed thunderbird was reported attacking a boy named Marlon Lowe. (Oh sure it did!)

1978 - The first so-called test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born.

1984 - Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a space walk.

1989 - Rock/Hip-hop trio The Beastie Boys released the classic album "Paul's Boutique".

1990 - Comedian (cow) Roseanne Barr grabbed her crotch and spat upon the ground while performing the U.S. national anthem at a San Diego Padres game. (She's always such a class act.)

1994 - Israel and Jordan signed "The Washington Declaration" which formally ended the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.

1997 - K.R. Narayanan was sworn-in as India's 10th president and the first member of the Dalits caste to hold this office.

1998 - The US Navy commissioned the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and put her into service.

2000 - An Air France Concorde supersonic passenger jet caught fire and crashed just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 5 on the ground. The cause was later shown to be from debris on the runway that had been sucked into the the aircraft's #1 engine intake.

2004 - Lance Armstrong made history, winning his 6th (consecutive) Tour de France.


Born this day: (Besides the Bonster)

1109 - King Afonso I of Portugal

1562 - Kato Kiyomasa, Japanese daimyo and samurai (d. 1611)

1653 - Agostino Steffani, Italian diplomat and composer (d. 1728)

1658 - Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll, Scottish privy councillor (d. 1703)

1799 - David Douglas, botanist, plant collector, explorer (d. 1834)

1844 - Thomas Eakins, artist (d. 1916)

1848 - Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of Britain (d. 1930)

1848 - Ottokar Kernstock, poet (d. 1928)

1867 - Max Dauthendey, writer (d. 1918)

1870 - Maxfield Parrish, illustrator (d. 1966)

1883 - Alfredo Casella, Italian composer (d. 1947)

1884 - Davidson Black, anthropologist (d. 1934)

1894 - Walter Brennan, Academy Award winning actor (d. 1974)

1902 - Eric Hoffer, philosopher (d. 1983)

1905 - Elias Canetti, Bulgarian writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1994)

1906 - Johnny Hodges, saxophonist (d. 1970)

1907 - Karl Höller, composer (d. 1987)

1920 - Rosalind Franklin, scientist (d. 1958)

1929 - Somnath Chatterjee, Indian politician

1930 - Maureen Forrester, Canadian contralto

1937 - Colin Renfrew, archeology professor

1941 - Marco Lucioni, Italian painter

1948 - Peggy Fleming, American figure skater

1967 - Chuck Paugh, record producer and distributor

1972 - Valerio Beni, chemist

1978 - Louise Brown, first test tube baby


Died this day:

306 - Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor

1492 - Pope Innocent VIII

1681 - Urian Oakes, English-born President of Harvard University (b. 1631)

1791 - Isaac Low, New York delegate to the Continental Congress

1794 - André Chénier, French writer (b. 1762)

1861 - Jonas Furrer, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1805)

1834 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet (b. 1772)

1843 - Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor (b. 1766)

1887 - John Taylor, American religious leader (b. 1808)

1899 - Theodore August Heintzman, piano manufacturer

1934 - François Coty, French perfume manufacturer (b. 1874)

1934 - Engelbert Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria (assassinated)

1934 - Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist, opposition leader

1937 - Edward Saunders, agricultural scientist

1958 - Harold Warner, (Warner Brothers) American film studio founder

1973 - Louis Stephen St. Laurent, twelfth Prime Minister of Canada

1980 - Vladimir Vysotsky, Russian poet, singer, and actor (b. 1938)

1997 - Ben Hogan, American golf legend (b. 1912)

2003 - Ludwig Bölkow, aircraft designer and engineer

2003 - John Schlesinger, British film director (b. 1926)

This post has been edited at member's request.Ron,

July 26th



811 - At "The Battle of Pliska" Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I was killed and his heir, Stauracius, was seriously wounded.

1139 - Afonso, then a count, was proclaimed first king of Portugal and immediately declared independence from Castile.

1469 - "The Battle of Edgecote Moor" took place 6 miles northeast of Banbury (Oxfordshire), England during "The Wars of the Roses". The battle pitted the forces of King Edward IV against those of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. Warwick's rebel troops were victorious.

1581 - "Plakkaat van Verlatinghe" (Oath of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II was made.

1775 - The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General.

1788 - New York ratified the United States Constitution and was admitted as the 11th state of the United States.

1803 - "The Surrey Iron Railway", arguably the world's first public railway, opened in south London.

1822 - Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín met for the first time in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

1847 - Liberia gained its independence. (And they've been fighting amongst each other ever since.)

