This Day in History

1885
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City aboard the French ship Isere.

1928
Amelia Earhart embarked on the first trans-Atlantic flight by a woman.

1944
The Republic of Iceland was established.

1963
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that no locality may require recitation of Lord's Prayer or Bible verses in public schools.

1972
Burglary of Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, DC, started the Watergate political scandal.

1994
O. J. Simpson's slow-speed chase by the police, watched by millions on TV, ended in his arrest.

2002
[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Australian scientists announced that they had "teleported" a laser beam—breaking it up and reconstructing it in another location.[/COLOR]

I find this last one very interesting.:alien:

Actually they transported a single photon.

1966 my sister was born

Not big in the grand scheme of things, but pretty cool for me.

Radar;356197 wrote:

Actually they transported a single photon.

even more interesting....science fiction meets up with reality :)

wolf;356210 wrote:

1966 my sister was born

Not big in the grand scheme of things, but pretty cool for me.

sisters are precious!

1862
Congress abolished slavery in the U.S. territories.

1987
The Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creationism as well.

2002
Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai was sworn in.

March 6, 1836, The Alamo is overrun.

Remember The Alamo

List of defenders

[ATTACH]55578[/ATTACH]

Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" was released in the U.S. 43 years ago today.

:devil:

March 14, 1910

Lakeview Oil Company was drilling for oil in Kern County, California, expecting natural gas and a bit of oil. At 2440 feet pressurized oil blew through the well casing. And continued to do so for 544 days. The gusher was finally brought under control in September of 1911. Initial flow was 18,800 barrels per day, peaking at 90,000 per day. Total = 9,400,000 barrels (1,200,000 tons), of which less than half was recovered.

The event is known as The Lakeview Gusher.

April 10, 837

Halley's Comet comes to within 3.2 million miles of Earth.

1865

Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his troops for the last time, one day after surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General U.S. Grant.

1925

"The Great Gatsby" is published.

1970

Paul McCartney, of The Beatles, announces he is leaving the band.

1992

Sam Kinison is killed in a head-on crash near Needles, California.

April 10, 1976
I was in a muther-fucking school bus accident, as reminded by a schoolmate on bacefook.

Damn. Did you make it?

:p:

April 11, 1965

Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak - 47 tornadoes strike the states of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, killing 271 people, and injuring 1,500. 137 of those dead, and 1,200 of those injured were in Indiana.

1970

"Houston, we've had a problem." - The Apollo 13 Accident

Gravdigr;957285 wrote:

Damn. Did you make it?

:p:

Yeah, some of the kids were pretty busted up though. You know those old buses metal seats and all. She did 7 weeks in the hospital.

Well, that don't sound fun at all.

April 14, 1828

Noah Webster copyrights his American Dictionary of the English Language.

1846

The Donner Party departs Springfield, Illinois headed for California. Some of them got hungry. Damn hungry.

1860

The first Pony Express (founded (in part) by my homeboy Alexander Majors) rider reached San Francisco.

1865

Abe Lincoln takes in a show.

1881

The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight occurs in El Paso, Texas.

1912

The RMS Titanic, touted as unsinkable, proves otherwise.

1956

Videotape is first demonstrated.

1999

The costliest Australian natural disaster, a hailstorm, strikes Sydney, dishing out A$2.3 billion in insured damages.

Births

Christiaan Huygens-1629; Anne Sullivan-1866; John Gielgud-1904; Rod Steiger-1925; Loretta Lynn-1932; Pete Rose-1941; Ritchie Blackmore-1945;

Deaths

John Singer Sargent-1925; Richard Hickock (of 'In Cold Blood' infamy)-1965; Burl Ives-1995; Don Ho-2007; Percy Sledge-2015

April 15, 1802

William Wordsworth takes a walk with his sister, Dorothy, and is inspired to write "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud".

1817

The American School For The Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, is founded in Hartford, Connecticut.

1861

President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to stop the insurrection that became the Civil War.

1865

President Lincoln dies a day after being shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson becomes President.

1892

General Electric is formed.

1912

The Titanic sinks the day after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

1924

Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

1945

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated.

1952

The B-52 Stratofortress makes its maiden flight.

1964

The first Ford Mustang rolls off the showroom floor.

2013

Two bombs explode near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Births

Leonardo da Vinci-1452; Joseph Seagram-1841;Thomas Hart Benton-1889; Percy Shaw-1890; Corrie ten Boom-1892; Nikita Krushchev-1894; Roy Clark-1933; Dave Edmunds-1944; Michael Kamen-1948; Heloise-1951; Emma Thompson-1959; songwrite Linda Perry-1965; Samantha Fox-1966; Seth Rogen-1982

Deaths

Abraham Lincoln-1865; Wallace Beery-1949; Jean-Paul Sartre-1980; Corrie ten Boom-1983; Pol Pot-1998; Joey Ramone-2001

Is music ok for this thread?

Hope so;

April 17th

1960: At age 21, Eddie Cochran was killed, in the UK, when a taxi he was riding in struck a lamp post on Rowden Hill, Chippenham, Wiltshire -- the taxi driver was convicted of "dangerous driving", fined £50, disqualified from driving for 15 years and imprisoned for six months

Plus, in a way of introduction (and proof that I am not a BOT/Spammer), my name is Randall, from Fort Worth TX.

Have a great day!

rgb

April 17, 1397

Chaucer tells The Canterbury Tales for the first time.

1524

Giovanni da Verrazzano reaches New York harbor.

1861

Virginia votes to secede.

1897

The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident

1937

Daffy Duck makes his first appearance, in "Porky's Duck Hunt".

1961

Bay of Pigs invasion

1969

Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.

1970

The best friend I've ever had was born.

Apollo 13 returns, safely, to Earth.

2013

An explosion at a fertilizer warehouse in West, Texas kills 15, wounds 160.



Births

Alexander Cartwright-1820; J.P.Morgan-1837; Thornton Wilder-1897; Nicolas Nabokov-1903; William Holden-1918; Harry Reasoner-1923; Don Kirshner-1934; Paul Thomas-1947; Rowdy Roddy Piper-1954; Sean Bean-1959; Boomer Esiason-1961; Maynard James Keenan-1964:devil:; John-1970; Ruffian (race horse)-1982; Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice)-1974

Deaths

Benjamin Franklin-1790; George Jennings (invented the flush toilet, God bless him)-1882; Eddie Cochran-1960; Felix Pappalardi-1983; Dick Shawn-1987; Linda McCartney-1998; Kitty Carlisle-2007

April 19, 1770

Lt. James Cook sights the east of coast of what would become known as Australia.

1951

Gen. Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.

1971

Charles Manson is sentencd to death fro the Tate-LaBianca murders.

1985

ATF and FBI agents lay siege to The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in Arkansas. The CSA surrenders two days later.

1987

The Simpsons premieres as a short on The Tracey Ullman Show.

1989

A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47.

1993

The 51 day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas ends when fire breaks out in one of the buildings. 81 are killed.

South Dakota governor George Mickelson is killed, along with seven others, when a state-owned plane crashes near Dubuque, Iowa.

1995

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is bombed, killing 168 people.

1997

Fire breaks out in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is inundated by the Red River Flood. Eleven buildings are destroyed.

2011

Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, a title he'd held since July 1961.

2013

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police.

Births

Ole Evinrude-1877; Eliot Ness-1903; Jack Roush-1942; Tim Curry-1946; Ashley Judd-1968; Jesse James (bike builder)-1969

Deaths

Lord Byron-1824; Charles Darwin-1882; Pierre Curie-1906; Jim Corbett-1955; David Koresh, George Mickelson-1993; Ruth Hussey-2005; Allan Arbus (Dr. Sidney Freedman on MASH), Al Neuharth, Tamerlan Tsarnaev-2013; Freddie Gray-2015

Gravdigr;957898 wrote:

April 19, 1770

Lt. James Cook sights the east of coast of what would become known as Australia.

I'm amazed Tasman discovered New Zealand and didn't have a clue Australia was there. Then it took another 130 years before Cook found Australia. Google Earth would have shook those boys up. :haha:

April 20, 1861

Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the U.S. Army to command the forces of the state of Virginia.

1918

The Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, shoots down his final victim.

1945

Adolf Hitler makes his final trip to the surface from the Führerbunker. It is his 56th birthday.

1946

The League of Nations is offically dissolved.

1972

Apollo 16 lands on the moon.

1999

Columbine high school shooting kills 13, and injures 21.

2007

Johnson Space Center shooting

2010

The semi-submersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon explodes and burns. Oil spills for six months.

Births

Adolf Hitler-1889; Bruce Cabot-1904; Lionel Hampton-1908; John Paul Stevens-1920; George Takei-1937; Jamie Gillis-1943; Veronica Cartwright-1949; Jessica Lange-1948; Luther Vandross-1951; Clint Howard-1959; Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf-1962; Andy Serkis-1964; Mike Portnoy-1967

Deaths

Chief Pontiac-1769; Bram Stoker-1912; Steve Marriott, Don Siegel-1991; Benny Hill-1992; Christopher Robin Milne-1996; Rick Rude, Señor Wences-1999

April 22, 1970

The first Earth Day is celebrated.

1977

For the first time, optical fiber is used to carry live telephone traffic.

1993

Version 1.0 of the Mosaic web browser is released.

2008

The last F-117 Nighthawk in service is retired.

Births

Immanuel Kant-1724; Vladimir Lenin-1870; Nicola Sacco-1891; Vladimir Nabokov-1899; J. Robert Oppenheimer-1904; Eddie Albert1906; Yehudi Menuhin-1916; Charles Mingus-1922; Bettie Page, Aaron Spelling-1923; Glen Campbell-1936; Jack Nicholson-1937; Steve Fossett-1944; John Waters-1946; Peter Frampton-1950; Paul Carrack-1951

Deaths

Henry Royce-1933; Earl Hines-1983; Ansel Adams-1984; Richard Nixon-1994; Erma Bombeck-1996; Linda Lovelace-2002; Pat Tillman-2004; Richie Havens-2013

April 23, 1985

Coca Cola has the biggest brainfart ever, and reformulates its product and releases it as "New" Coke. Yeah, that lasted three months.

2005

The first YouTube video is uploaded, entitled "Me, At The Zoo".

Births

James Buchanan-1791; Stephen Douglas-1813; Shirley Temple-1928; Halston, Jim Fixx-1932; Roy Orbison-1936; Lee Majors-1939; Sandra Dee-1942; Hervé Villechaize ("De plane! De plane!")-1943; Narada Michael Walden-1952; James Russo-1953; Tony Atlas-1954; Timothy McVeigh-1968; and just for Sheldon, John Cena-1977

Deaths

Bill Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes-1616; William Wordsworth-1850; Alferd (no, not Alfred) Packer-1907; Charles Dawes-1950; William Hartnell (Dr. Who)-1975; Buster Crabbe-1983; Otto Preminger-1986; Johnny Thunders-1991; Cesar Chavez-1993; Howard Cosell, John C. Stennis-1995; James Earl Ray-1998; David Halberstam, Boris Yeltsin-2007

can one of you Brits get your hands on one of these 2# coins for me?

Those are 2 of 3 different coins. Which do you want? Click on the image to order all 3 from the Royal Mint.

Oh. I thought the crown was the back. I want the skull. Thanks!

Cool, the Queen and her mother.

He could get this nice shiny limited edition version and have it welded onto his Harley's gas tank, maybe one on each side.

Nah, silver matches, gold clashes.

And it is the Pound Sterling, not the Pound Carat. I suppose silver is more authentic too.

April 25, 1847

The last survivors of The Donner Party leave the wilderness.

1859

Ground is broken for the Suez Canal.

1898

The U.S. declares war on Spain.

1915

The Battle of Gallipoli begins.

1916

Anzac Day is commemorated for the first time.

1944

The United Negro College Fund is established.

1953

Francis Crick and James Watson describe the structure of DNA.

1954

The first practical solar cell is demonstrated.

1959

The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens to shipping.

1960

The USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1961

Robert Noyce patents the integrated circuit.

1983

Pioneer 10 travels beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Yuri Andropov invites 11-year old Samantha Smith to visit the Soviet Union.

2015

Nepal is hit with a 7.8 earthquake that kills over 9,000 people.

Riots break out in Baltimore, Maryland following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

Births

Oliver Cromwell-1599; Guglielmo Marconi-1874; Edward R. Murrow-1908; Ella Fitzgerald-1917; Albert King-1923; Paul Mazursky-1930; Meadowlark Lemon-1932; Jerry Leiber-1933; Al Pacino-1940; Stu Cook-1945; Steve Ferrone-1950; Joe Buck-1969; Tim Duncan-1976

Deaths

12th Dalai Lama-1875; Art Fleming, Ginger Rogers-1995; Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes-2002; Bobby Pickett-2007; Bea Arthur-2009

April 26, 1777

Sixteen year old Sybil Ludington rides forty miles to alert Colonial forces to the approach of the British.

1865

Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth is killed by Union forces.

1933

The Gestapo is established.

1962

Ranger 4, the first U.S. spacecraft to reach another celestial body, crashes into the far side of the moon.

1966

An earthquake destroys most of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

1986

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explodes and burns, resulting in the world's worst nuclear power plant accident.

1989

A tornado strikes Bangladesh, killing 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving almost 80,000 homeless. It is the world's deadliest tornado.

1991

A tornado outbreak sees 70 tornadoes form over the central U.S..

Births

Marcus Aurelius-121; John James Audubon-1785; Frederick Law Olmsted-1822; Rudolf Hess-1894; Charles Francis Richter-1900; Carol Burnett-1933; Gary Wright-1943; Jet Li-1963

Deaths

John Wilkes Booth-1865; Gypsy Rose Lee-1970; Jim Davis-1981; Count Basie-1984; Broderick Crawford-1986; Lucille Ball-1989; A. B. Guthrie, Jr.-1991; George Jones-2013; Jayne Meadows-2015

Gravdigr;958461 wrote:

Sixteen year old Sybil Ludington rides forty miles to alert Colonial forces to the approach of the British.

And Paul Revere gets all the press because he was a well known businessman with connections.

Practical. When telling the story, if they say Sybil Ludington the response is, Who? Saying Paul Revere who everybody knows, they aren't interrupted and get on with it. Besides, it's in the national interest to promote a hero, instead of heroin. That shit's bad for kids, and other living things. :haha:

Hey, I like John Cena!

Not like Sheldon!

:D

April 28, 1503

Battle of Cerignola, the first battle in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder (as opposed to black powder).

1789

Mutiny on the Bounty, Lt. Bligh and 18 others are set adrift, while the remaining crew return, temporarily, to Tahiti.

1869

Chinese and Irish laborers lay ten miles of railroad track in one day, a record that remains unbroken today.

1881

Billy The Kid escapes from the Lincoln County, New Mexico jail.

1932

A vaccine for yellow fever is announced.

1945

Benito Mussolini and his mistress are executed by firing squad.

1947

Thor Heyerdahl, and five crew, set out from Peru on the Kontiki, to prove ancient Peruvians could have settled in Polynesia.

1952

Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

U.S. occupation of Japan ends.

1967

Muhammad Ali refuses induction to the U.S. Army. He is stripped of his boxing championship and license.

1969

Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

1988

Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, to her death, when part of the 737's fuselage separates mid-flight.

1994

Former CIA officer/analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to espionage.

2001

Dennis Tito becomes the world's first space tourist.

Births

James Monroe-1758; Lionel Barrymore-1878; Jan Oort-1900; Oskar Schindler-1908; Ferruccio Lamborghini-1916; Harper Lee-1926; James Baker-1930; Tariq Aziz-1936; Saddam Hussein-1937; Ann-Margret:joylove:-1941; Terry Pratchett-1948; Bruno Kirby, Indian Larry-1949; Jay Leno-1950; Chuck Leavell, Mary McDonnell-1952; Hal Sutton-1958; Elena Kagan-1960; John Daly-1966

Deaths

John "Jack" Russell-1883; Benito Mussolini-1945; Ed Begley (Sr.)-1970; Tommy Caldwell-1980; Steve Currie-1981; Ken Curtis-1991; Jim Valvano-1993; Rory Calhoun-1999; Dabbs Greer, Tommy Newsom-2007; Vern Gosdin "The Voice"-2009; Jack Ely-2015

April 29, 1770

James Cook arrives at Botany Bay, Australia.

1945

The concentration camp at Dachau is liberated by U.S. troops.

1975

Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: U.S. troops begin evacuating U.S. citizens from Saigon.

2004

After 107 years of production, Oldsmobile builds its final car.

Births

William Randolph Hearst-1863; Duke Ellington-1899; Hirohito-1901; Lonnie Donegan-1931; Rod McKuen, Willie Nelson-1933; Otis Rush-1935; Bernard Madoff-1938; Tommy James, Johnny Miller-1947; Dale Earnhardt, Sr.-1951; Jerry Seinfeld-1954; Daniel Day-Lewis, Timothy Treadwell-1957; Jay Cutler-1983

Deaths

J. B. Lenoir-1967; Alfred Hitchcock-1980; Mike Royko-1997; Amarillo Slim-2012; Bob Hoskins-2014; Calvin Peete-2015

April 30, 1492

Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.

1789

George Washington takes the Presidential Oath of Office and becomes the first President of the United States.

1803

The U.S. purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15,000,000, doubling the size of the nation.

1812

The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state, Louisiana.

1900

Hawaii becomes a U.S. territory.

Casey Jones drives his train through a thirty foot ditch.

1945

Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for less than 40 hours.

1975

The People’s Army of Vietnam captures Saigon.

2009

Chrysler files Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Births

Alice B. Toklas-1877; Al Lewis-1923; Michael Waltrip-1963; Johnny Galecki-1975; Kunal Nayyar-1981

Deaths

Casey Jones-1900; Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun-1945; Alben W. Barkley-1956; George Balanchine, Muddy Waters-1983; Sergio Leone-1989; Darrell Sweet-1999; Tom Poston-2007; Ben E. King-2013

Gravdigr;958817 wrote:

1803

The U.S. purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15,000,000, doubling the size of the nation.

This is obviously a lie because Clive Bundy told me his four-fathers carved out grazing land from the primordial soup with nothing but their teeth and toenails, as their hands were busy fending off dinosaurs and blood thirsty savage tribes of BLM agents. :yesnod:

May 2, 1885

The magazine 'Good Housekeeping' goes on sale for the first time.

1918

General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company.

1952

The De Havilland Comet, the world's first jet airliner, makes its maiden flight.

1955

Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

1969

The Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City.

1982

Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.

1986

The city of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the nuclear power plant there explodes and burns.

2000

President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.

2011

Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Births

1729 – Catherine the Great; 1859 – Jerome K. Jerome; 1892 – Manfred von Richthofen 'The Red Baron'; 1903 – Dr. Benjamin Spock; 1907 – Pinky Lee; 1922 – Roscoe Lee Browne; 1929 – Link Wray; 1936 – Engelbert Humperdinck; 1945 – Judge Dread (No, really); 1945 – Bianca Jagger; 1946 – Lesley Gore, David Suchet; 1947-James Dyson; 1948 – Larry Gatlin; 1950 – Lou Gramm; 1951 – John Glascock; 1955 – Donatella Versace; 1962 – Big Boss Man; 1967 – Mika Brzezinski; 1972 – Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson; 1975 – David Beckham; 1985 – Lily Allen, Kyle Busch

Deaths

1519 – Leonardo da Vinci; 1880 – Eberhard Anheuser; 1957 – Joseph McCarthy; 1972 – J. Edgar Hoover; 1984 – Jack Barry; 1990 – David Rappaport; 1999 – Oliver Reed; 2006 – Louis Rukeyser; 2009 – Jack Kemp; 2010 – Lynn Redgrave; 2011 – Osama bin Laden; 2012 – Junior Seau; 2014 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.; 2015 – Ruth Rendell

May 3, 1715

A total solar eclipse occurs, as predicted by Edmund Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.

1802

Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.

1915

The poem In Flanders Fields is written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.

1937

Gone With The Wind wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1952

The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time.

1973

The 108-story Sears Tower, in Chicago, is topped out at 1,451 feet as the world's tallest building.

1978

The first spam email is sent .

1987

Bobby Allison crashes at Talladega Superspeedway, leading NASCAR to develop restrictor plates for the Daytona, and Talledega races the next year.

1999

An F5 tornado strikes southwest Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, producing a wind speed of 301 mph (+/- 20 mph), the highest wind speed ever recorded. It is one of 66 tornadoes that day.

2000

Geocaching becomes a thing.

2003

New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.

Births

1849 – Jacob Riis; 1874 – François Coty; 1879 – Fergus McMaster; 1903 – Bing Crosby; 1906 – Mary Astor; 1917 – Betty Comden; 1919 – Pete Seeger; 1921 – Sugar Ray Robinson; 1928 – Dave Dudley; 1932 – Robert Osborne; 1933 – James Brown, Brother Stair; 1934 – Frankie Valli; 1935 – Ron Popeil; 1944 – Pete Staples; 1947 – Doug Henning; 1951 – Christopher Cross; 1953 – Bruce Hall; 1975 – Willie Geist; 1975 – Christina Hendricks; 1981 – J. Tillman

Deaths

1972 – Bruce Cabot; 1986 – Robert Alda; 1996 – Jack Weston; 2006 – Earl Woods; 2007 – Wally Schirra; 2011 – Jackie Cooper

May 4, 1776

Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.

1814

Napoléon Bonaparte arrives at the island of Elba, to begin his exile.

1904

Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce meet in Manchester, England.

1932

Al Capone begins serving an 11-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

1953

Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea" wins the Pulitzer Prize.

1959

The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.

1961

American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.

1970

Four dead in O-hi-o: The Ohio Nat'l Guard opens fire on students protesting the war in Vietnam, killing four and wounding nine.

1979

Margaret Thatcher, "The Iron Lady", becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1988

Tons of stored Space Shuttle fuel detonate in a gigantic explosion during a fire at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada, near Henderson, Nevada. Video

2007

Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7 mi wide EF5 tornado. 95% of the city is leveled. The tornado was part of the May 2007 tornado outbreak.

Births

1796 – Horace Mann; 1916 – Richard Proenneke; 1919 – Dory Funk; 1923 – Ed Cassidy; 1928 – Thomas Kinsella, Hosni Mubarak; 1929 – Audrey Hepburn; 1939 – Paul Gleason; 1940 – Robin Cook; 1941 – George Will; 1942 – Nickolas Ashford; 1953 – Pia Zadora; 1959 – Randy Travis, Bob Tway; 1972 – Mike Dirnt; 1978 – Erin Andrews; 1989 – Rory McIlroy

Deaths

1975 – Moe Howard; 1980 – Josip Broz Tito; 1987 – Paul Butterfield; 2009 – Dom DeLuise; 2012 – Adam Yauch

May 5, 1260

Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

1494

Christopher Columbus lands at Jamaica.

1821

Napoleon dies, in exile, on the island of St. Helena.

1865

The first train robbery in the United States takes place, in North Bend, Ohio.

1866

Memorial Day is first celebrated in the United States, in Waterloo, New York.

1905

Fingerprints are used as evidence for the first time.

1920

Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.

1925

John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1934

The first Three Stooges short is released.

1961

Mercury-Redstone 3: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space.

1965

The Warlocks, later known as The Grateful Dead, make their first public appearance, in Menlo Park, CA.

1973

Secretariat wins the Kentucky Derby in 1 minute 59 2⁄5 seconds, a record that still stands.

Births

1813 – Søren Kierkegaard; 1818 – Karl Marx; 1830 – John B. Stetson (the hat guy); 1864 – Nellie Bly; 1901 – Blind Willie McTell; 1914 – Tyrone Power; 1926 – Ann B. Davis (Alice on the Brady Bunch); 1934 – Ace Cannon; 1942 – Tammy Wynette; 1943 – Michael Palin; 1944 – John Rhys-Davies; 1944 – Roger Rees; 1945 – Kurt Loder; 1948 – Bill Ward:devil:; 1988 – Adele

Deaths

1821 – Napoleon; 2008 – Irv Robbins (co-founded Baskin-Robbins); 2015 – Craig Gruber (bassist for Rainbow and Elf)

May 6, 1840

The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom.

1861

Arkansas secedes from the Union.

1877

Oglala Lakota chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops.

1889

The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public.

1910

George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of Edward VII.

1915

Babe Ruth hits first major league home run.

1935

Works Progress Administration is created.

First flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk.

1937

The Hindenburg catches fire at Lakehurst, New Jersey and is destroyed in less than 60 seconds. 36 people die.

1940

John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" wins the Pultizer Prize.

1941

Bob Hope performs his first USO show.

1945

Axis Sally delivers her last broadcast.

1954

Roger Bannister runs the mile in under four minutes.

1989

Magnum XL-200, the first roller coaster to break the 200 ft height barrier, opens, igniting the coaster wars.

1994

The Channel Tunnel opens.

Paula Jones files a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton.

After missing for 8 days, former CIA director William Colby's body is found.

2013

Three women missing for more than a decade are found alive in the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio. Their captor is taken into custody.

Births

1856 – Sigmund Freud, Robert Peary; 1895 – Rudolph Valentino; 1903 – Toots Shor; 1913 – Stewart Granger; 1915 – Orson Welles; 1931 – Willie Mays; 1945 – Bob Seger; 1950 – Jeffery Deaver, Robbie McIntosh; 1953 – Tony Blair; 1960 – Roma Downey; 1961 – George Clooney

Deaths

1862 – Henry David Thoreau; 1902 – Bret Harte; 1910 – Edward VII; 1919 – L. Frank Baum; 1952 – Maria Montessori; 1983 – Kai Winding; 1987 – William J. Casey; 2004 – Barney Kessel

May 7, 1718

The city of New Orleans is founded.

1763

Odawa war chief Pontiac attempts to seize Fort Detroit from the British, leading to Pontiac's War.

1824

World premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna.

1840

The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi killing 317 people. It is the second deadliest tornado in United States history.

1915

The RMS Lusitania is sunk by the German sub U-20, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans.

1942

During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between the warring ships.

1974

Willy Brandt resigns as West German Chancellor.

1976

The Honda Accord is officially launched.

1998

Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion USD and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

2000

Russia inaugurates Vladimir Putin as President.

2004

American businessman Nick Berg, is beheaded by Islamic militants.

2007

The tomb of Herod the Great south of Jerusalem.

Births

1812 – Robert Browning; 1833 – Johannes Brahms; 1840 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; 1885 – George "Gabby" Hayes; 1892 – Archibald MacLeish; 1892 – Josip Broz Tito; 1901 – Gary Cooper; 1909 – Edwin H. Land (co-founded Polaroid Corp.); 1919 – Eva Perón; 1922 – Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker); 1923 – Anne Baxter; 1930 – Totie Fields; 1933 – Johnny Unitas; 1946 – Bill Kreutzmann, Jerry Nolan; 1948 – Susan Atkins (follower of Charles Manson); 1950 – Randall "Tex" Cobb (boxer), Tim Russert; 1951 – Bernie Marsden; 1961 – Phil Campbell (Motorhead); 1965 – Owen Hart (wrestler); 1968 – Traci Lords; 1969 – Eagle-Eye Cherry

Deaths

1896 – H. H. Holmes (serial killer); 1998 – Eddie Rabbitt; 2000 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; 2007 – Yahweh ben Yahweh; 2011 – Seve Ballesteros; 2013 – Ray Harryhausen

This is a fine public service you're performing Grav. Bravo.

