EVENTS
- 306 – Roman troops proclaim Constantine I emperor of Rome.
- 1853 – The famous California bandit, Joaquin Murietta, also known as Robin Hood of El Dorado, is killed.
- 1898 – During the Spanish-American War, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico, which was then a Spanish colony. In 1917, Puerto Ricans became American citizens and Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the U.S. Partial self-government was granted in 1947 allowing citizens to elect their own governor. In 1951, Puerto Ricans wrote their own constitution and elected a non-voting commissioner to represent them in Washington.
- 1909 – The world’s first international overseas airplane flight was achieved by Louis Bleriot in a small monoplane. After asking, “Where is England?” he took off from France and landed in England near Dover, where he was greeted by British police.
- 1943 – In WWII, Mussolini was deposed just two weeks after the Allied attack on Sicily. The Fascist Grand Council met for the first time since December of 1939 then took a confidence vote resulting in Mussolini being ousted from office and placed under arrest. King Victor Emmanuel of Italy then ordered Marshal Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.
- 1952 – Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, adopts a constitution approved by the U.S. Congress.
- 1956 – The Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm on its way to New York. Nearby ships came to the rescue, saving 1,634 people, including the captain and the crew, before the ship went down.
- 1956 – Tunisia gains its independence from France. The northernmost African country, became a French protectorate in 1881, under the Treaty of Bardo. The path to independence in the country was marred by civil unrest and conflict and was led by Habib Bourguiba, who became the first president of the independent country.
- 1976 – The famous Face on Mars photo is taken. Viking 1, the first space probe to successfully land on Mars took the famous photo of the Cydonia region on the Red Planet.
Face on Mars photo - 1978 – World’s first test tube baby is born. Louise Joy Brown was the first person to be conceived using in-vitro fertilization or IVF technology, pioneered by doctors Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards.
- 1984 – Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space. The Soviet cosmonaut was part of the Soyuz T-12 mission, which docked at the Salyut 7 Space station. As part of the mission, she spent 3.5 hours in space testing tools. Savitskaya was also the second woman to go into space and the first to go to space twice.
- 1999 – Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France.
- 2007 – India gets its first female president. Pratibha Patil, a politician stayed in office as the head of state of the South Asian country for 5 years.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1750 – Henry Knox (American general)
- 1920 – Rosalind Franklin (English scientist)
- 1923 – Estelle Getty (Actress)
Estelle Getty - 1941 – Emmett Till (American murder victim)
- 1951 – Jack Thompson (American lawyer, activist)
- 1954 – Walter Peyton (Football Player)
- 1967 – Matt Leblanc (Actor from Friends)
- 1985 – Nelson Piquet, Jr. (Brazilian race car driver)
DEATHS
- 306 – Constantius Chlorus (Roman emperor)
- 1834 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English poet, philosopher)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1980 – Vladimir Vysotsky (Russian singer-songwriter, actor, poet)
- 1997 – Ben Hogan (American golfer)
- 2009 – Harry Patch (British super-centenarian, last survivor of the WWI trenches)
