EVENTS
- 1859 – Charles Darwin’s book ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection’ was first published, theorizing that all the living creatures descended from a common ancestor.
- 1863 – The Battle of Chattanooga took place during the American Civil War as General Ulysses Grant’s soldiers scaled heavily fortified Lookout Mountain and overran Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s army.
- 1874 – Joseph Glidden patented his invention of barbed wire.
- 1877 – ‘Black Beauty’ is published. The classic novel about the life of a horse called Black Beauty was written by English author Anna Sewell. The book quickly gained popularity and became an important part in the animal rights movement. It was Sewell’s only published work.
- 1960 – Wilt Chamberlain pulls down 55 an NBA record rebounds.
- 1963 – JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is shot and killed on live national television.
- 1969 – The U.S. Army announced that Lt. William L. Calley had been charged with premeditated murder in the massacre of civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai in March of 1968. Calley was ordered to stand trial by court martial and was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. However, his sentence was later commuted to three years of house arrest by President Richard Nixon.
- 1971 – Hijacking of Northwest Orient Airline 305. Considered to be one of the only unsolved hijacking cases in American history, a man named DB Cooper or Dan Cooper hijacked the Seattle, Washington bound plane. After his demands of $ 200,000 in cash and parachutes were fulfilled at the Seattle airport, he released the passengers, refueled the airplane and asked to be flown to Mexico. On the way, however, he used a parachute to escape from the plane. Cooper has never been identified or caught.
- 1989 – In Czechoslovakia, mass demonstrations resulted in the resignation of the entire presidium and secretariat of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.
- 1992 – The U.S. military departed the Philippines after nearly a century of military presence. In 1991, the Philippine Senate had voted to reject a renewal of the lease for the American military base.
- 1996 – Golf rookie Karrie Webb wins LPGA Tour Championship
- 1998 – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II opened a new session of Parliament by announcing a bill to do away with the centuries-old right of aristocrats to sit in the House of Lords, thereby taking membership and voting rights away from 759 Dukes, Earls and other hereditary nobles with titles dating as far back as the Middle Ages.
- 1999 – The movie ‘Toy Story II’ is released by Disney/Pixar.
- 2012 – Fire breaks out in a clothing factory in Dhaka. Over 110 people were killed and about 200 people were injured at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The tragedy brought to light poor working conditions of workers who made export clothing in Bangladesh. It also led to major labor reforms in the country and in the fashion world, which promised to take steps to ethically source their products.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1632 – Baruch Spinoza (Dutch philosopher)
- 1784 – Zachary Taylor (12th President of the United States)
- 1868 – American composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was born in Texarkana, Texas (Best known for his piano rags including Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer.
- 1887 – German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (1887-1973) was born in Berlin. His plan for the German invasion of France in 1940 involved staging a surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest and was a stunning success. He went on to achieve several important victories over the Russians in the East, but was dismissed by Hitler in 1944 following a series of arguments over military strategy.
- 1888 – Motivational lecturer Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was born in Maryville, Missouri (Best known for his 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People which sold millions of copies and was translated into 29 languages.
- 1938 – Oscar Robertson (Basketball Player)
- 1946 – Ted Bundy (American serial killer)
- 1961 – Arundhati Roy (Indian author, activist)
- 1976 – Lu Chen (Figure Skater)
- 1978 – Katherine Heigl (Actress)
DEATHS
- 1265 – Magnus Olafsson (Manx king)
- 1572 – John Knox (Scottish clergyman)
- 1920 – Alexandru Macedonski (Romanian author, poet)
- 1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald (American assassin of John F. Kennedy)
- 1991 – Freddie Mercury (Tanzanian/English singer-songwriter, producer)