I thought maybe it was too much. Too many links?

But, :D.

Also, I don't know a lot of 'foreign' history, and may not see the significance of some people or happenings that affect(ed)/effect(ed) other countries.

At least someone reads it.

I admit the subject is interesting, but the formatting puts me off. It would be easier to read if the event were on the same line as the year. But no need to do extra work just for me.

Gravdigr;959461 wrote:

I thought maybe it was too much. Too many links?

But, :D.

Also, I don't know a lot of 'foreign' history, and may not see the significance of some people or happenings that affect(ed)/effect(ed) other countries.

At least someone reads it.

I don't think it's too many links. I only click on the ones that are of particular interest to me - I expect others would find different things of interest, and those are the ones they'll click on.

I think you have a decent range of events covered.

it's a buffet, choose what you want to consume.

Onward then...



May 8, 1794 - French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, branded a traitor, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day.

1861 - Richmond, Virginia is named capital of The Confederate States of America.

1877 - The first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is held at Gilmore's Gardens, in New York, New York.

1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.

1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.

1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.

1919 – Edward George Honey proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.

1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.

1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast.

1941 – The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby.

1945 - Victory In Europe Day (V-E Day) combat ends in Europe.

Thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.

1976 – The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.

1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.

1984 – The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The Thames Barrier is officially opened.

Births

1720 – William Cavendish; 1847 – Oscar Hammerstein I; 1884 – Harry S. Truman; 1895 – Fulton J. Sheen; 1906 – Roberto Rossellini; 1911 – Robert Johnson; 1919 – Lex Barker; 1926 – David Attenborough, Don Rickles; 1937 – Thomas Pynchon; 1940 – Peter Benchley, Ricky Nelson, Toni Tennille (Capt & Tennille); 1941 – James Traficant; 1943 – Paul Samwell-Smith; 1944 – Gary Glitter, Bill Legend; 1950 – Robert Mugge; 1953 – Billy Burnette, Alex Van Halen; 1955 – Stephen Furst ('Flounder' from "Animal House"); 1956 – Jeff Wincott; 1957 – Bill Cowher; 1958 – Lovie Smith; 1960 – Eric Brittingham; 1961 – Bill de Blasio; 1964 – Bobby Labonte; 1973 – Marcus Brigstocke; 1975 – Enrique Iglesias; 1977 – Joe Bonamassa

Deaths

1794 – Antoine Lavoisier; 1880 – Gustave Flaubert; 1903 – Paul Gauguin; 1947 – Harry Gordon Selfridge; 1982 – Neil Bogart, Gilles Villeneuve; 1984 – Lila Bell Wallace (co-founded Reader's Digest); 1985 – Karl Marx; 1988 – Robert A. Heinlein; 1994 – George Peppard; 1999 – Dirk Bogarde; 1999 – Dana Plato ("Diff'rent Strokes"); 2008 – Eddy Arnold; 2012 – Maurice Sendak; 2013 – Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor on "The Young and the Restless"); 2014 – Roger L. Easton (co-inventor of GPS)

May 9

1662 - Mr. Punch, of Punch and Judy, makes his first recorded appearance.

1763 - Chief Pontiac's siege of Fort Detroit begins.

1877 - An 8.8 earthquake off Peru kills 2,541 people, some as far away as Hawaii, and Japan.

1887 – Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opens in London.

1941 – World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine.

1945 – World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst of the German unconditional surrender of May 8 in Rheims, France.

The Channel Islands are liberated by the British after five years of German occupation.

1958 – The film "Vertigo" has its world premiere in San Francisco.

1960 – The United States FDA announced it would approve the use of Searle's Enovid for birth control, making it the first oral contraceptive pill.

1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.

Births

1801 – Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood; 1837 – Adam Opel; 1860 – J. M. Barrie; 1873 – Anton Cermak; 1874 – Howard Carter (found King Tut's tomb); 1882 – Henry J. Kaiser; 1918 – Mike Wallace "The Grand Inquisitor"; 1921 – Daniel Berrigan; 1936 – Terry Downes, Albert Finney, Glenda Jackson; 1937 – Sonny Curtis, Dave Prater (Sam & Dave); 1940 – James L. Brooks ("The Simpsons" producer); 1942 – John Ashcroft, Tommy Roe; 1944 – Richie Furay; 1945 – Steve Katz; 1946 – Candice Bergen; 1949 – Billy Joel; 1950 – Tom Petersson; 1960 – Tony Gwynn; 1962 – Dave Gahan; 1984 – Prince Fielder

Deaths

1914 – C. W. Post (cereal guy); 1968 – Harold Gray (created "Little Orphan Annie"); 2010 – Lena Horne; 2012 – Vidal Sassoon; 2013 – George M. Leader (36th Governor of Pennsylvania)

May 10

28 B.C. - The first recorded observation of a sunspot, by Chinese Han Dynasty astronomers.

70 - Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, opens a full-scale assault on Jerusalem.

1291 – Scottish nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England pending the selection of a king.

1497 – Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz, Spain for his first voyage to the New World.

1503 – Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there.

1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1774 – Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France.

1824 – The National Gallery in London opens to the public.

1865 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia.

American Civil War: In Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill, who lingers until his death on June 6.

1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike.

1872 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.

1904 – The Horch & Cir. Motorwagenwerke AG is founded. It would eventually become the Audi company.

1916 – Sailing in the lifeboat James Caird, Ernest Shackleton arrives at South Georgia after a journey of 800 nautical miles from Elephant Island.

1954 – Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts.

1960 – The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

1962 – Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk.

1972 – First flight of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (a.k.a. "Warthog").:devil:

1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

2002 – F.B.I. agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for selling United States secrets to Moscow.

2005 – A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 65 feet (20 meters) from U.S. President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate.

2013 – One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

Births

1838 – John Wilkes Booth; 1899 – Fred Astaire; 1902 – David O. Selznick; 1909 – Maybelle Carter "Mother Maybelle"; 1922 – Nancy Walker; 1933 – Barbara Taylor Bradford; 1940 – Wayne Dyer; 1946 – Donovan, Graham Gouldman, Dave Mason; 1955 – Mark David Chapman; 1957 – Sid Vicious; 1958 – Rick Santorum; 1960 – Bono; 1965 – Linda Evangelista; 1975 – Hélio Castroneves; 1978 – Kenan Thompson

Deaths

1774 – Louis XV of France; 1798 – George Vancouver (namesake of Vancouver Island, and Vancouver, British Columbia); 1818 – Paul Revere; 1863 – Stonewall Jackson; 1977 – Joan Crawford; 1994 – John Wayne Gacy; 1999 – Shel Silverstein; 2010 – Frank Frazetta; 2012 – Carroll Shelby; 2015 – Chris Burden

May 11

Only 227 days til Christmas.

1820 – HMS Beagle, the ship that will take Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, is launched.

1846 – President James K. Polk asked for and received a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War.

1907 – Thirty-two Shriners are killed when their chartered train derails at a switch near Surf Depot in Lompoc, California.

1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.

1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.

1942 – William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.

1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of its crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under its own power.

1949 – Siam officially changes its name to Thailand, for the second time.

Israel joins the United Nations.

1960 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement.

1972 – The United States performs a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site, which was part of the series Operation Grommet and Operation Toggle.

1984 – Eight people perish in a fire at Six Flags Great Adventure's Haunted Castle.

1985 – Bradford City stadium fire: Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in a flash fire at Valley Parade football ground during a match against Lincoln City in Bradford, England.

1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.

1996 – After the aircraft's departure from Miami, a fire started by improperly handled chemical oxygen generators in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 on board.

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster: on a single day eight people die during summit attempts on Mount Everest.

2010 – David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after elections produced a hung parliament.

2014 – Fifteen people are killed and 46 injured in [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo"]Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo in a stampede[/URL] caused by tear gas being thrown into the stand by police officers attempting to defuse a hostile incident.

Births

1799 – John Lowell, Jr. (Lowell Institute); 1811 – Chang and Eng Bunker; 1875 – Harriet Quimby; 1888 – Irving Berlin; 1904 – Salvador Dalí; 1911 – Phil Silvers; 1918 – Richard Feynman; 1920 – Denver Pyle; 1927 – Mort Sahl; 1932 – Valentino Garavani; 1934 – Jim Jeffords; 1941 – Eric Burdon:devil:; 1946 – Robert Jarvik; 1947 – Butch Trucks (Allman Brothers Band); 1953 – David Gest; 1959 – Martha Quinn; 1964 – Tim Blake Nelson; 1982 – Cory Monteith; 1989 – Cam Newton

Deaths

1889 – John Cadbury; 1891 – Edmond Becquerel; 1979 – Lester Flatt; 1981 – Bob Marley; 1985 – Chester Gould (created "Dick Tracy"); 2001 – Douglas Adams; 2003 – Noel Redding; 2006 – Floyd Patterson

Gravdigr;959814 wrote:

May 11

Only 227 days til Christmas.

Fuck off. Just fuck right off.

I've been onboard the QE2.

Also, I like this thread.

The QE II is very impressive, had a chance to take the tour when my mother and brother sailed to England on her. My father flew over and met them, because he had sailed on the QE I, along with a shitload of other GIs, and didn't like it one damn bit. :lol:

I've walked alongside the QEII.

It was docked at the time.

May 12

1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.

1935 – Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (founders of Alcoholics Anonymous) meet for the first time in Akron, Ohio, at the home of Henrietta Siberling.

1937 – The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

1942 – World War II: The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507.

1957 – Alfonso de Portago crashes during the Mille Miglia, killing himself, his co-driver, Ed Nelson and ten spectators – five of whom were children.

1981 – Francis Hughes starves to death in the Maze Prison in a Republican campaign for political prisoner status to be granted to Provisional IRA prisoners.

1982 – During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan María Fernández y Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an "agent of Moscow".

1986 – NBC debuts the current well-known peacock as seen in the NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration.

1989 – The San Bernardino train disaster kills four people. A week later an underground gasoline pipeline, damaged by earth moving equipment during crash clean-up, explodes killing two more people.

2008 – An ~8.0 earthquake occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud.

2015 – A train derailment in Philadelphia kills 8 people and injures over 200.

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake and six major aftershocks hit Nepal, killing over 200 people.

Births

1820 – Florence Nightingale; 1850 – Henry Cabot Lodge; 1889 – Otto Frank (father of Anne Frank); 1907 – Katharine Hepburn; 1911 – Charles Biro (Daredevil Comics); 1918 – Mary Kay Ash, Julius Rosenberg; 1925 – Yogi Berra; 1928 – Burt Bacharach; 1935 – Felipe Alou; 1936 – Tom Snyder; 1937 – George Carlin; 1942 – Billy Swan; 1945 – Ian McLagan; 1948 – Steve Winwood; 1950 – Bruce Boxleitner, Gabriel Byrne, Billy Squier; 1958 – Eric Singer (KISS drummer); 1959 – Ray Gillen, Ving Rhames; 1961 – Billy Duffy; 1962 – Emilio Estevez; 1966 – Stephen Baldwin; 1968 – Tony Hawk; 1969 – Kim Fields ('Tootie' from "Facts of Life"); 1970 – Jim Furyk, Samantha Mathis, Mike Weir; 1978 – Jason Biggs

Deaths

1864 – J. E. B. Stuart; 1925 – Amy Lowell; 1944 – Max Brand; 1957 – Erich von Stroheim; 1992 – Robert Reed (father on "The Brady Bunch"); 2000 – Adam Petty; 2001 – Perry Como, Alexei Tupolev (designed the Tu-144); 2014 – H. R. Giger

May 13

1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich.

1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee.

1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.

1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes WDRC-FM.

1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone.

1954 – The original Broadway production of "The Pajama Game" opens and runs for another 1,063 performances.

1958 – The trademark Velcro is registered.

Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland is decided.

1972 – The Troubles: A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured.

1985 – Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.

1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on Late Show with David Letterman.:sniff:

1995 – Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

2000 – In Enschede, The Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.

2012 – 49 dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40.

2014 – An explosion at an underground coal mine in south-western Turkey kills 301 miners.

Births

1914 – Joe Louis; 1922 – Bea Arthur; 1923 – Red Garland; 1931 – Jim Jones; 1939 – Harvey Keitel; 1941 – Ritchie Valens; 1943 – Mary Wells; 1945 – Magic Dick; 1949 – Franklyn Ajaye; 1950 – Danny Kirwan, Stevie Wonder; 1952 – John Kasich; 1961 – Dennis Rodman; 1964 – Stephen Colbert; 1966 – Lee Altus, Darius Rucker; 1967 – Chuck Schuldiner; 1969 – Buckethead; 1977 – Samantha Morton; 1986 – Lena Dunham

Deaths

1884 – Cyrus McCormick (co-founded International Harvester); 1961 – Gary Cooper; 1972 – Dan Blocker; 1975 – Bob Wills; 1977 – Mickey Spillane (the mobster, not the author); 1988 – Chet Baker; 1999 – Gene Sarazen; 2000 – Paul Bartel; 2001 – Jason Miller (Father Damian in "The Exorcist"); 2005 – Eddie Barclay; 2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

Cool story. I never heard this one.

I also found that one interesting. I've read about him before, but, I keep forgetting.

They could make that into a screenplay and a decent movie if they threw a little background story in there too, and maybe a love interest.

It's like an episode of Horatio Hornblower.

There was a love interest, his wife and family.

May 14

1607 – Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.

1787 – In Philadelphia, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States; George Washington presides.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1897 – "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is first performed in public near Willow Grove Park, in Philadelphia.

1925 – Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs Dalloway" is published.

1939 – Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1973 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.

1988 – Carrollton bus collision: A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. Twenty-seven die in the crash and ensuing fire.

Births

1727 – Thomas Gainsborough; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peace; 1885 – Otto Klemperer; 1921 – Richard Deacon; 1925 – Oona O'Neill (daughter of Eugene Oneill, wife of Charlie Chaplin); 1932 – Richard Estes; 1936 – Bobby Darin; 1943 – Jack Bruce; 1944 – George Lucas; 1951 – Robert Zemeckis; 1952 – Michael Fallon; 1953 – Tom Cochrane; 1961 – Tim Roth (Mr. Orange); 1962 – Ian Astbury:devil:, C.C. DeVille, Danny Huston; 1964 – James M. Kelly (Shuttle astronaut), Eric Peterson; 1966 – Mike Inez; 1967 – Tony Siragusa; 1969 – Cate Blanchett; 1971 – Sofia Coppola; 1979 – Dan Auerbach; 1983 – Frank Gore, Amber Tamblyn; 1984 – Mark Zuckerberg; 1986 – Clay Matthews; 1989 – Rob Gronkowski

Deaths

1610 – Henry IV of France; 1643 – Louis XIII of France; 1919 – Henry J. Heinz; 1925 – H. Rider Haggard; 1968 – Husband E. Kimmel; 1970 – Billie Burke; 1976 – Keith Relf; 1982 – Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver); 1987 – Rita Hayworth; 1992 – Lyle Alzado; 1993 – William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; 1997 – Harry Blackstone Jr.; 1998 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Frank Sinatra; 2003 – Wendy Hiller, Robert Stack; 2004 – Anna Lee (Lila Quartermaine on "General Hospital"; 2015 – B.B. King:notworthy

May 15

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest. She is condemned to death.

1602 – Bartholomew Gosnold becomes the first recorded European to see Cape Cod.

1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun, the Puckle gun.

1776 – American Revolution: The Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5–6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.

1800 – King George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity.

1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.

1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada is founded when 110 acres (0.45 km2), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.

1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy.

1940 – McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1941 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft.

1948 – Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

1953 – The first pinewood derby is held.

1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.

1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone.

1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army Generals.

1972 – In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to become President.

1988 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdrawal 115,000 troops from Afghanistan.

2006 – Cloud Gate was formally dedicated in Chicago's Millennium Park.

Births

1567 – Claudio Monteverdi; 1856 – L. Frank Baum; 1902 – Richard J. Daley; 1905 – Joseph Cotten; 1905 – Abraham Zapruder; 1909 – James Mason; 1918 – Eddy Arnold; 1931 – Ken Venturi; 1936 – Wavy Gravy, Ralph Steadman; 1937 – Madeleine Albright; 1940 – Roger Ailes, Lainie Kazan; 1945 – Jerry Quarry; 1948 – Brian Eno; 1951 – Dennis Frederiksen; 1952 – Chazz Palminteri; 1956 – Dan Patrick; 1969 – Emmitt Smith; 1976 – Ryan Leaf; 1981 – Jamie-Lynn Sigler; 1987 – Andy Murray

Deaths

1886 – Emily Dickinson; 1948 – Edward J. Flanagan (founded Boys Town); 1967 – Edward Hopper; 2003 – June Carter Cash; 2007 – Jerry Falwell

Wow - the Puckle gun is fascinating. I heartily recommend the wiki page yo've linked to. Really interesting. I hadn't heard of it before (probably because it didn't make into regular usage in the British forces).

Based your recommendation, Dana, I've added a link to to the Wiki article about the Puckle gun itself.

:D

Nice one, Grav.

Weaponry from this period is really interesting. There's a link on that wiki page to an older design for a repeating firearm that was much lesslike a 'machine gun' but actually allowed for faster firing. Trouble was it was way expensive to make, and way to sensitive to adverse conditions. basically, the slightest damp on the powdr woud totally bollox the gun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater

No good for mainstream army use, because of the way firearms were mass produced and distributed. Basically - for largescale use, the separate coponents were each mass produced and then assembled, but with something like the Kalthoff repeater, the tolerance for any size or shape variation was so tiny, it just woldn't have worked on that scale. For the standard musket there would still have been problems mixing and matching components, but they had greater tolerance for variation, so far fewer rejected components. Also, much more reliable in adverse weather conditions. Even so, there are countless examples of inadequate guns, and rejected components.

Puckle demonstrated two versions of the basic design: one, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round bullets, while the second variant, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets which were considered to be more damaging and would, according to its patent, convince the Turks of the "benefits of Christian civilization."

:lol2:

May 16

1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1866 – The U.S. Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.

1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.

1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opens in Frankfurt, Germany, and will feature the world's first long distance transmission of high-power, three-phase electric current (the most common form today).

1916 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign the secret wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioning former Ottoman territories such as Iraq and Syria.

1919 – A naval Curtiss NC-4 aircraft commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.

1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards are awarded.

1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport (now John F Kennedy International Airport) in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.

1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

1975 – Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

1991 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom addresses a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

Births

1801 – William H. Seward (Seward's Folly); 1824 – Levi P. Morton; 1861 – H. H. Holmes (serial killer); 1905 – Henry Fonda; 1912 – Studs Terkel; 1913 – Woody Herman; 1919 – Liberace; 1921 – Harry Carey, Jr.; 1928 – Billy Martin; 1931 – Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague on The Andy Griffith Show); 1944 – Danny Trejo; 1946 – Roger Earl (Foghat); 1947 – Darrell Sweet (Nazareth); 1953 – Pierce Brosnan; 1955 – Olga Korbut; 1959 – Mare Winningham; 1964 – John Salley; 1964 – Boyd Tinsley (violinist for DMB); 1965 – Krist Novoselic; 1966 – Janet Jackson; 1969 – David Boreanaz, Tucker Carlson; 1970 – Gabriela Sabatini; 1986 – Megan Fox

Deaths

1920 – Levi P. Morton; 1953 – Django Reinhardt; 1955 – James Agee; 1956 – H. B. Reese (created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1957 – Eliot Ness; 1984 – Andy Kaufman; 1984 – Irwin Shaw; 1990 – Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson; 2000 – Bodacious (American rodeo bull); 2010 – Ronnie James Dio:devil:; 2012 - Chuck Brown ("the Godfather of Go-go"); 2013 – Dick Trickle [SIZE="1"](snicker)[/SIZE]

May 17

1536 – The annulment of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage.

1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.

1673 – Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.

1875 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

1943 – World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.

1954 – The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

1967 – Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.

1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

1974 – The Troubles: Thirty-three civilians are killed and 300 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonates four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland. It is the deadliest attack of the Troubles and the deadliest terrorist attack in the Republic's history. There are allegations that British state forces were involved.

Police in Los Angeles raid the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.

1983 – The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds), in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.

1987 – An Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. Navy warship USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.

1995 – Shawn Nelson steals a tank from a military installation and goes on a rampage in San Diego resulting in a 25-minute police chase. Nelson is killed by an officer after the tank got stuck on a concrete barrier.

2004 – The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.

2006 – The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.

2015 – At least nine people are killed and 18 injured, some by law enforcement and others in gunfire exchanges, in a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas.

Births

1866 – Erik Satie; 1868 – Horace Elgin Dodge; 1931 – Marshall Applewhite (Heaven's Gate cult leader); 1934 – Ronald Wayne (co-founder Apple Inc); 1936 – Dennis Hopper; 1942 – Taj Mahal (the musician, not the tomb); 1942 – Al White (jive talker on "Airplane!"); 1944 – Jesse Winchester; 1949 – Bill Bruford; 1956 – Sugar Ray Leonard, Bob Saget; 1958 – Paul Di'Anno (Iron Maiden); 1959 – Jim Nantz; 1961 – Enya; 1962 – Craig Ferguson; 1965 – Trent Reznor; 1966 – Qusay Hussein (Saddam's boy); 1967 – Paul D'Amour (Tool); 1973 – Sasha Alexander (NCIS, Rizzoli & Isles); 1973 – Josh Homme; 1976 – Kandi Burruss

Deaths

1510 – Sandro Botticelli; 1829 – John Jay; 1875 – John C. Breckinridge; 1879 – Asa Packer (founder Lehigh University); 1886 – John Deere; 1911 – Frederick August Otto Schwarz (FAO Schwarz); 1985 – Abe Burrows; 1992 – Lawrence Welk; 1996 – Johnny "Guitar" Watson; 2004 – Tony Randall; 2005 – Frank Gorshin (The Riddler); 2011 – Harmon Killebrew; 2012 – Donna Summer; 2013 – Alan O'Day (Undercover Angel); 2013 – Ken Venturi; 2014 – Miss Beazley (GWBush's Scottish Terrier)

May 18

1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.

1756 – The Seven Years' War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.

1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people.

1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.

1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1958 – An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h).

1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

1983 – In Ireland, the government launches a crackdown, with the leading Dublin pirate Radio Nova being put off the air.

1990 – In France, a modified TGV train achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).

2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirms that Pluto has two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.

Births

1048 – Omar Khayyám; 1822 – Mathew Brady; 1850 – Oliver Heaviside (Kennelly-Heaviside Layer); 1897 – Frank Capra; 1911 – Big Joe Turner; 1912 – Richard Brooks, Perry Como; 1920 – Pope John Paul II; 1922 – Kai Winding; 1928 – Pernell Roberts; 1931 – Don Martin (cartoonist Mad Magazine); 1943 – Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka; 1946 – Reggie Jackson; 1947 – Gail Strickland (The Drowning Pool); 1949 – Rick Wakeman; 1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo); 1952 – George Strait (King George); 1955 – Chow Yun-fat; 1970 – Tina Fey; 1975 – Jack Johnson; 1993 – Jessica Watson

Deaths

1808 – Elijah Craig (May God bless and keep him); 1911 – Gustav Mahler; 1927 – Andrew Kehoe (mass murderer - Bath School Disaster, Bath, Michigan); 1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune; Harry Randall Truman (American owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge); 1988 – Daws Butler (voice of Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry Hound); 1990 – Jill Ireland; 1992 – Skip Stephenson; 1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr.; 1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery ("Bewitched"); 2009 – Wayne Allwine (voice of Mickey Mouse for 32 years - yes, I sang the song as I typed 'Mickey Mouse'); 2012 – Peter Jones; 2012 – Alan Oakley (designed the Raleigh Chopper); 2013 – Steve Forrest; 2014 – Jerry Vale

May 19

1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

1780 – New England's Dark Day: A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M.

1845 – Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England. The entire expedition, 129 men, is lost.

1848 – Mexican–American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.

1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol.

1943 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.

1962 – A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".

1984 – Michael Larson, a contestant on the television game show Press Your Luck exploits a bug in the prize board, and wins over US$110,000.

Births

1795 – Johns Hopkins; 1861 – Nellie Melba (Melba Toast, Peach Melba); 1870 – Albert Fish (serial killer); 1890 – Ho Chi Minh; 1925 – Pol Pot; 1925 – Malcolm X; 1928 – Colin Chapman (founded Lotus); 1934 – Jim Lehrer; 1935 – David Hartman; 1939 – Dick Scobee; 1941 – Nora Ephron; 1945 – Pete Townshend; 1946 – André the Giant; 1947 – Steve Currie; 1948 – Grace Jones; 1949 – Dusty Hill (ZZTop); 1949 – Archie Manning; 1951 – Joey Ramone; 1953 – Jimmy Thackery; 1953 – Victoria Wood; 1954 – Phil Rudd (AC/DC); 1956 – Steven Ford; 1959 – Nicole Brown Simpson; 1968 – Kyle Eastwood (one of Clint's boys)

Deaths

1536 – Anne Boleyn; 1795 – Josiah Bartlett (signatory of the Declaration of Independence); 1864 – Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1935 – T. E. Lawrence; 1946 – Booth Tarkington; 1971 – Ogden Nash; 1994 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; 2014 – Jack Brabham

May 20

526 – An earthquake kills about 250,000 people in what is now Syria and Antiochia.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War.

1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state.

The State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1899 – The first traffic ticket in the US: New York City taxi driver Jacob German was arrested for speeding while driving 12 miles per hour on Lexington Street.

1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting (Boy with Baby Carriage).

1920 – Montreal radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.

1927 – Treaty of Jeddah: The United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22 the next day.

1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.

1940 – The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ends.

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

2013 – An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.

Births

1768 – Dolley Madison; 1799 – Honoré de Balzac; 1818 – William Fargo (co-founded Wells Fargo & AmEx); 1908 – James Stewart; 1913 – William Redington Hewlett (co-founded Hewlett-Packard); 1915 – Moshe Dayan; 1919 – George Gobel; 1925 – Alexei Tupolev (designed the Tu-144); 1936 – Anthony Zerbe; 1942 – Carlos Hathcock; 1944 – Joe Cocker; 1946 – Cher; 1946 – Dave Despain; 1958 – Ron Reagan, Jane Wiedlin; 1959 – Bronson Pinchot; 1960 – Tony Goldwyn; 1966 – Mindy Cohn ('Natalie' on "The Facts of Life", voice of 'Velma' on "Scooby Doo"); 1968 – Timothy Olyphant (Sheriff Bullock in "Deadwood"); 1971 – Tony Stewart; 1972 – Busta Rhymes

Deaths

1506 – Christopher Columbus; 1989 – Gilda Radner; 1996 – Jon Pertwee (Dr. Who); 2009 – Lucy Gordon; 2011 – Randy Savage; 2012 – Robin Gibb, Ken Lyons, Eugene Polley (invented the TV remote control); 2013 – Ray Manzarek

May 21

1502 – The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese explorer João da Nova.

