654 St. Eugene I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1519 Magellan's five ships set sail to circumnavigate the Earth
1680 New Mexico rebellion of the Pueblo Indians against Spaniards
1743 Earliest recorded prize fighting rules are formulated
1790 Robert Gray's "Columbia" completes the first American around world voyage
1792 Mobs in Paris attack the palace of Louis XVI
1809 Ecuador declares independence from Spain
1821 Missouri is admitted as 24th US state
1827 Race riots in Cincinnati
1831 Former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection against slavery
1833 Chicago incorporates as a village of about 200 residents
1835 Mob of whites and oxen pulled a black school to a swamp in New Hampshire
1846 Congress charters the "nation's attic," the Smithsonian Institution
1856 Hurricane washes away 200-300 people at Last Island, Louisiana
1861 Battle of Wilson's Creek
1866 Transatlantic cable is laid: former President Buchanan communicates with Queen Victoria
1885 Leo Daft opens America's first commercially operated electric streetcar
1887 An excursion train crashes killing 101 people in Chatsworth, Illinois
1893 Chinese deported from San Francisco under the Exclusion Act
1900 The first Davis Cup Tennis Tournament: the US defeats England
1911 The Parliament Act reduces the power of the House of Lords
1913 The 2nd Balkan War ends with the Treaty of Bucharest
1919 The Ukrainian National Army massacres 25 Jews in Podolia, Ukrane
1921 FDR stricken with polio at his summer home
1944 Race riots erupt in Athens, Alabama
1945 Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, dies
1945 Japan announces its willingness to surrender to the Allies provided the status of Emperor Hirohito is unchanged
1948 ABC enters network TV at 7 PM in New York
1948 Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" TV series debuts on ABC
1949 The National Military Establishment is renamed the Department of Defense
1954 Sir Gordon Richards retires as a jockey with record 4,870 wins
1961 England applies for membership in the European Common Market
1966 The first lunar orbiter launched by US
1975 David Frost purchases exclusive rights to interview Nixon
1977 Postal employee David Berkowitz is arrested in Yonkers, New York. Berkowitz is accused of being the "Son of Sam" aka "the 44 caliber killer"
1980 Jack Nicklaus wins the PGA Championship for his 5th time
1981 Coca-Cola Bottling Company agrees to put $34 million into black businesses
1981 The Richard Nixon Museum in San Clemente closes
1985 Michael Jackson buys ATV Music and every Beatle song for $47 million
1988 The UN estimates that Asia's population has hit 3 billion people
1990 The US's Magellan spacecraft lands on Venus |