1861 - American Civil War: George McClellan assumed command of the Army of the Potomac following the disastrous Union defeat at "The First Battle of Bull Run".

1863 - American Civil War: End of "Morgan's Raid" - At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers were captured by Union forces.

1878 - In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" made his last clean getaway when he stole a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box would be found later with a taunting poem inside.

1887 - L. L. Zamenhof published "Dr. Esperanto's International Language".

1908 - United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issued an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

1936 - The Axis Powers make the decision to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.

1941 - World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

1945 - General election results in Great Britain were announced. The Labour Party won 48% of the vote and a Parliamentary majority of 146 seats, the largest in post-war British history. This is in spite of Conservative Party leader Winston Churchill's popularity.

1945 - "The Potsdam Declaration" was signed in Potsdam, Germany.

1947 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed "The National Security Act" into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.

1948 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed "Executive Order 9981" desegregating the military of the United States.

1948 - André Marie became Prime Minister of France.

1953 - Fidel Castro led an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, beginning "The Cuban Revolution".

1956 - Following the World Bank's decline to fund building the Aswan High Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.

1958 - Explorer program: "Explorer 4" was launched.

1963 - "Syncom 2", the world's first geosynchronous satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral onboard a Delta B booster.

1963 - An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia left over 1800 dead and thousands more injured.

1963 - "The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" voted to admit Japan.

1966 - Lord Gardiner issued "The Practice Statement" in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent. (Can you say HYPOCRITS"?)

1968 - Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu ws sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war. (How dare he promote peace to the South Vietnamese government?)

1971 - Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 15.

1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer worm, He became the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act".

1991 - Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman, was arrested for allegedly exposing himself in a Sarasota, Florida adult theatre.

1991 - "Sonic the Hedgehog" was released for the Sega Megadrive in Japan.

2005 - The launch of space shuttle "Discovery", NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the loss of "Columbia" in 2003.


Born this day:

1030 - Stanislaus of Szczepanów, St. Stanislaw (d. 1079)

1678 - Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)

1782 - John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)

1791 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, composer (d. 1844)

1802 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (d. 1855)

1855 - Ferdinand Tönnies, sociologist (d. 1936)

1856 - George Bernard Shaw, author, playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 (d. 1950)

1865 - Philipp Scheidemann, politician (d. 1939)

1874 - Serge Koussevitsky, Russian conductor (d. 1951)

1875 - Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)

1875 - Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)

1894 - Aldous Huxley, author (d. 1963)

1897 - Paul Gallico, author (d. 1976)

1902 - Gracie Allen, actress, comedienne (d. 1964)

1903 - Estes Kefauver, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (d. 1963)

1908 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)

1909 - Vivian Vance, actress (d. 1979)

1921 - Jean Shepherd, writer (d. 1999)

1922 - Blake Edwards, film director

1928 - Stanley Kubrick, movie director (d. 1999)

1928 - Francesco Cossiga, eighth President of Italy

1939 - John Howard, twenty-fifth Prime Minister of Australia

1940 - Mary Jo Kopechne, aide to Robert F. Kennedy (d. 1969)

1943 - Mick Jagger, English musician

1959 - Kevin Spacey, Academy Award-winning actor

1977 - Rebecca St. James, Australian born Gospel musician and songwriter


Died this day:

456 - Offa, king of Mercia

811 - Nicephorus I, Byzantine emperor (in battle)

1380 - Emperor Komyo of Japan, second of the Ashikaga Pretenders (b. 1322)

1680 - John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English writer (b. 1647)

1712 - Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (b. 1631)

1723 - Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Lancaster and Kesteven, English statesman (b. 1660)

1863 - Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (b. 1793)

1919 - Sir Edward Poynter, British painter (b. 1836)

1925 - Gottlob Frege, German mathematician and logician (b. 1848)

1925 - William Jennings Bryan, American politician (b. 1860)

1932 - Frederick Duesenberg, American automotive manufacturer (b. 1876)

1935 - Winsor McCay, early cartoonist (b. 1871)

1952 - Eva Perón, wife of Argentine President Juan Perón (b. 1919)

1953 - Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)

1969 - Frank Loesser, composer (b. 1910)

1971 - Diane Arbus , photographer (b. 1923)

1986 - Averell Harriman, American diplomat (b. 1891)

1988 - Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani scholar and theologist (b. 1919)

1992 - Mary Wells, American soul and R&B singer (b. 1943)

2001 - Peter von Zahn, German journalist (b. 1913)