1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned six and a half years later.

1863 – Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.

1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.

1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).

1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag.

1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1976 – The Yuba City bus disaster occurs in Martinez, California. Twenty-nine are killed making it the deadliest road accident in U.S. history.

1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released in theaters.

1981 – Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.

1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.

2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.

2014 – The National September 11 Museum opens to the public.

Births

1878 – Glenn Curtiss; 1898 – Armand Hammer; 1901 – Sam Jaffe; 1904 – Robert Montgomery, Fats Waller; 1916 – Harold Robbins; 1917 – Raymond Burr; 1921 – Andrei Sakharov; 1923 – Ara Parseghian; 1924 – Peggy Cass; 1941 – Ronald Isley (The Isley Bros.); 1948 – Leo Sayer; 1951 – Al Franken; 1952 – Mr. T; 1959 – Nick Cassavetes; 1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer; 1966 – Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy on "House"); 1967 – Chris Benoit; 1972 – The Notorious B.I.G.

Deaths

1542 – Hernando de Soto; 1952 – John Garfield; 1965 – Geoffrey de Havilland (designed the de Havilland Mosquito); 1988 – Sammy Davis, Sr.; 1995 – Les Aspin; 1996 – Lash LaRue; 2000 – Sir John Gielgud; 2003 – Alejandro de Tomaso; 2013 – Leonard Marsh (co-founded Snapple)

May 22

1762 – Trevi Fountain in Rome is officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clemens XIII.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began, as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.

1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.

1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

1885 – Prior to burial in the Panthéon, the body of Victor Hugo was exposed under the Arc de Triomphe during the night.

1897 – The Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames is officially opened.

1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous US during the 20th century.

Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.

1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores.

1969 – Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.

1980 – Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man.

2004 – The U.S. town of Hallam, Nebraska is wiped out by a powerful F4 tornado (part of the May 2004 tornado outbreak sequence) which kills one resident, and becomes the widest tornado on record at 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide.

2008 – The Late-May 2008 tornado outbreak sequence unleashes 235 tornadoes, including an EF4 and an EF5 tornado, between May 22 and May 31, 2008. The tornadoes strike 19 states and one Canadian province.

2010 – Air India Express Flight 812, a Boeing 737, goes over a cliff and crashes upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. It is the worst crash involving a Boeing 737.

2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people and wreaking $2.8 billion worth in damage—the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.

2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

Births

1783 – William Sturgeon (invented the electromagnet and electric motor); 1813 – Richard Wagner; 1844 – Mary Cassatt; 1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle; 1907 – Laurence Olivier; 1914 – Sun Ra; 1922 – Quinn Martin; 1928 – T. Boone Pickens; 1930 – Harvey Milk; 1939 – Paul Winfield; 1940 – Bernard Shaw; 1942 – Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber); 1943 – Tommy John; 1950 – Bernie Taupin; 1959 – Morrissey; 1970 – Naomi Campbell; 1972 – Max Brooks ("World War Z"); 1979 – Maggie Q; 1980 – Lucy Gordon; 1986 – Julian Edelman; 1987 – Novak Djokovic

Deaths

337 – Constantine the Great; 1802 – Martha Washington; 1885 – Victor Hugo; 1967 – Langston Hughes; 1990 – Rocky Graziano; 1998 – John Derek; 2005 – Thurl Ravenscroft

I sense a tornado theme for May 22.

May 23

1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.

1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London, England.

1934 – The American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.

1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), commits suicide while in Allied custody.

1958 – The satellite Explorer 1 ceases transmission.

1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.

2004 – Part of Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.

2010 – Jamaican police begin a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 gunmen, policemen and bystanders are killed.

2013 – The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.

2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.

2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]If anyone could explain to me how a tornado can cause a flood, I'd be interested to hear them out.[/COLOR]

Births

1707 – Carl Linnaeus; 1820 – James Buchanan Eads; 1824 – Ambrose Burnside; 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks; 1910 – Scatman Crothers, Artie Shaw; 1912 – John Payne; 1928 – Rosemary Clooney; 1931 – Barbara Barrie; 1933 – Joan Collins; 1934 – Robert Moog (invented the Moog synthesizer); 1936 – Charles Kimbrough (anchorman on "Murphy Brown"); 1942 – Zalman King; 1946 – Michael Morrison (porn actor); 1954 – Marvin Hagler; 1956 – Buck Showalter; 1958 – Mitch Albom, Drew Carey; 1961 – Karen Duffy ('Duff', MTV vj); 1963 – Wally Dallenbach Jr.; 1973 – Maxwell; 1974 – Jewel, Ken Jennings

Deaths

1701 – William Kidd; 1868 – Kit Carson; 1906 – Henrik Ibsen; 1934 – Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker; 1937 – John D. Rockefeller; 1945 – Heinrich Himmler; 1975 – Moms Mabley; 1981 – George Jessel; 1986 – Sterling Hayden; 1994 – Joe Pass; 1999 – Owen Hart; 2002 – Sam Snead

It explains it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Texas%E2%80%93Oklahoma_flood_and_tornado_outbreak

I didn't include that link, because it contains no explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood, that I could find.

I saw the words 'tornado', and 'flood'.

If the explanation is in there, and I somehow did not see it, please show it to me, because I have now read that page twice, and still have yet to see an explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood.

I got the impression that it was more a matter of the same storm causing the tornado as caused the flood - also that water from the river got caught up in the tornado and dumped onto a town - but I may have misunderstood.

May 24

1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first English colony in America.

1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.

1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.

1830 – "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.

1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate the first telegraph line.

1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.

1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.

1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).

1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.

1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.

1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.

1976 – The London to Washington, D.C., Concorde service begins.

2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel kills 23 and injures over 200. The disaster was caught on a camcorder.

Births

1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit; 1819 – Queen Victoria; 1879 – H. B. Reese (created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1938 – Tommy Chong; 1941 – Bob Dylan; 1943 – Gary Burghoff ('Radar' on MASH); 1944 – Patti LaBelle; 1945 – Priscilla Presley; 1947 – Waddy Wachtel; 1952 – Sybil Danning; 1953 – Alfred Molina; 1955 – Rosanne Cash; 1958 – Chip Ganassi; 1962 – Héctor Camacho; 1966 – Ricky Craven; 1967 – Eric Close, Heavy D; 1974 – Will Sasso

Deaths

1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus; 1963 – Elmore James; 1965 – Sonny Boy Williamson II; 1974 – Duke Ellington; 2008 – Dick Martin

DanaC;960828 wrote:

...also that water from the river got caught up in the tornado and dumped onto a town...

I'm not going to think about this anymore...

...because I am fucking confused.

May 25

Today is National Missing Children's Day.

Today is also Towel Day.

240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.

1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

1914 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.

1925 – Scopes Monkey Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee.

1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan

1950 – A Chicago Surface Lines streetcar crashes into a fuel truck, killing 33 people.

1953 – At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.

The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston, in Texas.

1955 – In the United States, a night-time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.

1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.

1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.

1968 – The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis is dedicated.

1977 – Star Wars is released in theaters.

Chinese government removes a decade old ban on the works of William Shakespeare.

1979 – American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.

1979 – Etan Patz, six years old, disappears from the street just two blocks away from his home in New York City, prompting an international search for the child, and causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25 as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983).

1982 – HMS Coventry is sunk during the Falklands War.

1986 – Hands Across America takes place.

2001 – Erik Weihenmayer, 32 years old, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait. All 225 people on board are killed.

2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty-five-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

2012 – The Space X 'Dragon' becomes the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Births

1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson; 1889 – Igor Sikorsky; 1897 – Gene Tunney; 1903 – Binnie Barnes; 1921 – Hal David; 1925 – Jeanne Crain; 1926 – Claude Akins; 1927 – Robert Ludlum; 1929 – Beverly Sills; 1936 – Tom T. Hall; 1939 – Dixie Carter; 1943 – Jessi Colter; 1943 – Leslie Uggams; 1944 – Frank Oz; 1947 – Karen Valentine; 1955 – Connie Sellecca; 1958 – Paul Weller; 1963 – Mike Myers; 1969 – Anne Heche; 1970 – Octavia Spencer; 1973 – Demetri Martin; 1976 – Cillian Murphy; 1978 – Brian Urlacher; 1994 – Aly Raisman

Deaths

1899 – Rosa Bonheur; 1919 – Madam C. J. Walker; 1990 – Vic Tayback; 2007 – Charles Nelson Reilly

Dang, I've heard of towel day ut didn't know it was today.

-15 Hoopy Frood quotient

lol

Hands Across America

I remember that

[QUOTE]1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.[/QUOTE

Two years hard labour. It broke him physically and mentally.

May 27

1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.

1849 – The Great Hall of Euston station in London is opened.

1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.

1896 – The F4-strength 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damage (1997 US dollars ($38.70 in 1896 dollars)).

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco.

1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.

1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.

1933 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.

1940 – World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.

1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.

1958 – The F-4 Phantom II makes its first flight.

1962 – The Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine. As of 2015, the fire continues to burn. It has burned for more than 53 years. At its current rate, it could burn for over 250 more years.

1965 – Vietnam War: American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam.

1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.

1975 – Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.

1995 - In Culpeper, Virginia, the actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.

1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is in office.

1998 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.

Births

1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt; 1819 – Julia Ward Howe; 1837 – Wild Bill Hickok; 1894 – Dashiell Hammett; 1909 – Dolores Hope (wife of Bob Hope); 1911 – Hubert Humphrey; 1911 – Vincent Price; 1912 – John Cheever, Sam Snead; 1915 – Herman Wouk; 1922 – Christopher Lee; 1923 – Henry Kissinger, Sumner Redstone; 1925 – Tony Hillerman; 1935 – Lee Meriwether; 1936 – Louis Gossett, Jr.; 1939 – Don Williams; 1945 – Bruce Cockburn; 1948 – Pete Sears; 1955 – Richard Schiff; 1957 – Siouxsie Sioux; 1961 – Peri Gilpin; 1964 – Adam Carolla; 1965 – Todd Bridges )'Willis' on "Diff'rent Strokes"); 1968 – Jeff Bagwell; 1970 – Joseph Fiennes; 1971 – Paul Bettany; 1971 – Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes; 1975 – André 3000; 1975 – Jamie Oliver

Deaths

1831 – Jedediah Smith; 1840 – Niccolò Paganini; 1949 – Robert Ripley (Believe it, or not); 1960 – James Montgomery Flagg; 1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru; 1969 – Jeffrey Hunter; 1992 – Uncle Charlie Osborne; 2006 – Paul Gleason; 2011 – Jeff Conaway; 2011 – Gil Scott-Heron; 2012 – Johnny Tapia; 2013 – Bill Pertwee

May 28

Today is Menstrual Hygiene Day. Please make a note of it.

1588 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, heading for the English Channel. (It will take until May 30 for all ships to leave port.)

1644 – Bolton Massacre by Royalist troops under the command of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby.

1754 – French and Indian War: In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under the 22-year-old Lieutenant colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which relocates Native Americans.

1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.

1907 – The first Isle of Man TT race was held.

1934 – Near Callander, Ontario, Canada, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne; they will be the first quintuplets to survive infancy.

1936 – Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication.

1937 – The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., who pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the span.

Volkswagen (VW), the German automobile manufacturer is founded.

1951 – The British radio comedy program The Goon Show is broadcast on the BBC for the first time.

1958 – Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, heavily reinforced by Frank Pais Militia, overwhelm an army post in El Uvero.

1961 – Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed.

1969 - Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were arrested at their London home and charged with possession of cannabis.

1977 – In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 people inside.

Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers play together for the first time when they perform as part of Mike Howlett's band, Strontium 90.

1985 - Desert Island Discs radio presenter Roy Plomley died. He devised the BBC Radio series Desert Island Discs in 1941, and went on to present 1,791 editions of the show, which became one of the longest running radio shows in the UK.

1987 – West German pilot Mathias Rust, who was 18 years old, evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in the Red Square in Moscow, Russia. He is immediately detained and would not be released until August 3, 1988.

1995 – The Russian town of Neftegorsk is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that kills at least 2,000 people, half of the total population.

1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.

1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.

2002 – The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site. Cleanup duties officially end with closing ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, New York City.

2011 – Malta votes on the introduction of divorce. Welcome to the nineteenth century, Malta.

Births

1818 – P. G. T. Beauregard; 1888 – Jim Thorpe; 1908 – Ian Fleming; 1910 – T-Bone Walker; 1917 – Papa John Creach; 1922 – Lou Duva (boxing manager); 1933 – John Karlen ('Lacey''s husband on "Cagney & Lacey", "Dark Shadows"); 1936 – Betty Shabazz; 1944 – Rudy Giuliani; 1944 – Gladys Knight; 1944 – Sondra Locke; 1944 – Gary Stewart, Billy Vera; 1945 – Patch Adams (no, the real one); 1945 – John Fogerty; 1949 – Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics); Kamala, The Ugandan Giant (wrestler); Townsend Coleman (voice of "The Tick"); 1961 – Michelle Collins; 1962 - Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals); 1964 – Phil Vassar; 1968 – Kylie Minogue; 1969 – Rob Ford; 1971 – Marco Rubio; 1977 – Elisabeth Hasselbeck; 1985 – Colbie Caillat

Deaths

1843 – Noah Webster; 1849 – Anne Brontë; 1971 – Audie Murphy; 1998 – Phil Hartman; 2003 – Martha Scott; 2010 – Gary Coleman; 2014 – Maya Angelou; 2015 – Reynaldo Rey

From the wiki page about the Bolton Massacre:

At the end of the Third English Civil War the Earl of Derby travelled north and was captured near Nantwich and given quarter. However, he was tried by court-martial at Chester on 29 September. His quarter was disallowed and he was condemned to death for treason (i.e. for communicating with King Charles II). His appeal for pardon was rejected and he escaped, but was recaptured by Captain Hector Schofield and on 15 October 1651, taken to Bolton where he reputedly spent his last hours at Ye Olde Man & Scythe public house, but more likely in a house on Churchgate [16] before being beheaded near the Market Cross on Churchgate.

Ye Olde Man and Scythe is still there. I've drunk there many times when I lived in Bolton. They have a skull behind the bar which they claim is that of Earle of Derby :p

I've never drank with a skull.

[size=1](Drunk, or drank?)[/size]

I never drunk no drank with no skull. There.

Gravdigr;961250 wrote:

I've never drank with a skull.

[size=1](Drunk, or drank?)[/size]

I never drank
I've never drunk


:)

Thankee.

May29

Today is the 150th day of the year.

1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. On his birthday, no less.

1727 – Peter II becomes Czar of Russia.

1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.

1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Between 300 and 500 United Irishmen are massacred by the British Army in County Kildare, Ireland.

1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

1886 – The pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.

1914 – The Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.

1919 – Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.

1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.

1940 – The first flight of the Vought F4U Corsair.

1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling single in history.

1945 – First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber.

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.

1971 - Three dozen Grateful Dead fans were treated for hallucinations caused by LSD after they unwittingly drank spiked apple juice served at a gig at San Francisco's Winterland.

1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

Skeletal remains are found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. Based on forensic evidence the remains were identified as Philip Kramer, former bassist with rock group Iron Butterfly, who had disappeared on his way home from work on February 12, 1995. Based on calls he made to police, his death was ruled as a probable suicide.

2001 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.

2008 – A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people, and killing a number of sheep.

2015 - Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch goes up for sale with an asking price of $100,000,000.

Births

1630 – Charles II of England; 1736 – Patrick Henry; 1874 – G. K. Chesterton; 1893 – Max Brand; 1903 – Bob Hope; 1914 – Stacy Keach, Sr., Tenzing Norgay; 1916 – Carl Story; 1917 – John F. Kennedy; 1921 – Clifton James; 1929 – Peter Higgs (Higgs Boson); 1939 – Al Unser; 1941 – Bob Simon; 1942 – Kevin Conway; 1945 – Gary Brooker; 1947 – Anthony Geary; 1948 – Nick Mancuso; 1953 – Danny Elfman; 1955 – John Hinckley Jr.; 1955 – Mike Porcaro; 1955 – Ken Schrader; 1956 – La Toya Jackson; 1958 – Annette Bening; 1958 – Wayne Duvall ('Homer Stokes' in "O Brother Where Art Thou"); 1959 – Rupert Everett; 1961 – Melissa Etheridge; 1967 – Noel Gallagher; 1975 – Mel B (Scary Spice); 1989 – Riley Keough (actress & Elvis Presley's granddaughter)

Deaths

1866 – Winfield Scott; 1911 – W. S. Gilbert (Gilbert & Sullivan); 1942 – John Barrymore; 1948 – Dame May Whitty; 1951 – Fanny Brice (Baby Snooks); 1953 – Man Mountain Dean (wrestler); 1979 – Mary Pickford; 1982 – Romy Schneider; 1997 – Jeff Buckley; 1998 – Barry Goldwater; 2006 – Steve Mizerak; 2008 – Harvey Korman; 2010 – Dennis Hopper; 2012 – Doc Watson

May 30

Today is Memorial Day (United States).

70 - Roman emperor Titus breaches Jerusalem's Second Wall.

1431 - In Rouen, France, Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. She is ~19 years old.

1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour (no, not that one, a different one), a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.

1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife, Rachel, of bigamy.

1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time.

1883 – In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.

1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.

1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..

1942 – World War II: One thousand British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.

1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

1958 – Memorial Day: The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1966 – Launch of Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.

1968 - The Beatles begin recording what will become known as "The White Album".

1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.

1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.

2005 – American student Natalee Holloway disappears while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, and caused a media sensation in the United States.

2012 – Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.

Births

1846 – Peter Carl Fabergé; 1896 – Howard Hawks; 1902 – Stepin Fetchit; 1908 – Mel Blanc; 1909 – Benny Goodman; 1918 – Bob Evans; 1927 – Clint Walker; 1936 – Keir Dullea; 1939 – Michael J. Pollard; 1939 – Tim Waterstone (founded Waterstone's book stores); 1943 – Gale Sayers; 1944 – Meredith MacRae; 1953 – Colm Meaney; 1955 – Topper Headon (The Clash), Jake "The Snake" Roberts; 1958 – Ted McGinley; 1962 – Kevin Eastman (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles); 1963 – Shauna Grant (porn actress); 1964 – Wynonna Judd,Tom Morello; 1974 – CeeLo Green; 1975 – Marissa Mayer (CEO Yahoo); 1979 – Clint Bowyer

Deaths

1431 – Joan of Arc; 1593 – Christopher Marlowe; 1640 – Peter Paul Rubens; 1778 – Voltaire; 1911 – Milton Bradley; 1912 – Wilbur Wright; 1947 – Georg von Trapp (of the "The Sound of Music" von Trapps); 1953 – Dooley Wilson ('Sam' from "Casablanca"); 1960 – Boris Pasternak; 1967 – Claude Rains ('Capt. Renault' from "Casablanca"); 1986 – Perry Ellis; 1993 – Sun Ra; 2012 – John Fox, Andrew Huxley; 2015 – Beau Biden

May 31

1279 BC – Ramesses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.

526 – A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch killing 250,000.

1859 – The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.

1864 – American Civil War: Overland Campaign: Battle of Cold Harbor: The Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee engages the Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade.

1879 – Gilmores Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

1889 – Johnstown Flood: Over 2,200 people die after a dam fails and sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

1909 – The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, convenes for the first time.

1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.

1929 – The first talking Mickey Mouse cartoon, "The Karnival Kid", is released.

1973 – The United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.

1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed.

1985 – United States–Canada tornado outbreak: Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.

1989 – A group of six members of the guerrilla group Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) of Peru, shoot dead eight transsexuals, in the city of Tarapoto.

2005 – Vanity Fair reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat.

2013 – The asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon make their closest approach to Earth for the next two centuries.

Births

1819 – Walt Whitman; 1852 – Julius Richard Petri (Petri dish); 1894 – Fred Allen; 1898 – Norman Vincent Peale; 1908 – Don Ameche; 1922 – Denholm Elliott; 1930 – Clint Eastwood; 1938 – Johnny Paycheck; 1939 – Terry Waite; 1943 – Sharon Gless, Joe Namath; 1948 – John Bonham; 1949 – Tom Berenger; 1950 – Gregory Harrison; 1955 – Tommy Emmanuel; 1960 – Chris Elliott; 1961 – Lea Thompson; 1962 – Corey Hart (he wears his sunglasses at night); 1964 – Darryl McDaniels (Run D.M.C.); 1965 – Brooke Shields; 1972 – Archie Panjabi; 1976 – Colin Farrell

Deaths

1809 – Joseph Haydn; 1983 – Jack Dempsey; 1996 – Timothy Leary; 2001 – Arlene Francis; 2013 – Jean Stapleton; 2015 – Slim Richey

June 1

1495 – A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.

1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.

1792 – Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.

1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.

1812 – War of 1812: U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Fairfax Court House: The first land battle of the American Civil War after the Battle of Fort Sumter, producing the first Confederate combat casualty.

1916 – Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1918 – World War I: Western Front: Battle of Belleau Wood: Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord engage Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary is founded.

1939 – First flight of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber airplane.

1959 - The first edition of Juke Box Jury aired on the BBC.

1962 – Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.

1967 – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles, is released.

David Bowie releases his self titled debut studio album.

1980 – Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.

1981 - The first issue of the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! was published as a special pull-out by UK weekly music paper Sounds. AC/DC had the front cover.

2001 – Nepalese royal massacre: Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family including his father and mother, King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya.

2009 – General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.

2012 – United States President, Barack Obama, orders Cyber attacks of Stuxnet, against Iran's Natanz Nuclear Facility, code-named Operation Olympic Games.

Births

1637 – Jacques Marquette (namesake of Marquette University); 1801 – Brigham Young; 1825 – John Hunt Morgan; 1831 – John Bell Hood; 1889 – James Daugherty; 1890 – Frank Morgan; 1915 – John Randolph; 1921 – Nelson Riddle; 1926 – Andy Griffith, Marilyn Monroe; 1930 – Edward Woodward; 1933 – Charlie Wilson (Charlie Wilson's War); 1934 – Pat Boone; 1935 – Reverend Ike; 1937 – Morgan Freeman; 1939 – Cleavon Little ('Sheriff Bart' in "Blazing Saddles"); 1940 – René Auberjonois ('Odo'); 1946 – Brian Cox; 1947 – Jonathan Pryce, Ronnie Wood; 1948 – Powers Boothe, Tom Sneva; 1953 – David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn); 1961 – Mark Curry (Hangin' with Mr. Cooper); 1968 – Mathias Rust (landed a private plane in Red Square); 1969 – Teri Polo

Deaths

1868 – James Buchanan; 1927 – Lizzie Borden; 1948 – Sonny Boy Williamson I; 1965 – Curly Lambeau (founded the Green Bay Packers); 1968 – Helen Keller; 1980 – Arthur Nielsen (Nielsen ratings); 1981 – Carl Vinson (namesake of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)); 1999 – Christopher Cockerell (invented the hovercraft); 2000 – Tito Puente; 2001 – Hank Ketcham ("Dennis The Menace" creator); 2008 – Yves Saint Laurent; 2014 – Ann B. Davis ('Alice' on "The Brady Bunch")

June 2

455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.

1763 – Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.

1886 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.

1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.

1910 – Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.

1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.

1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.

1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.

1976 - Wings set a new world record when they performed in front of 67,100 fans in Seattle, the largest attendance for an indoor crowd.

1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.

1981 - Prince made his live British debut at The Lyceum Ballroom, London, (he would not play the UK again for five years).

1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane's doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.

1989 - Rolling Stone Bill Wyman secretly married 19-year-old (some sources put her at 18) Mandy Smith. Wyman's 28-year-old son was best man. All other four Stones attended. The marriage lasted 17 months.

1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12 people.

1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.

1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was executed four years later.

2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!.

2012 – The former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Births

1731 – Martha Washington; 1740 – Marquis de Sade; 1840 – Thomas Hardy; 1904 – Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan); 1915 – Walter Tetley (voice of 'Sherman' in the Mr. Peabody cartoons); 1920 – Tex Schramm; 1926 – Milo O'Shea; 1930 – Pete Conrad (3rd man to walk on the Moon); 1937 – Sally Kellerman; 1941 – Stacy Keach; 1941 – Charlie Watts; 1943 – Charles Haid; 1944 – Marvin Hamlisch; 1948 – Jerry Mathers (the Beaver); 1953 – Craig Stadler; 1954 – Dennis Haysbert; 1955 – Dana Carvey; 1960 – Kyle Petty; 1972 – Wayne Brady; 1972 – Wentworth Miller ("Prison Break"); 1979 – Morena Baccarin:heartpump; 1989 – Freddy Adu

Deaths

1941 – Lou Gehrig; 1969 – Leo Gorcey; 1970 – Bruce McLaren; 1977 – Stephen Boyd; 1987 – Sammy Kaye, Andrés Segovia; 1990 – Jack Gilford, Rex Harrison; 1996 – Ray Combs; 1998 – Junkyard Dog; 2001 – Imogene Coca; 2008 – Bo Diddley; 2009 – David Eddings; 2012 – Richard Dawson

June 3

1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.

1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.

1781 – Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton.

1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

1885 – In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.

1888 – The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in The San Francisco Examiner.

1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.

1916 – The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

1942 – World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

1943 – In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.

1953 - Elvis Presley graduated from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis. He was the first member of his family to graduate high school.

1962 – At Paris' Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130 people.

1965 – The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

1969 – Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.

1970 - The Kinks' Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000 mile round trip from New York to London to record one word in a song. Davies had to change the word 'Coca- Cola' to 'Cherry Cola' on the bands forthcoming single 'Lola' due to an advertising ban at BBC Radio.

1973 – A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.

1979 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

1980 – The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak: Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages.

1983 - US session drummer Jim Gordon, murdered his mother by pounding her head with a hammer. A diagnosed schizophrenic, it was not until his trial in 1984 that he was properly diagnosed. Due to the fact that his attorney was unable to use the insanity defense, Gordon was sentenced to sixteen years-to-life in prison in 1984. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing "Layla" with Eric Clapton, Gordon worked with The Beach Boys, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and many other artists.

1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

1991 – Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

2012 – A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.

2012 – The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.

Births

1808 – Jefferson Davis; 1864 – Ransom E. Olds (founder Oldsmobile & REO Motor Car Co.); 1911 – Ellen Corby ('Grandma Walton'); 1917 – Leo Gorcey; 1924 – Colleen Dewhurst; 1924 – Jimmy Rogers (no, the black one); 1925 – Tony Curtis; 1926 – Allen Ginsberg; 1927 – Boots Randolph ("Yakety Sax"); 1929 – Chuck Barris; 1931 – Raúl Castro; 1936 – Larry McMurtry; 1942 – Curtis Mayfield; 1945 – Hale Irwin; 1946 – Tristan Rogers ('Robert Scorpio' on "General Hospital"); 1947 – Mickey Finn; 1950 – Suzi Quatro; 1950 – Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It For The Boy"), Robert Z'Dar ("Maniac Cop"); 1951 – Jill Biden; 1952 – Billy Powell; 1964 – James Purefoy; 1967 – Anderson Cooper; 1976 – Jamie McMurray

Deaths

1861 – Stephen A. Douglas; 1875 – Georges Bizet; 1899 – Johann Strauss II; 1955 – Barbara Graham; 1973 – Dory Funk; 1975 – Ozzie Nelson; 1987 – Will Sampson ('Chief Bromden' in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 1990 – Robert Noyce (co-founder Intel); 1991 – Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft; 2001 – Anthony Quinn; 2002 – Lew Wasserman; 2009 – David Carradine; 2011 – James Arness; 2011 – Jack Kevorkian; 2013 – Deacon Jones

June 4

1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.

1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1825 – General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY during his visit to the United States.

1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.

1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

1939 – The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

1942 - Glenn Wallichs launched Capitol Records in the US. Wallichs was the man who invented the art of record promotion by sending copies of new releases to disc jockeys.

1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505: The first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.

1974 &#8211; During Ten Cent Beer Night(<---read), inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.

1984 - Bruce Springsteen released the album, 'Born In The USA', which became the best-selling album of 1985 in the United States (and also Springsteen's most successful album ever). The album produced a record-tying string of seven Top 10 singles.

1986 &#8211; Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.

1989 &#8211; The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

1997 - Jeff Buckley's body was discovered floating in the Mississippi River. Buckley had disappeared when swimming on May 29th in Wolf River Harbor, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin. A roadie in Buckley's band, had remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, he looked up to see that Buckley had vanished.

1998 &#8211; Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2012 &#8211; The concert for Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee takes place outside Buckingham Palace in London.

2015 &#8211; An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing over 200 people.

Births

1907 &#8211; Rosalind Russell; 1910 &#8211; Christopher Cockerell; 1924 &#8211; Dennis Weaver; 1926 &#8211; Robert Earl Hughes (world's heaviest man, during his lifetime); 1928 &#8211; Ruth Westheimer; 1932 &#8211; John Drew Barrymore; 1936 &#8211; Bruce Dern; 1937 &#8211; Freddy Fender; 1937 &#8211; Gorilla Monsoon; 1939 &#8211; Henri Pachard (porn director, among other things); 1944 &#8211; Michelle Phillips; 1952 &#8211; Parker Stevenson; 1954 - Raphael Ravenscroft (saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street"; 1956 - Reeves Gabrels (The Cure); 1961 &#8211; El DeBarge; 1964 &#8211; Sean Pertwee (Bruce Wayne's butler/Man Friday 'Alfred' in "Gotham"); 1968 &#8211; Al B. Sure!, Scott Wolf; 1969 &#8211; Horatio Sanz; 1971 &#8211; Noah Wyle; 1975 &#8211; Angelina Jolie; 1978 &#8211; Robin Lord Taylor ('Oswald Cobblepot' (The Penguin) in "Gotham")

Deaths

1942 &#8211; Reinhard Heydrich; 1989 &#8211; Dik Browne (cartoonist, Hagar The Horrible & Hi and Lois); 1992 &#8211; Carl Stotz (founder of Little League Baseball); 1997 &#8211; Ronnie Lane; 2004 &#8211; Marvin Heemeyer (Granby, Colorado bulldozer rampage); 2007 &#8211; Bill France, Jr. (asshole); 2010 &#8211; John Wooden; 2013 &#8211; Joey Covington; 2014 &#8211; Don Zimmer

June 5

Today is World Environment Day.

70 – Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem.

1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.

1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.

1900 – Second Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria.

1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day".

1933 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

1940 – World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renew the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red").

1941 – World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing.

1942 – World War II: The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

1944 – World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.

1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair".

1964 – DSV Alvin is commissioned.

1967 – The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border.

1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy dies the next day.

1975 – The Suez Canal re-opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.

The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC).

1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses.

1981 – The "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.

1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

1993 – Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide.

2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.

2012 – The last transit of Venus of the 21st century begins.

2013 – A building collapse in Philadelphia, PA kills six and wounds 14 other people.

Births

1850 – Pat Garrett; 1878 – Pancho Villa; 1883 – John Maynard Keynes; 1895 – William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy); 1898 – Federico García Lorca; 1899 – Otis Barton (designed the bathysphere); 1919 – Richard Scarry (illustrator); 1928 – Robert Lansing; 1934 – Bill Moyers; 1941 – Spalding Gray, Robert Kraft; 1947 – Tom Evans (Badfinger); 1947 – Freddie Stone; 1949 – Ken Follett; 1951 – Suze Orman; 1952 – Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden); 1953 – Kathleen Kennedy (co-founder Amblin Entertainment); 1956 – Kenny G; 1961 – Mary Kay Bergman (voice actress on South Park); 1962 – Jeff Garlin; 1964 – Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson book series); 1967 – Ron Livingston; 1969 – Brian McKnight; 1971 – Mark Wahlberg; 1979 – Pete Wentz

Deaths

1900 – Stephen Crane; 1910 – O. Henry; 1993 – Conway Twitty; 1998 – Jeanette Nolan; 1999 – Mel Tormé; 2002 – Dee Dee Ramone; 2004 – Ronald Reagan; 2012 – Ray Bradbury; 2015 – Tariq Aziz

June 6

Ramadan begins today.

Today is Western Australia Day.

1508 – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friuli by Venetian troops.

1762 – Seven Years' War: British forces begin a siege of Havana, Cuba, and temporarily capture the city in the Battle of Havana.

1808 – Joseph Bonaparte, brother to Napoleon, is crowned King of Spain.

1833 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. President to ride on a train.

1844 – The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay, India are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.

1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle, Washington.

1892 – The Chicago "L" commuter rail system begins operation.

1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

1932 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon sold.

1933 – The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.

1934 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater

1942 – World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.

1944 - Operation Overlord commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

1946 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) is created with eleven teams.

1960 - Bing Crosby was presented with a Platinum disc to commemorate his 200 millionth record sold. The sales figures were a combined total of 2,600 recorded singles and 125 albums. Crosby's global lifetime sales on 179 labels in 28 countries totaled 400 million records.

1962 - The first Beatles recording session took place at Abbey Road studios. The group recorded four tracks, one of which was 'Love Me Do' the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.

1965 - The Rolling Stones released the single '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' in the US, which went on to give the band their first No.1.

1966 - Roy Orbison's first wife, Claudette, was killed when a truck pulled out of a side road and collided with the motorbike that she and her husband were riding on in Gallatin, Texas, she was 25.

1968 – Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.

1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives.

1982 – A British Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopter is destroyed in a friendly fire incident, resulting in the loss of four lives.

1984 – Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all time, is first released in the USSR.

1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

1997 – Prom Mom incident: While attending her senior prom in Lacey Township, New Jersey, Melissa Drexler gives birth in a bathroom stall, leaves the baby to die in a trash can and then returns to the prom.

2002 – Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2005 – In Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.

Births

1755 – Nathan Hale; 1756 – John Trumbull; 1799 – Alexander Pushkin; 1867 – David T. Abercrombie(founded Abercrombie & Fitch); 1868 – Robert Falcon Scott; 1917 – Kirk Kerkorian; 1923 – V. C. Andrews; 1936 – Levi Stubbs; 1939 – Gary U.S. Bonds; 1945 – David Dukes (the actor, not the racist); 1945 – Arthur Shawcross (the Genesee River Killer); 1947 – Robert Englund; 1954 – Harvey Fierstein; 1955 – Sandra Bernhard, 1955 – Sam Simon (developer, director, producer, writer The Simpsons); 1956 – Björn Borg; 1959 – Jimmy Jam; 1960 – Steve Vai; 1963 – Eric Cantor; 1967 – Paul Giamatti; 1972 – Natalie Morales; 1974 – Uncle Kracker

Deaths

1799 – Patrick Henry; 1865 – William Quantrill (Quantrill's Raiders); 1878 – Robert Stirling (invented the stirling engine); 1941 – Louis Chevrolet; 1961 – Carl Jung; 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy; 1976 – J. Paul Getty; 1979 – Jack Haley; 1991 – Stan Getz; 1997 – Magda Gabor (Zsa Zsa & Eva's older sister); 2002 – Robbin Crosby (Ratt); 2005 – Anne Bancroft, 2005 – Dana Elcar (MacGyver); 2006 – Billy Preston; 2010 – Marvin Isley (The Isley Brothers); 2013 – Esther Williams

rgb7;957730 wrote:

Is music ok for this thread?

Hope so;

Just now saw this.

rgb, music history is absolutely fine, and welcomed. As is anything else I may omit, or, overlook.

Additions/corrections from anyone/everyone are always welcome.

:welcome: to the Cellar, btw.

June 7

1099 – First Crusade: The Siege of Jerusalem begins.

1654 – Louis XIV is crowned King of France.

1776 – Richard Henry Lee presents the "Lee Resolution" to the Continental Congress. The motion is seconded by John Adams and will lead to the United States' Declaration of Independence.

1832 – Asian cholera reaches Quebec, brought by Irish immigrants, and kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada.

1866 – One thousand eight hundred Fenian raiders are repelled back to the United States after they looted and plundered around Saint-Armand and Frelighsburg, Quebec.

1892 – Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.

Homer Plessy is arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train; he lost the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.

1893 – Mohandas Gandhi commits his first act of civil disobedience.

1906 – Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania is launched from the John Brown Shipyard, Glasgow (Clydebank), Scotland.

1909 – Mary Pickford makes her screen debut at the age of 16.

1938 – The Douglas DC-4E makes its first test flight.

Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Nationalist government creates the 1938 Yellow River flood to halt Japanese forces. 500,000 to 900,000 civilians are killed.

1964 - During their first ever US tour The Rolling Stones were booed off stage at a gig in San Antonio, Texas. Some performing monkeys, who had been the act before the Stones, were brought back on stage for another performance. :lol2:

1965 – The Supreme Court of the United States hands down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israeli soldiers enter Jerusalem.

1969 - British supergroup Blind Faith, featuring Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Rick Grech and Steve Winwood made their live debut at a free concert in London's Hyde Park.

1971 – The United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1975 – The inaugural Cricket World Cup begins in England.

1977 - Led Zeppelin played the first of six sold out nights at Madison Square Garden, in New York City during their 11th and final North American tour, playing a 3 hour set. Tickets cost $8.50 - $10.50.

1981 – The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera.

1982 – Priscilla Presley opens Graceland to the public; the bathroom where Elvis Presley died five years earlier is kept off-limits.

1991 – Mount Pinatubo erupts, generating an ash column 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) high.

1995 – The long-range Boeing 777 enters service with United Airlines.

2012 - Bob Welch, an early member of Fleetwood Mac who enjoyed a successful solo career with hits such as 'Ebony Eyes,' was found dead after an apparent suicide at his home in Nashville. He was 66.

Births

1778 – Beau Brummell; 1837 – Alois Hitler (Adolf's father); 1848 – Paul Gauguin; 1894 – Alexander P. de Seversky (co-designed the P-47 Thunderbolt); 1905 – James J. Braddock; 1909 – Virginia Apgar (developed the Apgar test), Jessica Tandy; 1911 – Brooks Stevens (designed the Wienermobile); 1917 – Dean Martin; 1940 – Tom Jones; 1946 – Jenny Jones; 1952 – Liam Neeson; 1955 – William Forsythe, Tim Richmond; 1956 – L.A. Reid; 1958 – Prince; 1962 – Michael Cartellone; 1965 – Mick Foley; 1967 – Dave Navarro; 1974 – Bear Grylls (How many bears could Bear Grylls grill, if Bear Grylls did grill bears?); 1975 – Allen Iverson; 1978 – Bill Hader; 1981 – Anna Kournikova:heartpump; 1990 – Iggy Azalea

Deaths

1329 – Robert the Bruce; 1866 – Chief Seattle; 1937 – Jean Harlow; 1954 – Alan Turing; 1966 – Jean Arp; 1970 – E. M. Forster; 1988 – Vernon Washington; 1992 – Bill France Sr.; 2008 – Jim McKay; 2012 – Bob Welch; 2015 – Christopher Lee

And just because I think it bears repeating:

1964 - During their first ever US tour The Rolling Stones were booed off stage at a gig in San Antonio, Texas. Some performing monkeys, who had been the act before the Stones, were brought back on stage for another performance.

:lol2:

They got booed in Philly for wearing team shirts they got at the previous stop in Washington.

Whoops.

June 8

Today is World Oceans Day.

793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

1042 – Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England.

1783 – Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine. The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in India. The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally.

1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.

1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.

1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.

1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.

1949 – George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is published.

1953 – An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.

The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.

1966 – An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2, destroying both aircraft during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA test pilot, and Carl Cross, a United States Air Force test pilot, are both killed.

1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.

1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: Fifty-six British servicemen are killed by an Argentine air attack on two landing ships, RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.

1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.

1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1995 – The downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.

2004 – The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.

2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of a trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.

2008 - Rolling Stone Magazine published a list of the Top 50 guitar songs of all time. No.5 was 'Brown Sugar' by The Rolling Stones, No.4 , ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks, No.3, ‘Crossroads’, by Cream, No.2 ‘Purple Haze’, by Jimi Hendrix and No.1 ‘Johnny B Goode’, Chuck Berry.

2009 – Two American journalists are found guilty of illegally entering North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of penal labour.

Births

1810 – Robert Schumann; 1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright; 1910 – C. C. Beck (cartoonist, co-creator Captain Marvel); 1918 – Robert Preston; 1921 – LeRoy Neiman; 1924 – Lyn Nofziger; 1925 – Barbara Bush; 1927 – Jerry Stiller ('Frank Costanza' on "Seinfeld"); 1933 – Joan Rivers; 1936 – James Darren; 1939 – Bernie Casey; 1940 – Nancy Sinatra; 1942 – Chuck Negron; 1944 – Boz Scaggs; 1951 – Bonnie Tyler; 1955 – Tim Berners-Lee, Griffin Dunne; 1957 – Scott Adams (creator 'Dilbert'); 1958 – Keenen Ivory Wayans; 1965 – Rob Pilatus (lip syncer); 1966 – Julianna Margulies; 1970 – Kwame Kilpatrick; 1977 – Kanye West (Sixth Magnitude Asshole); 1978 – Maria Menounos; 1979 – Derek Trucks

Deaths

632 – Muhammad; 1809 – Thomas Paine; 1845 – Andrew Jackson; 1874 – Cochise; 1876 – George Sand; 1924 – George Mallory; 1969 – Robert Taylor; 1982 – Satchel Paige; 2000 – Jeff MacNelly )cartoonist, creator of "Shoe"); 2006 – Robert Donner; 2013 – Angus MacKay

June 9

53 &#8211; The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

68 &#8211; The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide. Apparently he just couldn't stand Claudia any longer.

1650 &#8211; The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.

1732 &#8211; James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1856 &#8211; Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

1862 &#8211; American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.

1915 &#8211; William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1928 &#8211; Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.

1934 &#8211; Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1946 &#8211; Thailand's King Ananda Mahidol is found shot dead in his bedroom, Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends the throne. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch.

1953 &#8211; The Flint&#8211;Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.

1954 &#8211; McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1959 &#8211; The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

1967 &#8211; Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

1968 &#8211; U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1973 &#8211; Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter-century, and lowering the track and world record times for 1½ mile distance races to 2:24.

1994 - After an argument TLC singer Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes set fire to her boyfriend's Atlanta mansion, worth $2 million (£1.176 million), burning it to the ground. She was charged with arson and fined $10,000 (£5,882) with five years probation.

Births

1672 &#8211; Peter the Great; 1891 &#8211; Cole Porter; 1915 &#8211; Les Paul; 1916 &#8211; Robert McNamara; 1931 &#8211; Jackie Mason; 1934 &#8211; Jackie Wilson; 1939 &#8211; Dick Vitale; 1941 &#8211; Jon Lord; 1956 &#8211; Patricia Cornwell; 1961 &#8211; Michael J. Fox, Aaron Sorkin; 1963 &#8211; Johnny Depp; 1973 &#8211; Tedy Bruschi; 1981 &#8211; Natalie Portman

Deaths

68 &#8211; Nero; 1870 &#8211; Charles Dickens; 1958 &#8211; Robert Donat; 1981 &#8211; Allen Ludden; 2014 &#8211; Rik Mayall

Danger, Danger, Will Robinson, reading this thread will cause a time warp resulting in you to losing hours wandering the internet!! :haha:

June 10

Today is Portugal Day, celebrating the death of Luís de Camões, who wrote Os Lusíadas, Portugal's national epic poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. Camões was an adventurer who lost one eye fighting in Ceuta, wrote the poem while traveling, and survived a shipwreck in Cochinchina (a region of present-day Vietnam). According to popular folklore, Camões saved his epic poem by swimming with one arm while keeping the other arm above water. Since his date of birth is unknown, his date of death is celebrated as Portugal's National Day.

671 – Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock (clepsydra) called Rokoku. The instrument, which measures time and indicates hours, is placed in the capital of &#332;tsu.

1190 – Third Crusade: Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to Jerusalem.

1596 – Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.

1692 – Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries".

1854 – The first class of United States Naval Academy students graduate.

1886 – Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and burying the famous Pink and White Terraces. Eruptions continue for 3 months creating a large, 17 km long fissure across the mountain peak.

1912 – The Villisca axe murders were discovered in Villisca, Iowa.

1935 – Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.

1944 – In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.

1947 – Saab produces its first automobile.

1963 – Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.

1964 – United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.

1967 – The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, opens to the public.

1977 – James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee. He is recaptured three days later.

The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.

Joe Strummer and Nicky Headon from The Clash were each fined £5 ($8.50) by a London court for spray-painting The Clash on a wall.

1986 - Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead went into a five day diabetic coma, resulting in the band withdrawing from their current tour.

1990 – British Airways Flight 5390 lands safely at Southampton Airport after a blowout in the cockpit causes the captain to be partially sucked from the cockpit. There are no fatalities.

1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she would remain a captive until 2009.

1997 – Before fleeing his northern stronghold, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief Son Sen and 11 of Sen's family members.

2003 – The Spirit rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Births

1895 – Hattie McDaniel; 1910 – Howlin' Wolf; 1915 – Saul Bellow; 1922 – Judy Garland; 1925 – Nat Hentoff; 1928 – Maurice Sendak; 1941 – Mickey Jones, Jürgen Prochnow; 1951 – Dan Fouts; 1953 – John Edwards; 1955 – Andrew Stevens; 1959 – Eliot Spitzer; 1961 – Kelley Deal, Kim Deal, Maxi Priest; 1963 – Jeanne Tripplehorn; 1964 – Jimmy Chamberlin; 1965 – Elizabeth Hurley:heartpump; 1968 – Bill Burr; 1971 – Bobby Jindal; 1982 – Tara Lipinski; 1992 – Kate Upton

Deaths

323 BC – Alexander the Great; 1190 – Frederick I; 1692 – Bridget Bishop; 1909 – Edward Everett Hale; 1946 – Jack Johnson; 1963 – Timothy Birdsall (British cartoonist); 1967 – Spencer Tracy; 1971 – Michael Rennie ('Klaatu in "The Day The Earth Stood Still"); 1973 – William Inge; 1976 – Adolph Zukor (co-founded Paramount Pictures); 1988 – Louis L'Amour; 1996 – Jo Van Fleet; 2002 – John Gotti; 2003 – Donald Regan; 2004 – Ray Charles; 2005 – Curtis Pitts (designed the Pitts Special); 2016 – Gordie Howe

June 11

Today, in the United Kingdom, is the Queen's Official Birthday.

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.

1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to first coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1949 - Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut at the 'Grand Ole Opry' in Nashville and received an unprecedented total of six encores.

1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

1960 - Drummer Tommy Moore made the fateful decision to quit The Beatles and return to his job of driving a forklift at Garston bottle works.

1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.

Buddhist monk Thích Qu&#7843;ng &#272;&#7913;c burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society.

1966 - European radio stations mistakenly reported that The Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey was dead. Actually, it was guitarist Pete Townshend who had been injured in a car accident a few days earlier.

1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain.

1993 – The film "Jurassic Park" is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of "Titanic" in 1997.

1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation.

2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.

Sir Paul McCartney marries Heather Mills at St. Salvator Church, Ireland.

2003 - Adam Ant was arrested after going berserk and stripping down in a London cafe. The former 1980's pop star had thrown stones at neighbours' homes, smashing windows before going to the nearby cafe.

2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

2005 - Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin founding member and guitarist, was awarded an OBE in the Queen of England's Birthday Honours list.

2011 - Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.

Births

1864 – Richard Strauss; 1888 – Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco & Vanzetti); 1910 – Jacques Cousteau; 1913 – Vince Lombardi; 1915 – Magda Gabor (older sister to Zsa Zsa & Eva); 1925 – William Styron; 1930 – Charles Rangel; 1932 – Athol Fugard; 1933 – Gene Wilder; 1937 – Chad Everett; 1939 – Christina Crawford (author of 'Mommie Dearest', daughter of Joan Crawford), Jackie Stewart; 1943 – Henry Hill; 1945 – Adrienne Barbeau; 1947 – Richard Palmer-James; 1949 – Frank Beard (the unbeared member of ZZ Top); 1950 – Graham Russell (Air Supply); 1952 – Donnie Van Zant; 1954 – Johnny Neel (Allman Bros.); 1956 – Joe Montana; 1959 – Hugh Laurie; 1965 – Manuel Uribe (third heaviest man ever recorded); 1969 – Peter Dinklage; 1982 – Marco Arment (co-creator Tumblr); 1986 – Shia LaBeouf

Deaths

1879 – William, Prince of Orange; 1920 – William F. Halsey, Sr. (father of Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr.); 1941 – Daniel Carter Beard (Boy Scouts of America); 1979 – John Wayne:blackr:; 1999 – DeForest Kelley ('Dr. McCoy' in "Star Trek"); 2001 – Timothy McVeigh; 2003 – David Brinkley; 2014 – Ruby Dee; 2015 – Jim Ed Brown; 2015 – Ornette Coleman; 2015 – Dusty Rhodes

2011 - Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.

When that album first came out, my buddy would pick out a victim, and convince them to listen on the headphones. Since they were stoned (like everyone else) they would invariably be drifting away... until the alarm clocks. :lol:

That one is definitely headphone material.:hedfone:

June 12

Today is Loving Day in the United States.

1381 – Peasants' Revolt: In England, rebels arrive at Blackheath.

1550 – The city of Helsinki, Finland (belonging to Sweden at the time) is founded by King Gustav I of Sweden.

1899 – New Richmond tornado: The eighth deadliest tornado in U.S. history kills 117 people and injures around 200 in New Richmond, Wisconsin. The New Richmond Tornado is generally assumed to have been an F5 tornado, with winds in excess of 261 mph.

1939 – The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.

1940 – World War II: Thirteen thousand British and French troops surrender to Major General Erwin Rommel at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.

1942 – Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday, during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.

1944 – American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division:devil: secure the town of Carentan.

1963 – Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by a Ku Klux Klan member.

1964 – Anti-apartheid activist and African NAt'l Congress leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.

1967 – The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

Venera program: Venera 4 is launched (it will become the first space probe to enter another planet's atmosphere and successfully return data).

1972 – The fast food restaurant chain Popeyes is founded in Arabi, Louisiana.

1978 – David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer in New York City, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings.

1979 – Bryan Allen wins the second Kremer prize for a man powered flight across the English Channel in the Gossamer Albatross.

1987 – Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1991 – Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic.

1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California.

1996 – In Philadelphia, a panel of federal judges blocks a law against indecency on the internet.

Births

1806 – John A. Roebling (designed the Brooklyn Bridge); 1914 – William Lundigan; 1916 – Irwin Allen; 1919 – Uta Hagen; 1924 – George H. W. Bush; 1928 – Vic Damone; 1929 – Anne Frank; 1930 – Jim Nabors; 1931 – Rona Jaffe; 1933 – Eddie Adams; 1941 – Marv Albert, Chick Corea; 1949 – Roger Aaron Brown; 1951 – Bun E. Carlos; 1951 – Brad Delp; 1953 – Rocky Burnette; 1957 – Timothy Busfield; 1960 – Mark Calcavecchia; 1973 – Jennifer Jo Cobb
; 1974 – Jason Mewes; 1977 – Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Deaths

1963 – Medgar Evers; 1980 – Milburn Stone ('Doc Adams' on "Gunsmoke"); 1983 – Norma Shearer; 1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson, Ronald Goldman; 2002 – Bill Blass; 2003 – Gregory Peck; 2007 – Don Herbert ('Mr. Wizard'); 2013 – Jason Leffler

Today is Loving Day in the United States.

Damn, that only leaves 364 hating days. :haha:

Well, this is a leap year...:D

June 13

1514 - Henry Grace à Dieu, at over 1,000 tons the largest warship in the world at this time, built at the new Woolwich Dockyard in England, is dedicated.

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.

1777 – American Revolutionary War: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.

1805 – Lewis and Clark Expedition: scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River.

1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; the operation was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after the president's death.

1917 – World War I: The deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.

1940 - The battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55), the most highly decorated American battleship of WWII (15 battle stars), is launched.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Villers-Bocage - German tank ace Michael Wittmann ambushes elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, destroying up to fourteen tanks and fifteen personnel carriers, along with two anti-tank guns in a Tiger 1 tank.

1952 – Catalina affair: A Swedish Douglas DC-3 is shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.

1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

1967 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1970 – "The Long and Winding Road" becomes The Beatles' last U.S. number one song.

1975 - Peter Frampton played the first of two nights at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, California. Recordings from these two shows were used as part of his No.1 double album 'Frampton Comes Alive'. It became the best-selling album of 1976, selling over 6 million copies in the US and Frampton Comes Alive! was voted "Album of the year" in the 1976 Rolling Stone readers poll. It remained on the charts for 97 weeks.

1977 – Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray is recaptured after escaping from prison three days before.

1981 – At the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London, a teenager, Marcus Sarjeant, fires six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II.

1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune (the farthest planet from the Sun at the time).

1992 - Billy Ray Cyrus started a 17-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'Some Gave All'. His debut album featured the world-wide breakthrough song 'Achy Breaky Heart', which was originally recorded as 'Don't Tell My Heart' by The Marcy Brothers on their 1991 self-titled album.

1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.

2000 – Italy pardons Mehmet Ali A&#287;ca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.

2010 – A capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, containing particles of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa, returns to Earth.

2015 – A man opens fire at policemen outside the police headquarters in the Texas city of Dallas, while a bag containing a pipe bomb is also found. He was later shot dead by police.

Births

1786 – Winfield Scott; 1865 – W. B. Yeats; 1892 – Basil Rathbone; 1903 – Red Grange; 1913 – Ralph Edwards; 1918 – Ben Johnson; 1926 – Paul Lynde; 1943 – Malcolm McDowell; 1943 – Jim Guy Tucker; 1945 – Whitley Strieber; 1949 - Dennis Locorriere; 1951 – Richard Thomas ('John Boy Walton'), Stellan Skarsgård; 1953 – Tim Allen; 1959 – Lance Kinsey ("Police Academy"); 1962 – Ally Sheedy; 1968 – David Gray; 1969 – Laura Kightlinger; 1970 – Rivers Cuomo; 1973 – Tanner Foust; 1986 – Kat Dennings; 1986 – Ashley & Mary-Kate Olsen

Deaths

1231 – Anthony of Padua; 1979 – Darla Hood ("Our Gang"); 1986 – Benny Goodman; 1987 – Geraldine Page; 1993 – Deke Slayton; 2008 – Tim Russert; 2010 – Jimmy Dean; 2013 – David Deutsch; 2014 – Chuck Noll

June 14

Today is Flag Day in the United States.

There are 200 days remaining in the year.

There are 193 days till Christmas.

1158 – Munich is founded by Henry the Lion on the banks of the river Isar.

1381 – Richard II of England meets leaders of Peasants' Revolt on Blackheath. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Army.

1777 – The Stars and Stripes is adopted by Congress as the Flag of the United States.

1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,600 mi) journey in an open boat.

Whiskey distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig (may God bless and keep him). It is named Bourbon because Rev Craig lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1846 – Bear Flag Revolt begins: Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.

1900 – Hawaii becomes United States territory.

1937 – Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.

U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act.

1949 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 134 km (83 mi), thereby becoming the first monkey in space.

1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.

1959 – Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California.

1961 - Patsy Cline was seriously injured in a car accident. During her two month hospital stay, her song "I Fall to Pieces" gave the singer her first Country No.1 and also became a huge country-pop crossover hit.

1967 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched towards Venus.

1970 - Derek and the Dominoes played their first gig when they appeared at London's Lyceum.

1982 – Falklands War: Argentine forces in the capital Stanley conditionally surrender to British forces.

1986 – The Mindbender accident happens at West Edmonton Mall. Three people died and one person was injured in the accident. This accident caused WEM to close the Mindbender for a few months for upgrades to it. Since 1986, the Mindbender has run accident free ever since.

Three fans die during an Ozzy Osbourne gig at Long Beach Arena, California after falling from a balcony.

1994 - Composer Henry Mancini dies aged 70.

2002 – Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Births

1811 – Harriet Beecher Stowe; 1864 – Alois Alzheimer; 1909 – Burl Ives; 1916 – Dorothy McGuire; 1919 – Gene Barry; 1919 – Sam Wanamaker; 1928 – Ernesto 'Che' Guevara; 1931 – Marla Gibbs ('Florence' on "The Jeffersons"); 1931 – Junior Walker; 1932 – Joe Arpaio; 1945 – Rod Argent; 1946 – Donald Trump; 1952 – Pat Summitt; 1954 – Will Patton; 1956 – King Diamond, Fred Funk; 1958 – Eric Heiden; 1961 – Boy George; 1963 – Chris DeGarmo; 1966 – Traylor Howard; 1978 – Diablo Cody; 1982 – Lang Lang

Deaths

1801 – Benedict Arnold; 1825 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant; 1914 – Adlai Stevenson I; 1926 – Mary Cassatt; Jerome K. Jerome; 1936 – G. K. Chesterton; 1994 - Henry Mancini; 1997 – Richard Jaeckel; 2007 – Robin Olds; 2007 – Kurt Waldheim; 2009 – Bob Bogle (The Ventures)

June 15

763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.

1215 – King John of England puts his seal to the Magna Carta.

1219 – Northern Crusades: Danish victory at the Battle of Lyndanisse (modern-day Tallinn) establishes the Danish Duchy of Estonia. According to legend, this battle also marks the first use of the Dannebrog, the world's oldest national flag still in use, as the national flag of Denmark.

1300 – The city of Bilbao, Spain is founded.

1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.

1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown).

1775 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

1816 – At the Villa Diodati in the village of Cologny, Switzerland, Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests — Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori — and challenges each guest to write a ghost story, which culminates in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing an unfinished vampire novel Fragment of a Novel and the poem Darkness.

1836 – Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.

1844 – Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.

1864 – Arlington National Cemetery is established when 200 acres (0.81 km2) around Arlington Mansion (formerly owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee) are officially set aside as a military cemetery by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

1878 – Eadweard Muybridge takes a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study becomes the basis of motion pictures.

1896 – The deadliest tsunami in Japan's history kills more than 22,000 people.

1904 – A fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,000 people.

1916 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter.

1934 – The U.S. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

1944 – World War II: Battle of Saipan: The United States invade Japanese-occupied Saipan.

1970 – Charles Manson goes on trial for the Sharon Tate murders.

1991 – In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. In the end, over 800 people die.

1992 – The United States Supreme Court rules in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the USA for trial, without approval from those other countries.

1996 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful truck bomb in the middle of Manchester, England, devastating the city centre and injuring 200 people.

Births

1330 – Edward, the Black Prince; 1908 – Sam Giancana; 1914 – Yuri Andropov; 1917 – Lash LaRue; 1930 – Victor Lundin (Star Trek's first Klingon); 1932 – Mario Cuomo; 1937 – Waylon Jennings; 1941 – Harry Nilsson; 1943 – Johnny Hallyday, Xaviera Hollander; 1946 – Noddy Holder; 1947 – John Hoagland; 1948 – Mike Holmgren; 1949 – Dusty Baker, Russell Hitchcock, Jim Varney (Ernest); 1951 – Steve Walsh; 1954 – Jim Belushi; 1955 – Julie Hagerty; 1957 – Brad Gillis; 1958 – Wade Boggs; 1963 – Helen Hunt; 1964 – Courteney Cox; 1969 – Ice Cube; 1972 – Andy Pettitte; 1973 – Neil Patrick Harris:devil:; 1980 – Mary Carey; 1984 – Tim Lincecum

Deaths

1849 – James K. Polk; 1968 – Wes Montgomery; 1989 – Victor French; 1991 – Happy Chandler; 1996 – Ella Fitzgerald; 2003 – Hume Cronyn; 2014 – Casey Kasem; 2015 – Kirk Kerkorian; 2015 – Mighty Sam McClain:devil:

June 16

Today is Bloomsday in Dublin, Ireland.

1487 – Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.

1774 – Foundation of Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

1858 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.

1883 – The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England kills 183 children.

1884 – The first purpose-built roller coaster, LaMarcus Adna Thompson's "Switchback Railway", opens in New York's Coney Island amusement park.

1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.

1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called "Bloomsday".

1911 – IBM is founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.

A 772 gram stony meteorite strikes the earth near Kilbourn, Wisconsin (now Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin)damaging a barn.

1944 – At age 14, George Junius Stinney, Jr. becomes the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.

1955 – In a futile effort to topple Argentine President Juan Perón, rogue aircraft pilots of the Argentine Navy drop several bombs upon an unarmed crowd demonstrating in favor of Perón in Buenos Aires, killing 364 and injuring at least 800.

1961 – Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union.

1963 – Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 Mission: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

1965 - Bob Dylan recorded 'Like A Rolling Stone' at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City, in the sessions for the forthcoming 'Highway 61 Revisited' album.

1967 – The Monterey Pop Festival begins.

1977 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.

1980 - The Blues Brothers film starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd premiered in Chicago.

1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan awards the Congressional Gold Medal to Ken Taylor, Canada's former ambassador to Iran, for helping six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979-81; he is the first foreign citizen bestowed the honor.

1982 - Donnie Van Zant of .38 Special was arrested on stage in Tulsa, Oklahoma, (a dry town) for drinking alcohol in a public place.

1994, Kristen Pfaff, bass player with Hole was found dead in her bathtub due to a heroin overdose, aged 26.

2010 – Bhutan becomes the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.

2012 – The United States Air Force's robotic Boeing X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission.

2013 - Black Sabbath established a new UK chart record for the longest gap between No.1 albums when their new release, 13 debuted at the top of the charts, 42 years and 8 months after their second album Paranoid reached No.1.

Births

1821 – Old Tom Morris; 1829 – Geronimo; 1890 – Stan Laurel; 1907 – Jack Albertson; 1917 – Katharine Graham (publisher The Washington Post); 1934 – Eileen Atkins; 1937 – Erich Segal (wrote "Love Story"); 1938 – Joyce Carol Oates, Charles B. Pierce (directed "The Town That Dreaded Sundown"(original), "The Legend of Boggy Creek", wrote "Sudden Impact"); 1939 – Billy "Crash" Craddock; 1941 – Lamont Dozier; 1942 – Eddie Levert; 1943 – Joan Van Ark; 1951 – Roberto 'Hands of Stone' Durán; 1952 – Gino Vannelli; 1955 – Laurie Metcalf; 1957 – Ian Buchanan; 1959 – The Ultimate Warrior; 1962 – Wally Joyner, Femi Kuti; 1968 - Gravdigr; 1969 – MC Ren; 1970 – Phil Mickelson; 1971 – Tupac Shakur; 1972 – John Cho ('Harold' of Harold & Kumar); 1973 – Eddie Cibrian; 1978 – Daniel Brühl

Deaths

1881 – Marie Laveau (voodoo priestess); 1930 – Ezra Fitch (Abercrombie & Fitch); 1930 – Elmer Ambrose Sperry (co-invented the gyrocompass, namesake of the subtender USS Sperry (AS-12), with Peter Hewitt to develop the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, one of the first successful precursors of the UAV); 1939 – Chick Webb; 1958 – Imre Nagy; 1959 – George Reeves; 1970 – Brian Piccolo; 1977 – Wernher von Braun; 1979 – Nicholas Ray; 1982 – James Honeyman-Scott; 1999 – Screaming Lord Sutch; 2014 – Tony Gwynn

June 17

1462 – Vlad The Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1579 – Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.

1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, spends the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.

1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud: One thousand five hundred Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

1948 – A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.

1954 - Guitarist Danny Cedrone (guitar work on "Rock Around The Clock") falls down a flight of stairs, breaking his neck and dying instantly.

1965 - The Kinks and The Moody Blues made their US concert debut at the Academy of Music in New York City.

1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1973 - Dolly Parton recorded 'I Will Always Love You' in RCA's Studio "B" in Nashville, Tennessee.

1978 - Andy Gibb became the first solo artist in the history of the US charts to have his first three releases reach No.1, when 'Shadow Dancing' hit the top of the chart. Spending seven weeks at No.1 it became the best selling single in the US in 1978.

1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct.

1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

2012 - Bruce Springsteen played his longest show when he turned in a three-hour-and-48-minute, 32-song, set at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.

2015 – Nine people are killed in a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Births

1704 – John Kay (no, not that one, this one invented the flying shuttle used in weaving); 1882 – Igor Stravinsky; 1898 – M. C. Escher; 1903 – Ruth Graves Wakefield (created the chocolate chip cookie); 1904 – Ralph Bellamy; 1910 – Red Foley; 1919 – Beryl Reid; 1943 – Newt Gingrich, Barry Manilow, Burt Rutan; 1945 – Tommy Franks; 1947 – Gregg Rolie, Paul Young; 1951 – Joe Piscopo; 1958 – Jello Biafra; 1960 – Thomas Haden Church; 1963 – Greg Kinnear; 1966 – Jason Patric; 1970 – Will Forte; 1980 – Venus Williams; 1987 – Kendrick Lamar

Deaths

1961 – Jeff Chandler; 1986 – Kate Smith; 2008 – Cyd Charisse; 2012 – Rodney King

June 18

1178 – Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon's distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.

1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1767 – Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia.

1812 – War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declares war on Great Britain, Canada, and Ireland.

1815 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.

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

1923 – Checker Taxi puts its first taxi on the streets.

1930 – Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute are held.

1940 – Charles de Gaulle makes his Appeal of 18 June.

"Finest Hour" speech by Winston Churchill.

1948 – Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

1971 – President Richard Nixon declares that illegal drugs are "public enemy number one", which becomes popularized as the "War on Drugs".

1974 - Peter Hoorelbeke drummer with US band Rare Earth was arrested after a concert for throwing his drumsticks into the crowd.

1977, Johnny Rotten and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols were stabbed and beaten when they were attacked in a car park outside a London pub. They objected to the Pistols' anti-monarchist song 'God Save the Queen'. The next day, another member of the Pistols, [possibly Jamie Reed, there is a misprint in the article], was beaten by a gang armed with iron pipes.

1981 – The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk:devil:, the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology, makes its first flight.

1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

Swiss band Yello ("Oh Yeah") released the first three- dimensional picture disc, complete with 3-D glasses.

1994 – The Troubles: Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attack a crowded pub with assault rifles in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians are killed and five wounded.

2010 - John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to The Beatles song 'A Day In The Life' sold for $1.2m (£810,000) at an auction at Sotheby's in New York.

Births

1854 – E. W. Scripps; 1877 – James Montgomery Flagg; 1886 – George Mallory; 1903 – Jeanette MacDonald; 1913 – Sammy Cahn, Robert Mondavi; 1914 – E. G. Marshall; 1915 – Red Adair; 1917 – Richard Boone; 1936 – Barack Obama Sr.; 1939 – Lou Brock; 1942 – Roger Ebert, Paul McCartney; 1944 – Sandy Posey; 1952 – Carol Kane; 1956 – Brian Benben; 1961 – Randy Spears (porn actor/director); 1976 – Blake Shelton

Deaths

1959 – Ethel Barrymore; 1982 – John Cheever; 1992 – Peter Allen; 2000 – Nancy Marchand (played 'Tony Soprano's' mother on "The Sopranos"); 2002 – Jack Buck; 2011 – Clarence Clemons

1778 &#8211; American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia.

One of the courts martial I examined for my thesis was for desertion. The soldier had fallen for a woman in Philadelphia, and couldn't bear to leave when the troops abandoned the city.

June 19

Today is Juneteenth.

Today is also Father's Day (in the U.S.).

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

1586 – English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in North America.

1846 – The first officially recorded, organized baseball game is played under Alexander Cartwright's rules on Hoboken, New Jersey's Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23–1. Cartwright umpired.

1862 – The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 41 other contiguous states as Juneteenth.

1910 – The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

1944 – World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

1949 -- The first ever NASCAR race was held at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

1953 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

1973 - Edgar Winter's US No.1 hit 'Frankenstein' was awarded a Gold record. Winter named the song because of how many cuts and patches were contained in the original studio tape.

1978 – Garfield, holder of the Guinness World Record for the world's most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.

1980 - US singer Donna Summer became the first act to be signed by David Geffen to his new Geffen record label.

2009 – Mass riots involving over 10,000 people and 10,000 police officers break out in Shishou, China, over the dubious circumstances surrounding the death of a local chef.

2012 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requested asylum in London's Ecuadorian Embassy for fear of extradition to the US after publication of previously classified documents including footage of civilian killings by the US army.

2014 - Gerry Goffin, who penned chart-topping songs with his then-wife Carole King died at the age of 75 in Los Angeles. He wrote dozens of hits over two decades, including 'The Loco-Motion', 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'. After their divorce in 1968, Goffin continued writing songs, including a hit for Whitney Houston 'Saving All My Love for You' in 1985.

Births

1623 – Blaise Pascal; 1816 – William H. Webb (founder Webb Institute); 1834 – Charles Spurgeon; 1865 – Dame May Whitty; 1877 – Charles Coburn; 1893 – Madeleine Astor (Titanic survivor); 1896 – Wallis Simpson; 1897 – Moe Howard; 1902 – Guy Lombardo; 1903 – Lou Gehrig (39 years later he will be diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, now commonly known in the United States as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"); 1910 – Sydney Allard (Allard Motor Company Limited); 1910 – Abe Fortas; 1914 – Alan Cranston, Lester Flatt; 1921 – Louis Jourdan; 1928 – Nancy Marchand (played Tony Soprano's mother); 1930 – Gena Rowlands; 1938 – Wahoo McDaniel; 1940 – Shirley Muldowney; 1945 – Aung San Suu Kyi; 1947 – Salman Rushdie; 1950 – Ann Wilson (Heart); 1953 – Simon Wright; 1954 – Kathleen Turner; 1956 – Doug Stone; 1957 – Jean Rabe; 1959 – Mark DeBarge; 1962 – Paula Abdul; 1964 – Boris Johnson; 1969 – Lara Spencer; 1972 – Poppy Montgomery, Robin Tunney; 1976 – Scott Avett (The Avett Brothers); 1978 – Zoe Saldana; 1983 – Macklemore

Deaths

1937 – J. M. Barrie; 1953 – Ethel Rosenberg, Julius Rosenberg; 1966 – Ed Wynn; 1975 – Sam Giancana; 1995 – Peter Townsend (no, not that one, he's a 'Townshend'); 2010 – Manute Bol; 2012 – Richard Lynch; 2013 – James Gandolfini; 2013 – Slim Whitman; 2015 – James Salter

June20

Today is the Summer Solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere, and, Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

451 &#8211; Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.

1248 &#8211; The University of Oxford receives its Royal charter.

1631 &#8211; The sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.

1782 &#8211; The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.

1819 &#8211; The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail.

1837 &#8211; Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne.

1840 &#8211; Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.

1863 &#8211; West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.

1877 &#8211; Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

1893 &#8211; Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother.

1948 &#8211; Toast of the Town, later The Ed Sullivan Show, makes its television debut.

1963 &#8211; The so-called "red telephone" link is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1969 - David Bowie records 'Space Oddity' at Trident Studios London. The track went on to become a UK No.1 when re-released in 1975.

1972 &#8211; Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.

1975 &#8211; The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters".

1979 &#8211; ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.

1982 &#8211; The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War.

1990 &#8211; The 7.4 Mw Manjil&#8211;Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000&#8211;50,000, and injuring 60,000&#8211;105,000.

1991 &#8211; The German Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.

2001 &#8211; Andrea Yates, in an attempt to save her young children from Satan, drowns all five of them in a bathtub in Houston, Texas.

2003 &#8211; The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.:cheerldr::celebrat:

2004 - Organizers at a Paul McCartney show in Petersburg, Russia, hired three jets to spray dry ice into the clouds so it wouldn't rain during the concert. The gig was McCartney's 3,000th concert appearance. He had performed 2,535 gigs with the Quarrymen and The Beatles, 140 gigs with Wings and 325 solo shows.

Births

1905 &#8211; Lillian Hellman; 1907 &#8211; Jimmy Driftwood; 1909 &#8211; Errol Flynn; 1924 &#8211; Chet Atkins; 1925 &#8211; Audie Murphy; 1928 &#8211; Martin Landau; 1933 &#8211; Danny Aiello; 1935 &#8211; Len Dawson; 1937 &#8211; Jerry Keller; 1940 &#8211; John Mahoney ("Frasier"'s father); 1941 &#8211; Stephen Frears; 1942 &#8211; Brian Wilson; 1945 &#8211; Anne Murray; 1946 &#8211; Bob Vila; 1949 &#8211; Alan Longmuir (Bay City Rollers), Lionel Richie; 1950 &#8211; Nouri al-Maliki; 1952 &#8211; John Goodman, Larry Riley; 1954 &#8211; Michael Anthony (bassist Van Halen); 1957 &#8211; Koko B. Ware; 1958 &#8211; Ron Hornaday, Jr. (race car driver); 1960 &#8211; John Taylor; 1967 &#8211; Nicole Kidman; 1967 &#8211; Dan Tyminski (singer of "Man Of Constant Sorrow"; 1968 &#8211; Robert Rodriguez; 1971 &#8211; Josh Lucas, Twiggy Ramirez (bassist 'Marilyn Manson'); 1978 &#8211; Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson; 1983 &#8211; Darren Sproles

Deaths

1875 - Joe Meek; 1945 &#8211; Bruno Frank; 1947 &#8211; Bugsy Siegel; 1972 &#8211; Howard Johnson; 2012 &#8211; LeRoy Neiman

re: 1248 &#8211; The University of Oxford receives its Royal charter.

Though that was when it received its charter, iit existed for a long time before as a place of learning and teaching.

The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University or simply Oxford) is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England, United Kingdom. While having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096,[1] making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest surviving university.[1][8] It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris.[1]

I went looking for the above and also found this little titbit which i did not know:

After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge.[9] The two "ancient universities" are frequently jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".

I did not know that's how Cambridge was founded.

June 21

1734 &#8211; In Montreal in New France, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of the city.

1749 &#8211; Halifax, Nova Scotia, is founded.

1854 &#8211; The first Victoria Cross is awarded during the bombardment of Bomarsund in the Åland Islands.

1877 &#8211; The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants convicted of murder, are hanged at the Schuylkill County and Carbon County, Pennsylvania prisons.

1898 &#8211; The United States captures Guam from Spain.

1900 &#8211; Boxer Rebellion. China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi.

1915 &#8211; The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks.

1919 &#8211; Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I.

1942 &#8211; World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]*[/COLOR] 1964 &#8211; Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi.

1966 - Reg Calvert manager of The Fortunes, Screaming Lord Sutch and the owner of offshore pirate radio station Radio City was shot dead by business rival William Oliver Smedley during a confrontation. (Smedley was the owner of pirate station Radio Caroline). Smedley was later cleared of the murder on grounds of self defense.

Jimmy Page made his live debut with The Yardbirds at The Marquee Club in London.

1975 - Elton John, The Beach Boys, Joe Walsh, Rufus, and The Eagles all appeared in front of 120,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, London. Tickets cost £3.50 ($5.95).

Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore quit Deep Purple to form his own group, Rainbow.

1982 &#8211; John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

2001 &#8211; A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.

John Lee Hooker, American blues singer and guitarist died in his sleep, aged 83.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]*[/COLOR] 2005 &#8211; Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been acquitted for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).

2009 &#8211; Greenland assumes self-rule.

Births

1639 &#8211; Increase Mather; 1850 &#8211; Daniel Carter Beard (co-founded the Boy Scouts of America); 1890 &#8211; Frank S. Land (founded DeMolay International; 1896 &#8211; Charles Momsen (invented the Momsen lung); 1903 &#8211; Al Hirschfeld; 1905 &#8211; Jean-Paul Sartre; 1921 &#8211; Judy Holliday, Jane Russell; 1925 &#8211; Maureen Stapleton; 1932 &#8211; Lalo Schifrin; 1933 &#8211; Bernie Kopell ('Doc' on The Love Boat); 1938 &#8211; Don Black (co-wrote theme songs for "Thunderball", "Diamonds Are Forever" and "The Man with the Golden Gun"); 1940 &#8211; Mariette Hartley; 1941 &#8211; Joe Flaherty; 1944 &#8211; Ray Davies; 1947 &#8211; Meredith Baxter(mom on "Family Ties"), Michael Gross (dad on "Family Ties"):3_eyes:; 1947 &#8211; Joey Molland (Badfinger); 1948 &#8211; Don Airey (keyboard); 1950 &#8211; Joey Kramer; 1951 &#8211; Nils Lofgren; 1953 &#8211; Benazir Bhutto; 1957 &#8211; Berkeley Breathed; 1959 &#8211; Kathy Mattea; 1961 &#8211; Kip Winger; 1964 &#8211; Doug Savant; 1965 &#8211; Lana Wachowski (formerly Larry, [strike]bro[/strike] sis of Lilly (formerly Andy):3_eyes:; 1966 &#8211; Gretchen Carlson, Mancow Muller; 1967 &#8211; Jim Breuer; 1967 &#8211; Pierre Omidyar (founder eBay), Carrie Preston; 1973 &#8211; Juliette Lewis; 1979 &#8211; Chris Pratt; 1983 &#8211; Edward Snowden; 1985 &#8211; Lana Del Rey

Deaths

1527 &#8211; Niccolò Machiavelli; 1582 &#8211; Oda Nobunaga; 1591 &#8211; Aloysius Gonzaga (namesake of Gonzaga University); 1652 &#8211; Inigo Jones; 1661 &#8211; Andrea Sacchi; 1874 &#8211; Anders Jonas Ångström; 1876 &#8211; Antonio López de Santa Anna (Remember the Alamo?); 1908 &#8211; Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; 1940 &#8211; Smedley Butler (at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history); 1964 &#8211; James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner; 1985 &#8211; Hector Boyardee (founded Chef Boyardee); 1987 &#8211; Earl 'Madman' Muntz; [COLOR="Blue"]2001 &#8211; John Lee Hooker[/COLOR]; 2001 &#8211; Carroll O'Connor; 2003 &#8211; Jason Moran; 2003 &#8211; Leon Uris; 2007 &#8211; Bob Evans; 2008 &#8211; Scott Kalitta (drag racer, son of drag racer Connie Kalitta, the wreck that killed him resulted in NHRA shortening the track to 1,000 feet); 2012 &#8211; Richard Adler; 2014 &#8211; Jimmy C. Newman

On this day in history Gravdigr's computer decided to take a shit 9/10s of the way through todays post.

So...

Nothing happened today. No one was born. No one died.

Sorry.

I'm sorry no one died... except your computer, I am sorry about that. :(

July 22:

1815
Napoleon abdicated his throne for the second time after his defeat at Waterloo.

1870
The U.S. Justice Department was created.

1874
Dr. Andrew Still became the first to practice osteopathy.

1943
W.E.B. DuBois became the first black member of the National Institute of Letters.

1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill of Rights.

1969
Singer-actress Judy Garland died.

1987
Actor-dancer-singer Fred Astaire died.

2011
Legendary Boston crime boss,James "Whitey" Bulger is found and arrested by federal authorities in Santa Monica, Calif.

It hiccupped just enough to lose the arm long post I was almost finished with.

That noise you probably heard was me screaming "Sonofabitch!!".

Helluva thang, helluva thang...




ETA: Thx, UT.

It's not as good as yours but a faithful reproduction

Oh Grav, that totally sucks. Nice one UT for keeping the torch lit:)

June 23

Today is International Widows Day.

1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn begins.

1611 – The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.

1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.

1757 – Battle of Plassey: Three thousand British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000-strong Indian army under Siraj ud-Daulah at Plassey.

1780 – American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey.

1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.

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

1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam.

1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine plane.

1942 – The first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz take place on a train full of Jews from Paris.

Germany's latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.

1943 – The British destroyers HMS Eclipse and HMS Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser HMS Newfoundland.

1946 – The 1946 Vancouver Island earthquake strikes Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career.

1960 – The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.

1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.

1970 - Chubby Checker was arrested in Niagara Falls after police discovered marijuana and other drugs in his car.

1973 – A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.

1975 - During his 'Welcome To My Nightmare' tour in Vancouver, Canada, Alice Cooper falls from the stage and breaks six ribs.

1982 – Chinese American Vincent Chin dies in a coma after being beaten in Highland Park, Michigan on June 19, by two auto workers who had mistaken him for Japanese and who were angry about the success of Japanese auto companies.

1985 – A terrorist bomb aboard Air India Flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard.

1990 - Buddy Holly's Gibson acoustic guitar sold for £139,658 ($237,419) in a Sotheby's auction. The guitar was in a tooled leather case made by Holly himself.

2010 - [Then] 62-year-old Gregg Allman underwent a successful liver transplant operation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

2013 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.

2014 – The last of Syria's declared chemical weapons are shipped out for destruction.

Births

1894 – Alfred Kinsey; 1912 – Alan Turing; 1923 – Elroy Schwartz; 1925 – Art Modell; 1927 – Bob Fosse; 1929 – June Carter Cash; 1936 – Richard Bach; 1940 – Wilma Rudolph; 1940 – Stu Sutcliffe; 1947 – Bryan Brown; 1955 – Glenn Danzig; 1956 – Randy Jackson; 1957 – Frances McDormand; 1964 – Joss Whedon; 1966 – Chico DeBarge; 1972 – Selma Blair; 1974 – Joel Edgerton; 1975 – KT Tunstall; 1977 – Jason Mraz; 1979 – LaDainian Tomlinson; 1980 – Melissa Rauch; 1984 – Duffy

Deaths

79 – Vespasian; 1970 – Roscoe Turner; 1995 – Jonas Salk; 1997 – Betty Shabazz; 1998 – Maureen O'Sullivan; 2006 – Aaron Spelling; 2009 – Ed McMahon; 2011 – Peter Falk; 2013 – Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Frank Kelso; 2015 – Dick Van Patten

Damn, so soon, now I have to run out and make a widow. :haha:

"1982 &#8211; Chinese American Vincent Chin dies in a coma after being beaten in Highland Park, Michigan on June 19, by two auto workers who had mistaken him for Japanese and who were angry about the success of Japanese auto companies."

There is all kinds of stupid in this story.

June 24

1340 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Sluys: The French fleet is almost completely destroyed by the English fleet commanded in person by King Edward III.

1374 – A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.

1497 – John Cabot lands in North America at Newfoundland leading the first European exploration of the region since the Vikings.

1717 – The Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world (now the United Grand Lodge of England), is founded in London.

1880 – First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada.

1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract.

1938 – Pieces of a meteor, estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, land near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

1947 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting, near Mount Rainier, Washington.

1949 – The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC starring William Boyd.

1957 – In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.

1967 – The worst caving disaster in British history takes six lives at Mossdale Caverns.

1999 - Eric Clapton put 100 of his guitars up for auction at Christie's in New York City to raise money for his drug rehab clinic, the Crossroads Centre in Antigua. His 1956 Fender Stratocaster, named Brownie, which was used to record the electric version of ‘Layla’, sold for a record $497,500. The auction helped raise nearly $5 million for the clinic.

2002 – The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281 people, the worst train accident in African history.

2004, A Fender Stratocaster that Eric Clapton nicknamed 'Blackie' sold at a Christie's auction for $959,500 (£564,412) in New York, making it the most expensive guitar in the world. The proceeds of the sale went towards Clapton's Crossroads addiction clinic, which he founded in 1998.

2010 – John Isner of the United States defeats Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon, in the longest match in professional tennis history.

2012 – Lonesome George, the last known individual of Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, a subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies.

2013, Former Devo drummer Alan Myers died aged 58 in Los Angeles, California, following a long bout with cancer. Myers drummed for Devo between 1976 and 1986.

Births

1788 – Thomas Blanchard (pioneered the assembly line, and interchangeable parts); 1813 – Henry Ward Beecher; 1842 – Ambrose Bierce; 1893 – Roy O. Disney (walt's brother); 1895 – Jack Dempsey; 1901 – Chuck Taylor (namesake of Chuck Taylor athletic shoes); 1904 – Phil Harris (no, not the captain of the Cornelia Marie); 1911 – Juan Manuel Fangio; 1915 – Fred Hoyle (coined the term "big bang"); 1919 – Al Molinaro ('Big Al' on "Happy Days"); 1922 – Jack Carter; 1929 – Carolyn S. Shoemaker; 1930 – William Bernard Ziff, Jr. (Ziff Davis); 1931 – Billy Casper; 1941 – Charles Whitman; 1944 – Jeff Beck; 1944 – Chris Wood; 1945 – George Pataki; 1946 – Robert Reich; 1947 – Mick Fleetwood, Peter Weller; 1950 – Nancy Allen ("RoboCop"); 1960 – Juli Inkster; 1967 – Sherry Stringfield ("ER"); 1979 – Mindy Kaling; 1986 – Solange Knowles

Deaths

1519 – Lucrezia Borgia; 1908 – Grover Cleveland; 1987 – Jackie Gleason; 1997 – Brian Keith; 2005 – Paul Winchell; 2007 – Chris Benoit; 2013 – Jackie Fargo; 2014 – Eli Wallach

Gravdigr;963097 wrote:

2013, Former Devo drummer Alan Myers died aged 58 in Los Angeles, California, following a long bout with cancer. Myers drummed for Devo between 1976 and 1986

Devo made a stunning appearance on Saturday Night live in it heyday. So a sign for the Devon exist on Route 202 would constantly have the number spray painted out for the next 20 years.

Just passed that sign last month. It is no longer modified by spray paint. Maybe he also died.

I think I remember that appearance. I would have been fairly young. Maybe 1978, or so?



ETA: Hey, I was right.

For a change.:cheerldr:

June 25

1876 &#8211; Battle of the Little Bighorn and the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

1906 &#8211; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Thaw (<---great read, btw) shoots and kills prominent architect Stanford White.

1910 &#8211; The United States Congress passes the Mann Act, which prohibits interstate transport of females for &#8220;immoral purposes&#8221;; the ambiguous language would be used to selectively prosecute people for years to come.

Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird premiers in Paris, bringing him to prominence as a composer.

1923 &#8211; Capt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. John P. Richter perform the first ever aerial refueling, in a DH.4B biplane.

1944 &#8211; The final page of the comic Krazy Kat is published, exactly two months after its author George Herriman died.

1947 &#8211; The Diary of a Young Girl (better known as The Diary of Anne Frank) is published.

1950 &#8211; The Korean War begins with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea.

1960 &#8211; Two cryptographers working for the United States National Security Agency left for vacation to Mexico, and from there defected to the Soviet Union.

1966 - Jackie Wilson was arrested for inciting a riot and refusing to obey a police order at a nightclub in Port Arthur, Texas. Wilson had a crowd of 400 whipped into a frenzy and refused to stop singing when requested to do so by police. He was later convicted of drunkenness and fined $30.

1969 - The Hollies recorded 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother'. The ballad was written by Bobby Scott and Bob Russell (who was dying of cancer of the lymph nodes). The pair met in person only three times, but managed to collaborate on the song. The track featured Elton John on piano.

1978 &#8211; The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.

1981 &#8211; Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.

1984 &#8211; American singer Prince releases his most successful studio album Purple Rain.

1996 &#8211; The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia kills 19 U.S. servicemen.

2006 - Nicole Kidman married her singer boyfriend Keith Urban at a ceremony in Sydney, Australia.

Births

1886 &#8211; Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold; 1900 &#8211; Louis Mountbatten; 1903 &#8211; George Orwell; 1924 &#8211; Sidney Lumet; 1925 &#8211; June Lockhart; 1928 &#8211; Peyo (created The Smurfs); 1933 &#8211; James Meredith; 1939 - Harold Melvin; 1945 &#8211; Carly Simon; 1947 &#8211; Jimmie Walker; 1954 &#8211; David Paich, Sonia Sotomayor; 1956 &#8211; Anthony Bourdain; 1961 &#8211; Ricky Gervais; 1963 &#8211; George Michael; 1966 &#8211; Dikembe Mutombo; 1972 - Mike Kroeger (Nickelback)

Deaths

1218 &#8211; Simon de Montfort; 1533 &#8211; Mary Tudor; 1876 &#8211; James Calhoun, Boston Custer, George Armstrong Custer, Thomas Custer, Myles Keogh (<---all died at the Little Big Horn); 1906 &#8211; Stanford White; 1916 &#8211; Thomas Eakins; 1958 &#8211; Alfred Noyes; 1959 &#8211; Charles Starkweather; 1976 &#8211; Johnny Mercer; 1977 &#8211; Olave Baden-Powell; 1979 &#8211; Dave Fleischer; 1987 &#8211; Boudleaux Bryant; 1988 - Hillel Slovak (Red Hot Chili Peppers); 1997 &#8211; Jacques Cousteau; 2005 &#8211; John Fiedler ('Lawyer Daggett' in "True Grit"); 2009 &#8211; Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson; 2015 &#8211; Lou Butera, Patrick Macnee

June 26

4 &#8211; Augustus adopts Tiberius.

1483 &#8211; Richard III becomes King of England.

1718 &#8211; Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him.

1740 &#8211; A combined force of Spanish, free blacks and allied Indians defeat a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine (Florida) during the War of Jenkins' Ear.

1843 &#8211; Treaty of Nanking comes into effect, Hong Kong Island is ceded to the British "in perpetuity".

1870 &#8211; The Christian holiday of Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.

1906 &#8211; The first Grand Prix motor racing event held.

1917 &#8211; The American Expeditionary Forces begin to arrive in France. They will first enter combat four months later.

1918 &#8211; Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince in the Battle of Belleau Wood.

1936 &#8211; Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.

1942 &#8211; The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat.

1948 &#8211; The first supply flights are made in response to the Berlin Blockade.

1963 &#8211; U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

1973 - Rolling Stone Keith Richards and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg were arrested at their home in Chelsea, London on drugs and gun charges.

1974 &#8211; The Universal Product Code (UPC) is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

Cher divorced Sonny Bono after 10 years of marriage.

1975 &#8211; Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.

1977 &#8211; The Yorkshire Ripper kills 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing public perception of the killer as she is the first victim who is not a prostitute.

Elvis Presley performs what will be his final concert in Indianapolis. The last two songs he performed were &#8216;Hurt&#8217; and &#8216;Bridge Over Troubled Water.&#8217;

1997 &#8211; The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

2003 &#8211; The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

2012 &#8211; The Waldo Canyon fire descends into the Mountain Shadows neighborhood in Colorado Springs burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people.

2015 &#8211; The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5&#8211;4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Epic shitstorm ensues.

Births

1689 &#8211; Edward Holyoke; 1730 &#8211; Charles Messier; 1819 &#8211; Abner Doubleday; 1892 &#8211; Pearl S. Buck; 1898 &#8211; Willy Messerschmitt, Chesty Puller (the most decorated Marine in American history:devil:); 1903 &#8211; Big Bill Broonzy; 1904 &#8211; Peter Lorre; 1908 &#8211; Salvador Allende; 1909 &#8211; Colonel Tom Parker; 1911 &#8211; Babe Didrikson Zaharias; 1915 &#8211; Paul Castellano; 1930 &#8211; Jackie Fargo; 1934 &#8211; Dave Grusin; 1938 &#8211; Billy Davis, Jr.; 1955 &#8211; Mick Jones; 1956 &#8211; Chris Isaak; 1961 &#8211; Greg LeMond; 1963 &#8211; Richard Garfield (created Magic: The Gathering); 1970 &#8211; Paul Thomas Anderson, Irv Gotti, Sean Hayes, Chris O'Donnell, Nick Offerman; 1971 &#8211; Max Biaggi; 1973 &#8211; Gretchen Wilson; 1974 &#8211; Derek Jeter; 1980 &#8211; Jason Schwartzman, Michael Vick; 1993 &#8211; Ariana Grande

Deaths

363 &#8211; Julian; 1541 &#8211; Francisco Pizarro; 1784 &#8211; Caesar Rodney; 1810 &#8211; Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (co-invented the hot air balloon); 1992 &#8211; Buddy Rogers; 1993 &#8211; Roy Campanella; 1996 &#8211; Veronica Guerin; 2003 &#8211; Strom Thurmond (And there was much rejoicing.); 2007 &#8211; Liz Claiborne; 2012 &#8211; Nora Ephron; 2013 &#8211; Byron Looper; 2014 &#8211; Howard Baker, Rollin King (co-founded Southwest Airlines)

June 27

1760 &#8211; Cherokee warriors defeat British forces at the Battle of Echoee near present-day Otto, North Carolina during the Anglo-Cherokee War.

1844 &#8211; Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are killed by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.

1885 - Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter applied for a patent on their invention the gramophone.

1898 &#8211; The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.

1905 &#8211; During the Russo-Japanese War, sailors start a mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin.

1941 &#8211; Romanian authorities launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Ia&#537;i, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.

1950 &#8211; The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.

1967 - Mick Jagger was found guilty of illegal possession of two drugs found in his jacket at a party given by Keith Richards. He was remanded overnight at Lewes jail, England (prison number 7856). Jagger requested books on Tibet and modern art and two packs of Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

1968 - Elvis Presley appeared on an NBC TV show that was billed as his "comeback special". The show featured the king performing on a small, square stage, surrounded by a mostly female audience. Presley was outfitted in black leather and performed many of his early hits.

1970 - The newly formed Queen featuring Freddie Mercury (possibly still known as Freddie Bulsara) on vocals, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and Mike Grose on bass played their first gig at Truro City Hall, Cornwall, England. They were billed as Smile, Brian and Roger's previous band, for whom the booking had been made originally. Original material at this time included an early version of 'Stone Cold Crazy'.

1971 &#8211; After only three years in business, rock promoter Bill Graham closes the Fillmore East in New York, New York.

1976 &#8211; Air France Flight 139 (Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris) is hijacked en route to Paris by the PLO and redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.

1980 &#8211; Italian Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 mysteriously explodes in mid air while en route from Bologna to Palermo, killing all 81 on board. Also known in Italy as the Ustica disaster.

Led Zeppelin appeared at Messehalle, Nuremberg, Germany during their last ever tour. After the group had played just three songs, drummer John Bonham collapsed on stage, causing the remainder of the show to be cancelled.

1985 &#8211; U.S. Route 66 is officially removed from the United States Highway System.

1987 - Whitney Houston became the first woman in US history to enter the album chart at No.1, with 'Whitney' she also became the first woman to top the singles chart with four consecutive releases when 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' hit No.1.

1991 - Carlos Santana was arrested at Houston Airport when officials found cannabis in his luggage.

1994 - Aerosmith became the first major band to let fans download a full new track free from the internet.

:3_eyes: 2012 - The chief medical officer of Russia said that The Beatles were to blame for the country's drug problem. Yevgeny Bryun, the nation's medical chief, said that the country's youth first got introduced to the idea of drug-taking when The Beatles traveled to India to "expand their minds". Bryun added that it was after this news entered public consciousness that people in Russia realized you could make money from the sale of drugs. When business then realized it was possible to make money from this, goods associated with pleasure, that was when the growth in the demand for drugs started.

2015 &#8211; A midair explosion from flammable powder at a recreational water park in Taiwan injures at least 510 people with about 183 in serious condition in intensive care.

Births

1838 &#8211; Paul Mauser; 1880 &#8211; Helen Keller; 1907 &#8211; John McIntire; 1909 &#8211; Billy Curtis (the midget 'Mordecai' in "High Plains Drifter"); 1913 &#8211; Willie Mosconi; 1925 &#8211; Doc Pomus; 1927 &#8211; Bob Keeshan (Capt. Kangaroo); 1930 &#8211; Ross Perot; 1938 &#8211; Bruce Babbitt; 1945 &#8211; Joey Covington; 1949 &#8211; Vera Wang; 1951 &#8211; Julia Duffy; 1956 &#8211; Ted Haggard (idjit), Sultan bin Salman Al Saud; 1959 &#8211; Lorrie Morgan; 1963 &#8211; Johnny Benson, Jr.; 1966 &#8211; J. J. Abrams; 1975 &#8211; Tobey Maguire

Deaths

1839 &#8211; Ranjit Singh; 1844 &#8211; Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith; 1996 &#8211; Albert R. Broccoli (producer James Bond films); 2001 &#8211; Jack Lemmon; 2002 &#8211; John Entwistle (bassist The Who); 2005 &#8211; Shelby Foote; 2009 &#8211; Gale Storm; 2014 &#8211; Bobby Womack; 2015 &#8211; Chris Squire (bassist Yes)

June 28

1461 &#8211; Edward IV is crowned King of England.

1776 &#8211; Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.

1838 &#8211; Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

1846 &#8211; Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone.

1880 &#8211; The Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is captured at Glenrowan.

1894 &#8211; Labor Day becomes an official US holiday.

1896 &#8211; An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.

1902 &#8211; The U.S. Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.

1914 &#8211; Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by Bosnia Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the casus belli of World War I.

1919 &#8211; The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the state of war between Germany and the Allies of World War I.

1926 &#8211; Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.

1950 &#8211; Korean War: Seoul is captured by North Korean troops.

Suspected communist sympathizers, argued to be between 100,000 and 200,000 are executed in the Bodo League massacre.

Packed with its own refugees fleeing Seoul and leaving their 5th Division stranded, South Korean forces blow up the Hangang Bridge in an attempt to slow North Korea's offensive.

North Korean Army conducts Seoul National University Hospital massacre.

1969 &#8211; Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.

1987 &#8211; For the first time in military history, a civilian population is targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht.

1997 &#8211; Holyfield&#8211;Tyson II: Mike Tyson is disqualified in the third round for biting a piece off Evander Holyfield's ear.

Births

1577 &#8211; Peter Paul Rubens; 1703 &#8211; John Wesley; 1852 &#8211; Charles Cruft (founded Crufts Dog Show); 1891 &#8211; Carl Panzram (bad man); 1902 &#8211; Richard Rodgers (Rodgers and Hammerstein); 1909 &#8211; Eric Ambler; 1915 &#8211; David "Honeyboy" Edwards; 1920 &#8211; A. E. Hotchner; 1926 &#8211; Mel Brooks; 1928 &#8211; Hans Blix; 1931 &#8211; Junior Johnson; 1932 &#8211; Pat Morita; 1938 &#8211; John Byner, Leon Panetta; 1943 - Bobby Harrison (Procol Harum); 1945 - David Knights (Procol Harum); 1946 &#8211; Bruce Davison, Gilda Radner; 1948 &#8211; Kathy Bates; 1960 &#8211; John Elway; 1966 &#8211; John Cusack, Mary Stuart Masterson; 1967 &#8211; Gil Bellows; 1971 &#8211; Elon Musk; 1986 &#8211; Kellie Pickler

Deaths

1836 &#8211; James Madison; 1914 &#8211; Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria; 1975 &#8211; Rod Serling; 1993 &#8211; GG Allin; 2006 &#8211; George Page; 2014 &#8211; Meshach Taylor; 2015 &#8211; Jack Carter

June29

1534 &#8211; Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island.

1613 &#8211; The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground.

1776 &#8211; Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asís in what is now San Francisco, CA.

1786 &#8211; Alexander Macdonell and over five hundred Roman Catholic highlanders leave Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario, Canada.

1880 &#8211; France annexes Tahiti.

1888 &#8211; George Edward Gouraud records Handel's Israel in Egypt onto a phonograph cylinder, thought for many years to be the oldest known recording of music.

1927 &#8211; The Bird of Paradise, a U.S. Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, completes the first transpacific flight, from the mainland United States to Hawaii.

First test of Wallace Turnbull's controllable-pitch propeller.

1956 &#8211; The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.

1974 &#8211; Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.

1975 &#8211; Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of the Apple I computer.

1985 - John Lennon's 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine, with psychedelic paintwork, sold for a record sum of $3,006,385, (£1,768,462) at a Sotheby's auction in New York.

1988 - Brenda Richie, the wife of Lionel Richie was arrested in Beverly Hills, California after allegedly hitting the singer and a young woman after she found them in bed together.

1999 - Michael Jackson suffered severe bruising after falling over 50 feet when a bridge collapsed during a concert at Munich's Olympic stadium.

2007 &#8211; Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.

2012 &#8211; A derecho sweeps across the eastern United States, leaving at least 22 people dead and millions without power.

Births

1861 &#8211; William James Mayo (co-founder Mayo Clinic); 1901 &#8211; Nelson Eddy; 1910 &#8211; Frank Loesser; 1919 &#8211; Slim Pickens; 1920 &#8211; Ray Harryhausen; 1930 &#8211; Robert Evans; 1936 &#8211; Harmon Killebrew; 1943 &#8211; Little Eva; 1944 &#8211; Gary Busey; 1948 &#8211; Fred Grandy, Ian Paice (Deep Purple); 1949 &#8211; Dan Dierdorf; 1953 &#8211; Don Dokken:devil:, Colin Hay; 1957 &#8211; María Conchita Alonso; 1957 &#8211; Michael Nutter; 1961 &#8211; Sharon Lawrence; 1967 &#8211; Jeff Burton (NASCAR driver); 1978 &#8211; Nicole Scherzinger; 1980 &#8211; Martin Truex Jr. (NASCAR driver)

Deaths

1852 &#8211; Henry Clay; 1861 &#8211; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; 1933 &#8211; Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle; 1940 &#8211; Paul Klee; 1941 &#8211; Ignacy Jan Paderewski; 1967 &#8211; Jayne Mansfield; 1975 &#8211; Tim Buckley; 1978 &#8211; Bob Crane; 1979 &#8211; Lowell George; 1995 &#8211; Lana Turner; 1997 &#8211; William Hickey; 2002 &#8211; Rosemary Clooney; 2003 &#8211; Katharine Hepburn; 2007 &#8211; Fred Saberhagen, Joel Siegel; 2008 &#8211; Don S. Davis (Stargate SG-1); 2013 &#8211; Victor Lundin (Star Trek's first Klingon)

June 30

1520 &#8211; Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.

1559 &#8211; King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel, comte de Montgomery.

1859 &#8211; French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1864 &#8211; U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation".

1882 &#8211; Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield.

1905 &#8211; Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik.

1906 &#8211; The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.

1908 &#8211; A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking down over 80 million trees covering 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi).

1912 &#8211; The Regina Cyclone hits Regina, Saskatchewan, killing 28. It remains Canada's deadliest tornado event.

1921 &#8211; U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States.

1934 &#8211; The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.

1937 &#8211; The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London.

1953 &#8211; The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

1956 &#8211; A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners.

1959 &#8211; A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood.

1971 &#8211; The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.

1976 - Police raid the home of Neil Diamond searching for drugs, they find less than one ounce of marijuana.

Stuart Goddard, (Adam Ant), placed the following ad in the classified section of Melody Maker, 'Beat on a bass, with the B-Sides.' Andy Warren answered the ad and the pair went on to form Adam and The Ants.

1977 - Marvel Comics launched a comic book based on the rock group KISS.

1985 &#8211; Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.

1989 - Police were called in to control over 4,000 Bobby Brown fans trying to see him at the HMV Record store in London's Oxford Street, six fans were hospitalized and one had to be resuscitated.

1990 - Police raid Chuck Berry's estate and seize homemade porn videos, drugs and guns.

1995 - American soul singer Phyllis Hyman committed suicide by overdosing on pentobarbital and secobarbital in her New York City apartment aged 45. She was found hours before she was scheduled to perform at the Apollo Theatre, in New York.

2000 - Eight men were trampled to death during Pearl Jam's performance at the Roskilde Festival, near Copenhagen. Police said the victims had all slipped or fallen in the mud in front of the stage.

2013 &#8211; Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona.

2015 &#8211; A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in the Indonesian city of Medan, resulting in at least 116 deaths.

2016 &#8211; Rodrigo Duterte was sworn into office as the 16th President of the Philippines.

Births

1889 &#8211; Archibald Frazer-Nash (founder of Frazer Nash automobiles); 1891 &#8211; Man Mountain Dean; 1906 &#8211; Anthony Mann (director); 1917 &#8211; Susan Hayward, Lena Horne; 1934 &#8211; Harry Blackstone Jr.; 1942 &#8211; Robert Ballard; 1956 &#8211; David Alan Grier; 1957 &#8211; Sterling Marlin (ret'd NASCAR driver); 1959 &#8211; Vincent D'Onofrio; 1963 &#8211; Rupert Graves, Yngwie Malmsteen; 1966 &#8211; Mike Tyson:boxers:; 1968 &#8211; Phil Anselmo (Pantera); 1971 &#8211; Monica Potter; 1983 - Cheryl Cole; 1984 &#8211; Fantasia Barrino; 1985 &#8211; Michael Phelps, T-Pain

Deaths

1882 &#8211; Charles J. Guiteau (assassin); 1961 &#8211; Lee de Forest (invented the audion tube); 2001 &#8211; Chet Atkins; 2003 &#8211; Buddy Hackett; 2014 &#8211; Paul Mazursky

July 1

The end of today (actually 1 a.m. July 2) marks the halfway point of 2016.

There are 183 days remaining in 2016.

1766 &#8211; François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, is tortured and beheaded before his body is burnt on a pyre along with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France.:facepalm:

1770 &#8211; Lexell's Comet passes closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u. (astronomical unit).

1819 &#8211; Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819, (C/1819 N1). It was the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago.

1863 &#8211; American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins.

1867 &#8211; The British North America Act of 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation and the federal dominion of Canada; Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada. This date is commemorated annually in Canada as Canada Day, a national holiday.:f32:

1874 &#8211; The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale.

1879 &#8211; Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.

1881 &#8211; The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States. A distance of app. 2.6 miles.

1898 &#8211; Spanish&#8211;American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.

1903 &#8211; Start of first Tour de France bicycle race.

1908 &#8211; SOS is adopted as the international distress signal.

1915 &#8211; Leutnant Kurt Wintgens of the then-named German Fliegertruppe air service achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized machine-gun-armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.

1916 &#8211; World War I: First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.

The first attack of the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 occurs.

1931 &#8211; United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).

1932 &#8211; Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was formed.

1933 &#8211; Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles (25,099 km) in seven days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1942 &#8211; World War II: First Battle of El Alamein.

1943 &#8211; Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved. Since this date, no city in Japan has the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city).

1956 - Elvis Presley appeared on NBC- TV's 'The Steve Allen Show' and performed 'Hound Dog', to a live Hound Dog. US TV critic John Crosby panned Elvis' performance, calling him an 'unspeakable, untalented and vulgar young entertainer.'

1959 &#8211; Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after an agreement between the U.S.A., the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries.

1963 &#8211; ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail.

1968 &#8211; The United States Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.

The Band released their debut album Music From Big Pink. The album, which features their first hit single The Weight, was recorded in studios in New York and Los Angeles.

1972 &#8211; The first Gay pride march in England takes place.

1979 &#8211; Sony introduces the Walkman (no, not Walking Man, he's strictly ours;)).

1980 &#8211; "O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.

1981 &#8211; The Wonderland murders occur in the early morning hours in Los Angeles, allegedly masterminded by businessman and drug dealer Eddie Nash.

Rushton Moreve bassist with Steppenwolf, was killed in motorcycle accident in Santa Barbara, California, aged 32. He co-wrote their hit 'Magic Carpet Ride' with lead singer John Kay.

1983 - A New Jersey-based quintet calling themselves Bon Jovi signed to Phonogram's Mercury records, although they had also been considering the name Johnny Electric. The group have since sold over 130 million records worldwide, and performed more than 2,600 concerts in over 50 countries for more than 34 million fans.

1984 &#8211; The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA.

1987 &#8211; The American radio station WFAN in New York City is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station.

1991 &#8211; The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.

1995 - DJ Wolfman Jack dies of a heart attack.

2004 - Glen Campbell began serving 10 nights in jail along with two years of probation for a November 2003 drunk-driving, hit-and-run collision. The 68 year old entertainer was also sentenced to 75 hours of community service and fined $900.

2005 - American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer Luther Vandross died at the age of 54 at the JFK Medical Centre in New Jersey, two years after suffering a major stroke.

2007 &#8211; The Concert for Diana is held at the new Wembley Stadium in London and broadcast in 140 countries.

Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces.


2008 - Whitesnake guitarist Mel Galley, died at the age of 60 from cancer of the oesophagus.

2013 &#8211; Neptune's moon S/2004 N 1 is discovered.

Continued in next post

July 1 (continued)

Births

1804 &#8211; George Sand; 1807 &#8211; Thomas Green Clemson (Clemson University); 1899 &#8211; Charles Laughton; 1902 &#8211; William Wyler; 1906 &#8211; Estée Lauder; 1915 &#8211; Willie Dixon; 1925 &#8211; Farley Granger; 1928 - Bobby Day ("Rockin' Robin"); 1931 &#8211; Leslie Caron; 1934 &#8211; Jamie Farr, Sydney Pollack; 1935 &#8211; James Cotton; 1939 &#8211; Karen Black, Delaney Bramlett (Delaney & Bonnie); 1941 &#8211; Twyla Tharp; 1942 &#8211; Geneviève Bujold, Andraé Crouch; 1945 &#8211; Debbie Harry; 1949 &#8211; John Farnham; 1950 &#8211; David Duke (racist); 1951 &#8211; Fred Schneider (The B-52s), Victor Willis (lead singer Village People); 1952 &#8211; Dan Aykroyd; 1954 &#8211; Keith Whitley (singer/song writer); 1960 - Evelyn Champagne King; 1961 &#8211; Carl Lewis, Diana, Princess of Wales; 1962 &#8211; Andre Braugher; 1967 &#8211; Pamela Anderson; 1971 &#8211; Missy Elliott; 1972 &#8211; Claire Forlani; 1977 &#8211; Liv Tyler ('Arwen' in "TLOTR: TFOTR")

Deaths

1860 &#8211; Charles Goodyear; 1884 &#8211; Allan Pinkerton; 1896 &#8211; Harriet Beecher Stowe; 1925 &#8211; Erik Satie; 1950 &#8211; Eliel Saarinen (architect); 1965 &#8211; Robert Ruark; 1974 &#8211; Juan Perón; 1983 &#8211; Buckminster Fuller; 1991 &#8211; Michael Landon; 1995 &#8211; Wolfman Jack; 1996 &#8211; Margaux Hemingway; 1997 &#8211; Robert Mitchum; 1999 &#8211; Forrest Mars Sr.; 2000 &#8211; Walter Matthau; 2004 &#8211; Marlon Brando; 2005 &#8211; Luther Vandross; 2009 &#8211; Karl Malden; 2010 &#8211; Arnold Friberg

July 2

1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.

1776 – The Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.

1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship La Amistad.

1853 – The Russian Army crossed the Pruth river into the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, providing the spark that set off the Crimean War.

1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.

1897 – British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.

1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.

1956 - Elvis Presley recorded 'Hound Dog' at RCA Studios, New York. Take 31 being the version they released. This was the first time The Jordanaires worked with Presley. The single sold over 10 million copies globally, became his best-selling song and topped the pop chart for 11 weeks, a record that stood for 36 years.

1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

Jimi Hendrix was honourably discharged from the 101st Airborne Paratroopers (Screaming Eagles):devil:, after breaking his ankle during his 26th and final parachute jump.

1964 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.

1969, Bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell quit The Jimi Hendrix Experience after completing the three-day Denver Pop Festival.

1971 - Queen appeared at Surrey College, England. This was the group's first gig with the line-up of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.

2001 – The AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted.

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

Births

1492 – Elizabeth Tudor; 1877 – Hermann Hesse; 1904 – René Lacoste; 1908 – Thurgood Marshall; 1916 – Ken Curtis; 1922 – Pierre Cardin; 1925 – Medgar Evers; 1927 – Brock Peters; 1929 – Imelda Marcos; 1932 – Dave Thomas (Wendy's); 1937 – Polly Holliday, Richard Petty; 1939 – John H. Sununu, Paul Williams; 1942 – Vicente Fox; 1946 – Ron Silver; 1947 – Larry David; 1948 – Gene McFadden (McFadden & Whitehead); 1956 – Jerry Hall; 1957 – Bret Hart; 1964 – Doug Benson, Jose Canseco, Ozzie Canseco; 1979 – Sam Hornish Jr.; 1985 - Ashley Tisdale; 1986 – Lindsay Lohan; 1990 – Margot Robbie

Deaths

1566 – Nostradamus; 1961 – Ernest Hemingway; 1964 – Fireball Roberts; 1973 – Betty Grable; 1977 – Vladimir Nabokov; 1991 – Lee Remick:heartpump; 1993 – Fred Gwynne; 1999 – Mario Puzo; 2007 – Beverly Sills

July 3

1035 – William the Conqueror becomes the Duke of Normandy, reigns until 1087.

1608 – Québec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 – French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1844 – The last pair of great auks is killed.

1852 – Congress establishes the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco.

1863 – American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett's Charge.

1884 – Dow Jones & Company publishes its first stock average.

1886 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile.

1890 – Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

1913 – Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

1938 – World speed record for a steam locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 125.88 miles per hour (202.58 km/h).

United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.

1968 - At an impromptu gathering at Joni Mitchell's house in Lookout Mountain, Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash played together for the very first time.

1969 – Space Race: The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.

1969 - Brian Jones drowned while under the influence of drugs and alcohol after taking a midnight swim in his pool, aged 27. His body was found at the bottom of the pool by his Swedish girlfriend Anna Wohlin. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.

1971 - American singer, songwriter and poet, Jim Morrison of The Doors was found dead in a bathtub in Paris, France, the cause of death was given as a heart attack.

1972 - Blues singer, guitarist Mississippi Fred McDowell died of cancer aged 68. He coached Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar technique.

1975 - Lead singer from Three Dog Night Chuck Negron was arrested at his Louisville hotel room on the opening night of the bands tour and charged with possession of cocaine.

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

1996 – The Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.

Births

1866 – Albert Gottschalk; 1883 – Franz Kafka; 1893 – Mississippi John Hurt; 1909 – Stavros Niarchos; 1930 – Pete Fountain; 1930 – Tommy Tedesco (The Wrecking Crew); 1935 – Harrison Schmitt; 1940 – Lamar Alexander; 1941 – Gloria Allred; 1943 – Kurtwood Smith; 1946 – Johnny Lee; 1947 – Dave Barry; 1948 – Paul Barrere (Little Feat); 1956 – Montel Williams; 1957 – Laura Branigan; 1959 – Stephen Pearcy (Ratt); 1962 – Tom Cruise, Thomas Gibson ('Agent Hotchner' on "Criminal Minds"), Hunter Tylo; 1964 – Yeardley Smith (voice of 'Lisa Simpson' on "The Simpsons); 1965 – Connie Nielsen; 1971 – Julian Assange; 1973 – Patrick Wilson; 1976 – Wanderlei Silva (MMA fighter); 1980 – Olivia Munn

Deaths

1863 – George Hull Ward, Little Crow; 1935 – André Citroën (founded the Citroën Company); 1937 – Jacob Schick (invented the electric razor); 1965 – Trigger (Roy Rogers' horse); 1969 – Brian Jones; 1971 – Jim Morrison; 1981 – Ross Martin ("Wild, Wild West"); 1986 – Rudy Vallée; 1989 – Jim Backus; 2001 – Johnny Russell; 2007 – Boots Randolph; 2012 – Andy Griffith, Hollie Stevens (porn actress)

July 4

Today is Independence Day in the United States of America.

At 4:24 p.m. today, the Earth will be at it's farthest point from the Sun, known as aphelion of the Earth.

There are 180 days remaining in 2016.

1054 &#8211; A supernova, SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

1744 &#8211; The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cedes lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British colonies, was signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

1776 &#8211; American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

1802 &#8211; The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York opens.

1803 &#8211; The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.

1817 &#8211; In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.

1826 &#8211; Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.

1831 &#8211; Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities.

1837 &#8211; Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool.

1855 &#8211; In Brooklyn, New York City, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published.

1862 &#8211; Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.

1863 &#8211; American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. One hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, in Arkansas.

American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Southern invasion of the North.

1881 &#8211; In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.

1886 &#8211; The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

1892 &#8211; Western Samoa changes the International Date Line. Monday, July 4 occurs twice, resulting in a year with 367 days.

1910 &#8211; African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match, sparking race riots across the United States.

1911 &#8211; A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities.

1918 &#8211; Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).

1927 &#8211; First flight of the Lockheed Vega.

1939 &#8211; Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball.

1943 &#8211; World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in Prokhorovka village.

1950 &#8211; Radio Free Europe first broadcasts.

1974 - Despite the fact that they have the No.4 song in the US with 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' and a current Platinum album with 'Pretzel Logic', Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagan play their final gig together in Santa Monica, California. They will not tour again for the next eighteen years.

1976 - The Clash made their live debut supporting the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan, Sheffield, England.

1984 -- Richard Petty wins his 200th and final NASCAR Winston cup race.

2000 - A man fell 80 feet to his death during a Metallica concert at Raven Stadium, Baltimore.

2002 - Tony Bennett had to abandon a show at London's Royal Albert Hall after a fire broke out in the building. The audience were evacuated after smoke began to fill the hall.

2004 &#8211; The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City.

2007 - Former laboratory worker Devon Townsend admitted to a court in Albuquerque, New Mexico of stalking Chester Bennington lead singer with Linkin Park. Townsend used US government computers to obtain his personal information, accessing Bennington's e-mail account and mobile phone voicemail. The court was told how she travelled to Arizona solely for the purpose of trying to see the singer and monitored his voicemails as a means of trying to locate where he might be eating.

2009 &#8211; The Statue of Liberty's crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure due to security concerns following the September 11 attacks.

Births

1804 &#8211; Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1816 &#8211; Hiram Walker (founded Canadian club whiskey); 1826 &#8211; Stephen Foster; 1847 &#8211; James Anthony Bailey (co-founded Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus); 1854 &#8211; Bill Tilghman (city marshal Dodge City, Kansas); 1872 &#8211; Calvin Coolidge; 1882 &#8211; Louis B. Mayer; 1883 &#8211; Rube Goldberg; 1902 &#8211; Meyer Lansky; 1911 &#8211; Mitch Miller; 1918 &#8211; Pauline Phillips (created Dear Abby); 1920 &#8211; Leona Helmsley (The Queen of Mean); 1924 &#8211; Eva Marie Saint; 1927 &#8211; Gina Lollobrigida, Neil Simon; 1929 &#8211; Al Davis; 1930 &#8211; George Steinbrenner; 1931 &#8211; Stephen Boyd; 1938 &#8211; Bill Withers; 1943 &#8211; Geraldo Rivera, Alan Wilson; 1946 &#8211; Ron Kovic (subject "Born On The Fourth Of July"), Michael Milken; 1952 &#8211; John Waite; 1962 &#8211; Pam Shriver; 1963 &#8211; Michael Sweet; 1964 &#8211; Mark Slaughter; 1971 &#8211; Koko (gorilla)

Deaths

1826 &#8211; John Adams (POTUS), Thomas Jefferson (POTUS); 1831 &#8211; James Monroe (POTUS); 1891 &#8211; Hannibal Hamlin (VPOTUS); 1934 &#8211; Marie Curie; 1991 &#8211; Art Sansom (created The Born Loser comic strip); 1995 &#8211; Eva Gabor, Bob Ross; 1997 &#8211; Charles Kuralt; 2003 &#8211; Barry White; 2008 &#8211; Jesse Helms (and there was much rejoicing)

July 5

1687 – Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

1775 – The Second Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition.

1915 – The Liberty Bell leaves Philadelphia by special train on its way to the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. This is the last trip outside Philadelphia that the custodians of the bell intend to permit.

1935 – The National Labor Relations Act, which governs labor relations in the United States, is signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1937 – Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1943 – World War II: An Allied invasion fleet sails for Sicily (Operation Husky).

German forces begin a massive offensive against the Soviet Union at the Battle of Kursk, also known as Operation Citadel.

1945 – World War II: The liberation of the Philippines is declared.

1946 – The bikini goes on sale after debuting during an outdoor fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris, France. (And there was much rejoicing.)

1948 – National Health Service Acts create the national public health system in the United Kingdom.

1950 – Zionism: The Knesset passes the Law of Return which grants all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.

1954 – The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin.

1954 – Elvis Presley records his first single, "That's All Right," at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.

1965 - Marty Balin and Paul Kantner formed a Folk-Rock group that would evolve into the Jefferson Airplane, the premier San Francisco psychedelic band of the late '60s. The Airplane made its debut the following month at a Haight-Ashbury club, and was signed to RCA later in the year.

1971 – Right to vote: The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years, is formally certified by President Richard Nixon.

1973 – A boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills eleven firefighters.

1975 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title.

1978 - The manufacturing of Some Girls the new album by The Rolling Stones was halted at EMI's pressing plant after complaints from celebrities, including Lucille Ball, who were featured in mock advertisements on the album sleeve.

1980 – Swedish tennis player Björn Borg wins his fifth Wimbledon final and becomes the first male tennis player to win the championships five times in a row (1976–1980).

1989 – Iran–Contra affair: Oliver North is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service. His convictions are later overturned.

1995 - More than 100 Grateful Dead fans were hurt when a wooden deck collapsed at a campground lodge in Wentzville, Missouri. Hundreds of people were on or under the deck sheltering from heavy rain. More than 4,000 Deadheads were staying at the campground while attending Grateful Dead concerts in the St. Louis suburb.

1996 – Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

2000 - Cub Koda (Michael "Cub" Koda), founder member of Brownsville Station died of complications from kidney failure. Wrote the 2 million selling 1974 hit 'Smokin' In The Boys Room', (which Motley Crue covered). He took his nickname from Cubby on television's Mickey Mouse Club.

2009 – The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items, is found near the village of Hammerwich, in Staffordshire, England.

2012 – The Shard in London is inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 metres (1,020 ft).

2016 – NASA's Juno spacecraft enters orbit of Jupiter.

Births

1586 – Thomas Hooker; 1801 – David Farragut; 1810 – P. T. Barnum; 1902 – Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.; 1904 – Milburn Stone ('Doc Adams' on "Gunsmoke"); 1911 – Georges Pompidou; 1928 – Warren Oates; 1929 – Katherine Helmond; 1943 – Robbie Robertson:shred:; 1948 – William Hootkins, Cassie Gaines (back-up singer Lynyrd Skynyrd); 1950 – Huey Lewis, Michael Monarch; 1951 – Goose Gossage; 1954 – Jimmy Crespo (Aerosmith); 1958 – Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes); 1959 – Marc Cohn; 1960 – Pruitt Taylor Vince (turned nystagmus into a career); 1963 – Edie Falco

Deaths

1819 – William Cornwallis; 1920 – Max Klinger; 2001 – Ernie K-Doe; 2002 – Ted Williams; 2006 – Kenneth Lay

July 6

Today is Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.

The Festival of San Fermín (including The Running Of The Bulls) begins today in Pamplona, Spain.

1189 &#8211; Richard I "The Lionheart" accedes to the English throne.

1483 &#8211; Richard III is crowned King of England.

1484 &#8211; Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão finds the mouth of the Congo River.

1777 &#8211; American Revolutionary War: Siege of Fort Ticonderoga: After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1854 &#8211; In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States Republican Party is held.

1865 &#8211; The first issue of The Nation magazine is published.

1885 &#8211; Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

1892 &#8211; Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.

1917 &#8211; World War I: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and Auda ibu Tayi capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.

1940 &#8211; Story Bridge, a major landmark in Brisbane, as well as Australia's longest cantilever bridge is formally opened.

1942 &#8211; Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1944 &#8211; Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of a bus, leading to a court-martial.

1947 &#8211; The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.

1957 &#8211; Althea Gibson wins the Wimbledon championships, becoming the first black athlete to do so.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles.

1988 &#8211; The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions and fires. One hundred sixty-seven oil workers are killed, making it the world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms of direct loss of life.

1990 &#8211; Electronic Frontier Foundation is founded.

1995 &#8211; In the Bosnian War, under the command of General Ratko Mladi&#263;, Serbia begins its attack on the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, and kills more than 8000 Bosniaks, in what then- UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called "the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War".

1999 &#8211; U.S. Army private Barry Winchell dies from baseball-bat injuries inflicted on him in his sleep the previous day by a fellow soldier, Calvin Glover, for his relationship with transgender showgirl and former Navy Corpsman Calpernia Addams.

2003 &#8211; The 70-metre Yevpatoria Planetary Radar sends a METI message (Cosmic Call 2) to five stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri (HD 75732), HD 10307 and 47 Ursae Majoris (HD 95128). The messages will arrive to these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044, and 2049, respectively.

2013 &#8211; A Boeing 777 operating as Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashes at San Francisco International Airport, killing three and injuring 181 of the 307 people on board.

A 73-car oil train derails in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and explodes into flames, killing at least 47 people and destroying more than 30 buildings in the town's central area.

Births

1747 &#8211; John Paul Jones (no, not Led Zep's bass player, there was another one); 1887 &#8211; Marc Chagall; 1907 &#8211; Frida Kahlo, George Stanley (designed the flag of Canada); 1914 &#8211; Vince McMahon, Sr.; 1918 &#8211; Sebastian Cabot ('Mr. French' in "Family Affair"); 1921 &#8211; Nancy Reagan; 1922 &#8211; William Schallert; 1925 &#8211; Merv Griffin, Bill Haley; 1927 &#8211; Janet Leigh, Pat Paulsen; 1931 &#8211; Della Reese; 1936 &#8211; Dave Allen:devil:; 1937 &#8211; Ned Beatty, Gene Chandler (The Duke Of Earl); 1940 &#8211; Jeannie Seely; 1945 &#8211; Burt Ward ('Robin The Boy Wonder'); 1946 &#8211; George W. Bush, Fred Dryer, Sylvester Stallone; 1951 &#8211; Geoffrey Rush; 1954 &#8211; Allyce Beasley (receptionist on "Moonlighting"); 1966 &#8211; Brian Posehn; 1975 &#8211; Curtis Jackson (50 Cent); 1978 &#8211; Tamera & Tia Mowry; 1979 &#8211; Kevin Hart; 1980 &#8211; Eva Green; 1982 &#8211; Misty Upham

Deaths

893 &#8211; Guy de Maupassant; 1962 &#8211; William Faulkner; 1971 &#8211; Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong; 1973 &#8211; Otto Klemperer; 1998 &#8211; Roy Rogers (real name Leonard Slye); 1999 &#8211; Barry Winchell; 2002 &#8211; John Frankenheimer; 2003 &#8211; Buddy Ebsen; 2005 &#8211; Ed McBain; 2007 &#8211; Kathleen E. Woodiwiss; 2009 &#8211; Robert McNamara; 2015 &#8211; Jerry Weintraub

July 7

Today the Japanese celebrate Tanabata, The Star Festival.

1456 &#8211; A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

1534 &#8211; Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with aboriginal peoples in what is now Canada.

1798 &#8211; As a result of the XYZ Affair, the U.S. Congress rescinds the Treaty of Alliance with France sparking the "Quasi-War".

1846 &#8211; American troops occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the conquest of California.

1863 &#8211; The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.

1865 &#8211; Four conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged.

1898 &#8211; U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1907 &#8211; Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

1928 &#8211; Sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. (Grandmadigr is, literally, older than sliced bread:))

1930 &#8211; Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, dies.

1944 &#8211; World War II: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan.

1947 &#8211; The Roswell incident, the (supposed) crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell in New Mexico.

1952 &#8211; The ocean liner SS United States passes Bishop Rock on her maiden voyage, breaking the transatlantic speed record to become the fastest passenger ship in the world.

1958 &#8211; U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.

1980 - Led Zeppelin played their last-ever concert when they appeared at Eissporthalle, West Berlin at the end of a European tour. They finished the show with a 17-minute version of 'Whole Lotta Love'.

1981 &#8211; U.S. President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1983 &#8211; Cold War: Ten year old Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

1989 - It was announced, that for the first time, compact discs were out selling vinyl albums.

2005 &#8211; A series of four explosions occurs on London's transport system killing 56 people, including four suicide bombers, and injuring over 700 others.

2006 - Syd Barrett, founding member of Pink Floyd, died from complications arising from diabetes, aged 60.

2015, Climate scientists from five leading universities found that 163 of Bob Dylan's 542 songs reference the climate &#8211; almost a third &#8211; making him the musician most likely to mention the weather in his lyrics. The Beatles came in at number two, mentioning the weather in 48 of the 308 songs they wrote.

Births

1860 &#8211; Gustav Mahler; 1891 &#8211; Virginia Rappe; 1899 &#8211; George Cukor; 1906 &#8211; Satchel Paige; 1907 &#8211; Robert A. Heinlein; 1913 &#8211; Pinetop Perkins; 1919 &#8211; Jon Pertwee (3rd Dr. Who); 1924 &#8211; Mary Ford; 1927 &#8211; Charlie Louvin, Doc Severinsen; 1931 &#8211; David Eddings; 1940 &#8211; Ringo Starr:drummer:; 1943 &#8211; Joel Siegel; 1947 - David Hodo (the construction worker in The Village People); 1949 &#8211; Shelley Duvall; 1959 &#8211; Billy Campbell; 1966 &#8211; Jim Gaffigan; 1968 &#8211; Jorja Fox; 1972 &#8211; Kirsten Vangsness; 1989 &#8211; Landon Cassill (NASCAR driver)

Deaths

1647 &#8211; Thomas Hooker; 1890 &#8211; Henri Nestlé; 1930 &#8211; Arthur Conan Doyle; 1971 &#8211; Ub Iwerks (co-created Mickey Mouse); 1973 &#8211; Veronica Lake; 1975 &#8211; Ruffian (race horse); 1990 &#8211; Bill Cullen; 1993 &#8211; Mia Zapata (The Gits); 1994 &#8211; Cameron Mitchell; 2006 &#8211; Syd Barrett; 2014 &#8211; Dick Jones (voice of Pinocchio), Eduard Shevardnadze

July 8

1497 &#8211; Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.

1760 &#8211; British forces defeat French forces in the last naval battle in New France.

1776 &#8211; Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

1822 &#8211; Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.

1898 &#8211; The death of crime boss Soapy Smith, killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.

1932 &#8211; The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.

1947 &#8211; Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident.

1954 - Producer Sam Phillips took an acetate recording of Elvis Presley singing 'That's All Right' to Memphis radio station WHBQ DJ Dewey Phillips. He played the song just after 9.30 that evening, the phone lines lit up asking the DJ to play the song again.

1958 - The first Gold record album presented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was awarded to the soundtrack LP, 'Oklahoma!'.

1960 &#8211; Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

1967 - The Monkees began a 29-date tour with The Jimi Hendrix Experience as support act. Hendrix was dropped after six shows after being told his act was not suitable for their teenybopper audience.

1968 &#8211; The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, Michigan.

1969, Marianne Faithfull collapsed on the set of 'Ned Kelly' after taking a drug overdose. She was admitted to a Sydney Hospital, (she was later dropped from the movie).

1970 &#8211; Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.

1982 &#8211; Assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail. (Missed it, by that much.)

1994 &#8211; Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.

2011 &#8211; Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission (STS-135) of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Births

1831 &#8211; John Pemberton (invented Coca-Cola); 1838 &#8211; Eli Lilly; 1838 &#8211; Ferdinand von Zeppelin; 1839 &#8211; John D. Rockefeller (founded Standard Oil Company); 1885 &#8211; Hugo Boss; 1907 &#8211; George W. Romney (invented Mitt); 1908 &#8211; Louis Jordan (not Jourdan), Nelson Rockefeller; 1914 &#8211; Billy Eckstine; 1918 &#8211; Craig Stevens ("Peter Gunn"); 1930 &#8211; Jerry Vale; 1934 &#8211; Marty Feldman; 1935 &#8211; Steve Lawrence; 1944 - Jaimoe Johanson (Allman Bros Band); 1947 &#8211; Kim Darby ('Mattie Ross' in "True Grit"); 1948 &#8211; Raffi; 1949 &#8211; Wolfgang Puck; 1951 &#8211; Anjelica Huston; 1952 &#8211; Jack Lambert; 1957 &#8211; Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot, Ratt); 1958 &#8211; Kevin Bacon; 1961 &#8211; Toby Keith; 1962 &#8211; Joan Osborne; 1968 &#8211; Billy Crudup, Michael Weatherly ('Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo' on "NCIS"); 1970 &#8211; Beck; 1977 &#8211; Milo Ventimiglia

Deaths

1695 &#8211; Christiaan Huygens; 1822 &#8211; Percy Bysshe Shelley; 1988 &#8211; Ray Barbuti; 1990 &#8211; Howard Duff; 1991 &#8211; James Franciscus; 1994 &#8211; Kim Il-sung; 1994 &#8211; Dick Sargent; 1999 &#8211; Pete Conrad (3rd man to walk on the moon (supposedly)); 2006 &#8211; June Allyson; 2011 &#8211; Betty Ford; 2012 &#8211; Ernest Borgnine; 2015 &#8211; Ken 'The Snake' Stabler

July 9

869 &#8211; A magnitude 8.6 Ms earthquake and subsequent tsunami strikes the area around Sendai in the northern part of Honshu, Japan.

1755 &#8211; The Braddock Expedition is soundly defeated by a smaller French and native American force in its attempt to capture Fort Duquesne in what is now downtown Pittsburgh.

1776 &#8211; George Washington orders the Declaration of Independence to be read out to members of the Continental Army in Manhattan, while thousands of British troops on Staten Island prepare for the Battle of Long Island.

1810 &#8211; Napoleon annexes the Kingdom of Holland as part of the First French Empire.

1850 &#8211; U.S. President Zachary Taylor dies after eating raw fruit and iced milk, to be succeeded by Millard Fillmore.

1864 &#8211; Franz Muller commits the first known murder on a British train.

1868 &#8211; The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.

1877 &#8211; The inaugural Wimbledon Championships begins.

1903 &#8211; Future Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is exiled to Siberia for three years.

1918 &#8211; In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101 and injuring 171 people, making it the deadliest rail accident in United States history.

1943 &#8211; The Allied invasion of Sicily soon causes the downfall of Mussolini and forces Hitler to break off the Battle of Kursk.

1958 &#8211; A 7.8 Mw strike-slip earthquake in Alaska causes a landslide that produces a megatsunami. The runup from the waves reached 525 m (1,722 ft) on the rim of Lituya Bay. Due to the remote location, only five people were killed.

Johnny Cash signed with Columbia Records, where he would remain for the next 30 years releasing over 60 albums.

1962 - Bob Dylan recorded 'Blowin' In the Wind' at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City during an afternoon session.

1971, David Bowie started recording sessions at Trident Studios in London, for what would become the concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The character of Ziggy was initially inspired by British rock 'n' roll singer Vince Taylor, whom Bowie met after Taylor had had a breakdown and believed himself to be a cross between a god and an alien.

1972 &#8211; The Troubles: In Belfast, British Army snipers shoot five civilians dead in the Springhill Massacre.

Paul McCartney and Wings played their very first show in the small French town of Chateauvillon. The band included Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell, Henry McCullough and Paul's wife, Linda. It was McCartney's first time on the road since The Beatles quit touring in 1966. The band travelled on a double decker London bus with a psychedelic interior.

1977 - Elvis Costello quit his day job at Elizabeth Arden Cosmetics to become a full time musician.

1981 &#8211; Donkey Kong, a video game created by Nintendo, is released. The game marks the debut of Nintendo's future mascot, Mario.

1995 - The Grateful Dead gave their last concert with leader Jerry Garcia at Chicago's Soldier Field. Jerry would die of a heart attack a month later while in drug rehab.

Births

1819 &#8211; Elias Howe (invented the sewing machine); 1907 &#8211; Eddie Dean; 1927 &#8211; Ed Ames; 1928 &#8211; Vince Edwards ("Ben Casey"); 1929 &#8211; Jesse McReynolds (Jim & Jesse); 1932 &#8211; Donald Rumsfeld; 1934 &#8211; Michael Graves; 1938 &#8211; Brian Dennehy; 1942 &#8211; Richard Roundtree (he's a bad mothershutyomouth); 1945 &#8211; Dean Koontz; 1946 &#8211; Bon Scott:devil:; 1947 &#8211; Mitch Mitchell, O. J. Simpson; 1951 &#8211; Chris Cooper; 1952 &#8211; John Tesh; 1954 &#8211; Kevin O'Leary ("Shark Tank")1955 &#8211; Lindsey Graham, Jimmy Smits; 1956 &#8211; Tom Hanks; 1957 &#8211; Marc Almond, Tim Kring, Kelly McGillis, Paul Merton; 1964 &#8211; Courtney Love; 1965 &#8211; Frank Bello (Anthrax, Helmet); 1966 &#8211; Pamela Adlon ("Californication"); 1975 &#8211; Jack White; 1976 &#8211; Fred Savage

Deaths

1228 &#8211; Stephen Langton; 1850 &#8211; Zachary Taylor; 1932 &#8211; King Camp Gillette (the razor guy); 1974 &#8211; Earl Warren; 1985 &#8211; Jimmy Kinnon (founded Narcotics Anonymous); 1992 &#8211; Eric Sevareid; 1996 &#8211; Melvin Belli; 2002 &#8211; Rod Steiger; 2004 &#8211; Isabel Sanford; 2005 &#8211; Kevin Hagen (Dr. on "Little House on the Prairie"); 2006 &#8211; Milan Williams (Commodores); 2011 &#8211; Würzel (Motorhead); 2013 &#8211; Toshi Seeger (wife to Pete Seeger); 2014 &#8211; Eileen Ford (Ford Modeling Agency), John Spinks (The Outfield); 2015 &#8211; Saud bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

July 10

Today, followers of Meher Baba observe Silence Day, maintaining verbal silence for 24 hours.

138 &#8211; Emperor Hadrian dies of heart failure at Baiae; he is buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina.

988 &#8211; The Norse King Glúniairn recognizes Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, High King of Ireland, and agrees to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; the event is considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin.

1212 &#8211; The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.

1499 &#8211; The Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returns to Lisbon after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.

1553 &#8211; Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.

1789 &#8211; Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River delta.

1821 &#8211; The United States takes possession of its newly bought territory, Florida, from Spain.

1850 &#8211; U.S. President Millard Fillmore is sworn in, a day after becoming President upon Zachary Taylor's death.

1882 &#8211; War of the Pacific: Chile suffers its last military defeat in the Battle of La Concepción when a garrison of 77 men is annihilated by a 1,300-strong Peruvian force, many of them armed with spears.

1890 &#8211; Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

1913 &#8211; The temperature in Death Valley, California, hits 134° F (57° C), the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

1925 &#8211; Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins of John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1938 &#8211; Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.

1950 - The US music show Your Hit Parade premiered on NBC-TV.

1962 &#8211; Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1968 - Eric Clapton announced that Cream would break-up after their current tour. The group's third album, Wheels of Fire, was the world's first platinum-selling double album and Cream are widely regarded as being the world's first successful supergroup.

1972 - Harry Nilsson's eighth album, Son of Schmilsson was released. It featured George Harrison under the name George Harrysong and Ringo Starr, listed as Richie Snare, on some of the tracks. Peter Frampton also played guitar on most of the album.

1973 &#8211; John Paul Getty III, a grandson of the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.

1976 &#8211; The Seveso disaster occurs in Italy.

One American and three British mercenaries are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

1978 &#8211; ABC World News Tonight premieres on ABC.

1984 - Session drummer and former member of Derek and the Dominos, Jim Gordon, was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering his mother. It was after he was arrested that he was properly diagnosed with schizophrenia and, although at the trial the court accepted that Gordon had acute schizophrenia, he was not allowed to use an insanity defense because of changes to California law.

1985 &#8211; The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents, killing Fernando Pereira.

1991 &#8211; Boris Yeltsin takes office as the first elected President of Russia.

1992 &#8211; In Miami, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 &#8211; In London, scientists report the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supports the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1998 &#8211; Catholic Church sexual abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by Rudolph Kos, a former priest.

2002 &#8211; At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents is sold for £49.5 million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.

2007 &#8211; Erden Eruç begins the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world.

Births

1830 &#8211; Camille Pissarro; 1834 &#8211; James Abbott McNeill Whistler; 1839 &#8211; Adolphus Busch (co-founded Anheuser-Busch); 1856 &#8211; Nikola Tesla; 1871 &#8211; Marcel Proust; 1875 &#8211; Mary McLeod Bethune; 1897 &#8211; Legs Diamond; 1914 &#8211; Joe Shuster (co-created Superman); 1917 &#8211; Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard); 1920 &#8211; David Brinkley; 1921 &#8211; Harvey Ball (created the 'Smiley' face), Jeff Donnell, Jake LaMotta, Eunice Kennedy Shriver (co-founded the Special Olympics); 1926 &#8211; Fred Gwynne; 1927 &#8211; David Dinkins; 1928 &#8211; Alejandro de Tomaso; 1931 &#8211; Alice Munro; 1939 &#8211; Mavis Staples; 1942 &#8211; Ronnie James Dio:devil:; 1943 &#8211; Arthur Ashe; 1945 &#8211; Ron Glass; 1947 &#8211; Arlo Guthrie; 1949 &#8211; Greg Kihn, John Whitehead (McFadden & Whitehead); 1954 &#8211; Neil Tennant; 1958 &#8211; Béla Fleck (has the distinction of being Grammy-nominated in more categories than any other musician); 1964 &#8211; Urban Meyer; 1965 &#8211; Ken Mellons; 1970 &#8211; Gary LeVox (Rascal Flatts); 1972 &#8211; Sofía Vergara; 1976 &#8211; Elijah Blue Allman (son of Cher & Gregg Allman); 1977 &#8211; Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave); 1980 &#8211; Adam Petty (son of Richard Petty); 1980 &#8211; Jessica Simpson

Deaths

138 &#8211; Hadrian; 1851 &#8211; Louis Daguerre; 1941 &#8211; Jelly Roll Morton; 1987 &#8211; John Hammond; 1989 &#8211; Mel Blanc; 2015 &#8211; Roger Rees, Omar Sharif

The Cellar ate today's post. Today's yard-long-took-god-damn-near-a-hour-and-a-half-to-make fucking post.

Fuck.

Sorry, Grav.

What glatt said. I know that sux.

July 12

Today is The Twelfth, in Northern Ireland.

1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.

1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow is consecrated.

1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.

1789 – In response to the dismissal of the French finance minister Jacques Necker, the radical journalist Camille Desmoulins gives a speech which results in the storming of the Bastille two days later.

1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.

1862 – The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.

1962 – The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

1963 – Pauline Reade, who was 16 years old, disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.

1973 – A fire destroys the entire sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States.

1989 – Lotte World Adventure opened in Seoul, South Korea.

2007 – U.S. Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq; footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet.

2012 - Pollstar magazine announced that former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters had grossed $158.1 million in concert ticket sales worldwide so far this year with The Wall Live show.

Births

1730 – Josiah Wedgwood (Wedgwood china); 1817 – Henry David Thoreau; 1854 – George Eastman (founded Eastman Kodak); 1880 – Tod Browning; 1884 – Louis B. Mayer (co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer); 1895 – Buckminster Fuller, Oscar Hammerstein II; 1908 – Milton Berle; 1909 – Joe DeRita ('Curly Joe' (not to be confusede with 'Curly') from The Three Stooges); 1917 – Andrew Wyeth; 1929 – Monte Hellman (directed Two Lane Blacktop); 1933 – Donald E. Westlake; 1934 – Van Cliburn; 1937 – Bill Cosby; 1941 – Benny Parsons:driving:; 1943 – Christine McVie:keys:; 1948 – Walter Egan("Magnet And Steel"), Richard Simmons; 1949 – Rick Hendrick (NASCAR Team owner); 1950 – Eric Carr:drummer:; 1951 – Cheryl Ladd; 1951 – Jamey Sheridan; 1952 – Philip Taylor Kramer; 1956 – Mel Harris, Sandi Patty; 1957 – Rick Husband; 1962 – Julio César Chávez:boxers:; 1971 – Kristi Yamaguchi; 1977 – Brock Lesnar

Deaths

1804 – Alexander Hamilton; 1849 – Dolley Madison; 1892 – Alexander Cartwright (invented baseball); 1910 – Charles Rolls (co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited); 1934 – Ole Evinrude (invented the outboard motor); 1935 – Alfred Dreyfus (Dreyfus Affair); 1944 – Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.; 1973 – Lon Chaney, Jr.; 1979 – Minnie Riperton; 1996 – John Chancellor; 1998 – Jimmy Driftwood; 2010 – Harvey Pekar; 2011 – Sherwood Schwartz; 2013 – Amar Bose (founded the Bose Corporation)

July 12

Today is The Twelfth, in Northern Ireland.

1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.

1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow is consecrated.

1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.

1789 – In response to the dismissal of the French finance minister Jacques Necker, the radical journalist Camille Desmoulins gives a speech which results in the storming of the Bastille two days later.

1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.

1862 – The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.

1962 – The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

1963 – Pauline Reade, who was 16 years old, disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.

1973 – A fire destroys the entire sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States.

1989 – Lotte World Adventure opened in Seoul, South Korea.

2007 – U.S. Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq; footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet.

2012 - Pollstar magazine announced that former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters had grossed $158.1 million in concert ticket sales worldwide so far this year with The Wall Live show.

Births

1730 – Josiah Wedgwood (Wedgwood china); 1817 – Henry David Thoreau; 1854 – George Eastman (founded Eastman Kodak); 1880 – Tod Browning; 1884 – Louis B. Mayer (co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer); 1895 – Buckminster Fuller, Oscar Hammerstein II; 1908 – Milton Berle; 1909 – Joe DeRita ('Curly Joe' (not to be confusede with 'Curly') from The Three Stooges); 1917 – Andrew Wyeth; 1929 – Monte Hellman (directed Two Lane Blacktop); 1933 – Donald E. Westlake; 1934 – Van Cliburn; 1937 – Bill Cosby; 1941 – Benny Parsons:driving:; 1943 – Christine McVie:keys:; 1948 – Walter Egan("Magnet And Steel"), Richard Simmons; 1949 – Rick Hendrick (NASCAR Team owner); 1950 – Eric Carr:drummer:; 1951 – Cheryl Ladd; 1951 – Jamey Sheridan; 1952 – Philip Taylor Kramer; 1956 – Mel Harris, Sandi Patty; 1957 – Rick Husband; 1962 – Julio César Chávez:boxers:; 1971 – Kristi Yamaguchi; 1977 – Brock Lesnar

Deaths

1804 – Alexander Hamilton; 1849 – Dolley Madison; 1892 – Alexander Cartwright (invented baseball); 1910 – Charles Rolls (co-founded Rolls-Royce Limited); 1934 – Ole Evinrude (invented the outboard motor); 1935 – Alfred Dreyfus (Dreyfus Affair); 1944 – Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.; 1973 – Lon Chaney, Jr.; 1979 – Minnie Riperton; 1996 – John Chancellor; 1998 – Jimmy Driftwood; 2010 – Harvey Pekar; 2011 – Sherwood Schwartz; 2013 – Amar Bose (founded the Bose Corporation)

July 13

1249 – Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots.

1787 – The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.

1793 – Journalist and French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a member of the opposing political faction.

1863 – New York City draft riots: In New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.

1919 – The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.

1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It originally reads "Hollywoodland " but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.

1962 – In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberals as a distinct force within British politics.

1968 - Black Sabbath played their first gig at a small backstreet blues club in Birmingham, England.

1969 - Over 100 US radio stations banned The Beatles' new single 'The Balled Of John and Yoko' due to the line "Christ, you know it ain't easy", calling it offensive.

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

1978 - The BBC announced a ban on The Sex Pistols' latest single ‘No One Is Innocent’, which featured vocals by Ronnie Biggs, the British criminal notorious for his part in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. At the time of the recording, Biggs was living in Brazil, and was still wanted by the British authorities, but immune from extradition.

1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow.

Duran Duran became the first artists to have a No.1 on the US singles chart with a James Bond theme when 'A View To A Kill', went to the top of the charts.

1990 - Curtis Mayfield was badly injured after a strong gust of wind blew a lighting rig on him during an outside concert in Brooklyn, New York.

1996, Over 2,000 guitar players, including Chet Atkins and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, set a new world record for the largest jam session ever when they played 'Heartbreak Hotel' for 75 minutes at Nashville's Riverfront Park. The previous record was set in Vancouver, Canada on May 7th, 1994, when Randy Bachman led 1,322 amateur guitarists in a performance that lasted 68 minutes.

1997, Red Hot Chili Peppers' singer Anthony Kiedis underwent five hours of hospital surgery after being involved in a motorbike accident in Los Angeles.

A trial against John Denver for drunken driving ended in a hung jury, deadlocked 3-3. Denver's defense attorney argued that the singer suffered from a thyroid condition that had distorted blood alcohol tests.

2004, Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane, bass player with The New York Dolls, died aged 55 after checking himself in to a Los Angeles emergency room, complaining of fatigue. He was quickly diagnosed with leukemia, and died within two hours.

2013 – George Zimmerman is found not guilty in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

2016 – Theresa May succeeds David Cameron and becomes the second female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Births

1745 – Robert Calder; 1821 – Nathan Bedford Forrest; 1864 – John Jacob Astor IV; 1913 – Dave Garroway; 1924 – Johnny Gilbert; 1928 – Bob Crane; 1935 – Jack Kemp; 1940 – Paul Prudhomme, Patrick Stewart; 1941 – Robert Forster; 1942 – Harrison Ford, Roger McGuinn; 1944 – Ern&#337; Rubik (cube guy); 1946 – Cheech Marin:fumette:; 1948 – Daphne Maxwell Reid (Fresh Prince of Bel Air); 1951 – Didi Conn; 1954 – Louise Mandrell; 1956 – Michael Spinks; 1957 – Cameron Crowe, Phil Margera (Bam's father); 1962 – Rhonda Vincent; 1963 – Spud Webb; 1964 – Paul Thorn; 1966 – Gerald Levert

Deaths

1793 – Jean-Paul Marat; 1882 – Johnny Ringo; 1890 – John C. Frémont; 1893 – Young Man Afraid of His Horses; 1946 – Alfred Stieglitz; 1954 – Frida Kahlo; 1967 – Tom Simpson; 1993 – Davey Allison:driving:; 2004 – Arthur Kane; 2006 – Red Buttons; 2010 – George Steinbrenner; 2012 – Richard D. Zanuck; 2013 – Cory Monteith

July 14

Today is Bastille Day, in France, celebrating The Storming of the Bastille, in 1789, the flashpoint of the French Revolution.

1223 &#8211; Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II.

1769 &#8211; An expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá establishes a base in California and sets out to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).

1771 &#8211; Foundation of the Mission San Antonio de Padua in modern California by the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra.

1789 &#8211; French Revolution: Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille.

Alexander Mackenzie finally completes his journey to the mouth of the great river he hoped would take him to the Pacific, but which turns out to flow into the Arctic Ocean. Later named after him, the Mackenzie is the second-longest river system in North America.

1790 &#8211; French Revolution: Citizens of Paris celebrate the unity of the French people and the national reconciliation in the Fête de la Fédération.

1798 &#8211; The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government.

1853 &#8211; Opening of the first major US world's fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City.

1881 &#8211; Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

1902 &#8211; The Campanile in St. Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the loggetta.

1916 &#8211; Start of the Battle of Delville Wood as an action within the Battle of the Somme, which was to last until 3 September 1916.

1933 &#8211; The Nazi eugenics begins with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring that calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders.

1943 &#8211; In Diamond, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.

1960 &#8211; Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.

1962 - The Beatles played their first ever gig in Wales when they appeared at The Regent Dansette in Rhyl. Tickets cost five shillings, ($0.70).

1965 &#8211; The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.

1969 &#8211; The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.

1973 - A drunk driver killed Clarence White of The Byrds while he was loading equipment after a gig in Palmdale, California.

During a concert at the John Wayne Theatre in Hollywood, California, Phil Everly smashed his guitar and stormed of stage, Don finished the set by himself and announced that The Everly Brothers had split. This was the last time that the duo performed together for nearly ten years.

1976 &#8211; Capital punishment is abolished in Canada.

1982 - The movie premier for Pink Floyd's The Wall was held at The Empire, Leicester Square, London, England. The film, which centers around a confined rocker named Floyd "Pink" Pinkerton, earned $22 million in its first year and won two British Academy Awards.

1984 - Phillippe Wynne lead singer with The Detroit Spinners (Working My Way Back To You) suffered a heart attack while performing at Ivey's nightclub in Oakland, California, and died the next morning, aged 43.

1989 - Tom Jones lost a paternity suit and was ordered to pay $200 a week in child support to 27 year old Katherine Berkery, of New York. The judge in the case was Judge Judy Sheindlin, tv's "Judge Judy".

2000 &#8211; A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.

2002 &#8211; French President Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt unscathed during Bastille Day celebrations.

2003 &#8211; In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an article critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak reveals that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame is a CIA "operative".

2015 &#8211; NASA's New Horizons probe performs the first flyby of Pluto, and thus completes the initial survey of the Solar System.

Arthur Cave, the 15-year-old son of musician Nick Cave, died after a fall from a cliff in Brighton, Sussex, England.

The Las Vegas coroner's office confirmed that B.B. King died of natural causes primarily stemming from Alzheimer's disease and was not murdered. Two of his daughters had alleged King was poisoned by long-time associates.

Births

1860 &#8211; Owen Wister (author The Virginian); 1894 &#8211; Dave Fleischer; 1898 &#8211;A.B. "Happy" Chandler; 1901 &#8211; George Tobias (neighbor 'Kravitz' on Bewitched); 1910 &#8211; William Hanna (Hanna-Barbera); 1912 &#8211; Woody Guthrie; 1913 &#8211; Gerald Ford; 1918 &#8211; Ingmar Bergman; 1922 &#8211; Robin Olds; 1923 &#8211; Dale Robertson; 1926 &#8211; Harry Dean Stanton; 1927 &#8211; John Chancellor, Mike Esposito (comic book illustrator); 1928 &#8211; Nancy Olson (Sunset Boulevard); 1930 &#8211; Polly Bergen; 1932 &#8211; Rosey Grier; 1938 &#8211; Jerry Rubin; 1939 &#8211; Sid Haig:devil:; 1943 &#8211; Christopher Priest; 1945 &#8211; Jim Gordon; 1946 &#8211; Vincent Pastore ('Big Pussy' on The Sopranos); 1949 &#8211; Tommy Mottola; 1952 &#8211; Bob Casale (Devo); 1952 &#8211; Eric Laneuville (St. Elsewhere); 1960 &#8211; Kyle Gass (half of duo Tenacious D), Jane Lynch; 1966 &#8211; Matthew Fox ('Jack' on Lost); 1975 &#8211; Jamey Johnson; 1978 - Ruben Studdard; 1981 &#8211; Robbie Maddison (motorcycle stunt rider); 1988 &#8211; Conor McGregor:devil: (MMA fighter)

Deaths

1881 &#8211; Billy the Kid; 1998 &#8211; Richard McDonald (co-founded McDonald's, with his brother Maurice, and Ray Kroc); 2000 &#8211; Meredith MacRae; 2013 &#8211; Dennis Burkley

July 15

1099 – First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.

1381 – John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.

1741 – Aleksei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.

1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

1806 – Pike expedition: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west.

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.

1870 – Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.

1916 – In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).

1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.

1959 – The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.

1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.

1985 - Nude photos of Madonna taken in 1977 appeared in this months Playboy and Penthouse Magazines.

1998 - Aerosmith were forced to cancel a forthcoming US tour after Joey Kramer was involved in a freak accident. The drummer's car caught fire and was completely destroyed as he was filling up with petrol. He was admitted to hospital with second-degree burns.

2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.

Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2003 – AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.

2005, Victor Edward Willis, the original policeman in the Village People, was arrested after police found a gun and drugs in his convertible in Daly City, south of San Francisco. Willis also had an outstanding $15,000 felony warrant for possession of narcotics.

2006 – Twitter is launched, becoming one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

2015 - A judge trimmed more than $1m (£639,000) from the damages Pharrell Williams was ordered to pay after the Blurred Lines copyright trial. The case revolved around the question of whether Williams and his co-writer Robin Thicke had copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit 'Got To Give It Up'. The judge also gave Gaye's family a 50% cut of future earnings from the song.

Births

1573 – Inigo Jones; 1606 – Rembrandt; 1779 – Clement Clarke Moore; 1796 – Thomas Bulfinch; 1913 – Cowboy Copas; 1919 – Iris Murdoch; 1925 – Philip Carey ('Asa Buchanon' on One Life To Live); 1931 – Clive Cussler; 1935 – Alex Karras, Ken Kercheval; 1940 – Ronald Gene Simmons; 1944 – Millie Jackson, Jan-Michael Vincent; 1946 – Linda Ronstadt; 1947 – Peter Banks (Yes); 1948 – Artimus Pyle; 1950 – Arianna Huffington; 1951 – Jesse 'The Body' Ventura; 1952 – Marky Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Jeff Carlisi (.38 Special); 1953 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Alicia Bridges (I Love The Night Life); 1956 – Joe Satriani; 1961 – Lolita Davidovich, Forest Whitaker; 1963 – Brigitte Nielsen; 1966 – Jason Bonham; 1967 – Adam Savage (Mythbusters); 1968 – Eddie Griffin; 1972 – Scott Foley; 1973 – Brian Austin Green

Deaths

1381 – John Ball; 1871 – Tad Lincoln; 1904 – Anton Chekhov; 1940 – Robert Wadlow (8' 11'' tall:eek:); 1948 – John J. Pershing; 1958 – Julia Lennon (John's mother); 1991 – Bert Convy; 1997 – Gianni Versace; 2003 – Tex Schramm; 2006 – Robert H. Brooks (founded Hooters); 2012 – Celeste Holm; 2015 – Aubrey Morris (A Clockwork Orange)

July 16

622 &#8211; The beginning of the Islamic calendar.

1377 &#8211; Richard II of England is crowned.

1661 &#8211; The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

1769 &#8211; Father Junípero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego, California.

1782 &#8211; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail is first performed.

1790 &#8211; The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.

1861 &#8211; American Civil War: At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862 &#8211; American Civil War: David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in United States Navy to hold the rank of Admiral.

1900 - His Master's Voice, the logo of the Victor Recording Company and later RCA Victor, was registered with the US Patent Office. The logo shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone.

1910 &#8211; John Robertson Duigan makes the first flight of the Duigan pusher biplane, the first aircraft built in Australia.

1915 &#8211; The first Order of the Arrow ceremony takes place and the Order of the Arrow is founded to honor American Boy Scouts who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law.

1927 &#8211; Augusto César Sandino leads a raid on U.S. Marines and Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional that had been sent to apprehend him in the village of Ocotal, but is repulsed by one of the first dive-bombing attacks in history.

1935 &#8211; The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941 &#8211; Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.

1945 &#8211; World War II: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.

Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1948 &#8211; The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane marks the first aircraft hijacking of a commercial plane.

1951 &#8211; The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is published for the first time.

1956 &#8211; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closes its last "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1960 &#8211; USS George Washington, a modified Skipjack-class submarine, successfully launches the first SLBM while submerged.

1965 &#8211; The Mont Blanc Tunnel, linking France and Italy, opens.

1966 - Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton formed Cream. The three piece group only lasted 2 years.

1969 &#8211; Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

1979 &#8211; Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.

1981 - US singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, who had success in the 70s with 'Taxi&#8217;, &#8216;W-O-L-D&#8217; and a No. 1 &#8216;Cat&#8217;s In The Cradle&#8217;, was killed, aged 38, after suffering cardiac arrest while driving on a New York expressway. His car was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer, causing the gas tank to explode.

1990 &#8211; The Parliament of the Ukrainian SSR declares state sovereignty over the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.

1991 &#8211; Ukraine celebrates its first Independence Day. And there was much rejoicing.

1994 &#8211; Comet Shoemaker&#8211;Levy 9 collides with Jupiter. Impacts continue until July 22.

1999 &#8211; John F. Kennedy Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. His wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.

2007, The White Stripes played their 'shortest live show ever' at George Street, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Jack White played a single C# note accompanied by a bass drum/crash cymbal hit from Meg. At the end of the show, Jack announced, "We have now officially played in every province and territory in Canada." They then left the stage and performed a full show later that night in St John's.

2008 &#8211; Sixteen infants in Gansu Province, China, who had been fed on tainted milk powder, are diagnosed with kidney stones; in total, an estimated 300,000 infants are affected.

2009 - A stage being built in France for a concert by Madonna collapsed, killing two workers and injuring six others. Technicians had been setting up the stage at the Velodrome stadium in Marseille when the partially-built roof fell in, bringing down a crane.

2013 &#8211; As many as 27 children die and 25 others are hospitalized after eating lunch served at their school in eastern India.

2015 &#8211; Four U.S. Marines and one gunman die in a shooting spree targeting military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Births

1821 &#8211; Mary Baker Eddy; 1872 &#8211; Roald Amundsen; 1880 &#8211; Kathleen Norris; 1887 &#8211; Shoeless Joe Jackson; 1907 &#8211; Orville Redenbacher, Barbara Stanwyck; 1911 &#8211; Ginger Rogers; 1915 &#8211; Barnard Hughes; 1924 &#8211; Bess Myerson; 1932 &#8211; Dick Thornburgh; 1943 &#8211; Jimmy Johnson; 1948 &#8211; Rubén Blades; 1952 &#8211; Stewart Copeland:drummer:; 1958 &#8211; Michael Flatley; 1963 &#8211; Phoebe Cates; 1964 &#8211; Melissa Monet; 1967 &#8211; Will Ferrell; 1968 &#8211; Barry Sanders; 1968 &#8211; Larry Sanger (co-founded Wikipedia:devil:); 1971 &#8211; Corey Feldman; 1980 &#8211; Jesse Jane, Justine Joli

Deaths

1557 &#8211; Anne of Cleves; 1882 &#8211; Mary Todd Lincoln; 1886 &#8211; Ned Buntline; 1981 &#8211; Harry Chapin; 1996 &#8211; John Panozzo:drummer:; 1999 &#8211; Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr.; 2010 &#8211; James Gammon; 2012 &#8211; Bob Babbitt:bass:; 2012 &#8211; Jon Lord:keys:, Kitty Wells; 2013 &#8211; T-Model Ford; 2014 &#8211; Johnny Winter