241BC - Battle of Aegusa: Roman fleet sinks 50 Carthagean ships
0418 - Jews are excluded from public office in the Roman Empire
0483 - St Simplicius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1624 - England declares war on Spain
1629 - King Charles I dissolved Parliament; he called it back 11 years later
1661 - French King Louis XIV ends office of premier
1681 - English Quaker William Penn receives charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of colonial American territory Pennsylvania
1734 - Spanish army under Don Carlos (III) draws into Naples
1791 - John Stone, Concord MA, patents a pile driver
1847 - 1st money minted in Hawaii
1849 - Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent; only US President to do so
1862 - Great Britain & France recognizes independence of Zanzibar; US issues 1st paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000)
1864 - Grant is named commander of the Union armies; Red River campaign, Louisiana
1865 - Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, North Carolina
1876 - 1st telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson)
1880 - General Wolseley opens new legislative council in Pretoria
1893 - Ivory Coast becomes a French colony; New Mexico State University cancels its 1st graduation ceremony, its only graduate Sam Steele was robbed & killed the night before
1896 - After Bob Fitzsimmons KOs much larger Jim Corbett to win world HW championship he says, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall"
1903 - Harry Gammeter, Cleveland, patents multigraph duplicating machine
1905 - Japanese Army captures Mukden (Shenyang)
1906 - Coal dust explosion kills 1,060 at Courrieres France
1910 - China ends slavery
1915 - British expedition Army in Belgium captures Neuve Chapelle
1922 - State of siege proclaimed during mine strike Johannesburg South Africa
1925 - Walter Mittelholzer is 1st to flies over Demawend mountain, Iran
1927 - Albania mobilize by threat of Serbian, Croatian & Slovenes; Bavaria lifts ban on Hitler's speeches
1931 - British Labour party removes fascist sir Oswald Mosley
1933 - Major earthquake in Long Beach, CA; Nevada becomes 1st US state to regulate narcotics
1939 - 17 villages damaged by hailstones in Hyderabad, India
1945 - Germany blows-up Wessel Bridge on Rhine; Japan declares Vietnam Independence; Patton's 3rd Army makes contact with Hodge's 1st Army; Tokyo on fire after night time B-29 bombing; US troops lands on Mindanao
1946 - Train derailment kills 185 near Aracaju Brazil
1948 - 1st civilian to exceed speed of sound-Herb H Hoover, Edwards AFB California
1951 - FBI director J Edgar Hoover declines post of baseball commissioner
1952 - Military coup by General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba
1956 - Peter Twiss sets new world air record 1,132 mph (1,823 kph)
1957 - Thousands of soccer fans riot in Italy
1959 - Uprising against Chinese occupation force in Lhasa Tibet
1960 - USSR agrees to stop nuclear testing
1964 - US reconnaissance plane shot down over East Germany
1966 - North Vietnamese capture US Green Beret Camp at Ashau Valley
1968 - Ferry boat sinks in harbor of Wellington, New Zealand (200 killed)
1969 - James Earl Ray pleads guilty in murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1971 - Senate approves amendment lowering voting age to 18
1972 - 1st Black US political convention opens (Gary, IN); General Lon Nol becomes President & prince Sirik Matak premier of Cambodia
1973 - Morocco adopts constitution
1974 - Christian Democrats win Belgium parliamentary election
1977 - Rings of Uranus discovered during occultation of SAO
1978 - Soyuz 28 returns to Earth
1982 - President Reagan proclaims economic sanctions against Libya; Sygyzy: all 9 planets aligned on same side of Sun
1985 - French socialists lose election (National Front 9%)
1987 - Vatican formal opposition to test-tube fertilization & embryo transfer
1988 - Avalanche at Swiss Ski resort "Klosters" nearly kills Prince Charles
1990 - Lieutenant General Avril resigns as President of Haiti
1995 - Car bomb explodes in Karachi at shiite mosque, 17+ killed
1996 - NYC Mayor Guiliani visits Israel

Birthdays
1452 - Ferdinand II the Catholic, King of Aragon/Sicily (expelled Jews)
1503 - Ferdinand I German emperor (1558-64)
1538 - Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk; executed by Queen Elizabeth (1572)
1656 - Adolf H. van Rechteren Dutch diplomat/politician
1809 - William David Porter, Union Navy Commander
1812 - Victor Tesch, Belgian lawyer/minister of Justice
1818 - George Wythe Randolph, Confederate Secretary of War
1824 - Major General Thomas J. Churchill, Confederate Army/Fought at Wilson's Creek, Red River
1832 - William Henry Penrose, Union Brigadier General
1845 - Alexander III [Romanov], Russian tsar (1881-94)
1908 - Carl Albert, US Speaker of the House (1971-77)
1925 - M J J A [Sef], Imkamp Dutch politician (D66)
1928 - James Earl Ray, assassin (Martin Luther King Jr)
1947 - Avril "Kim" Campbell Canada's 1st female Prime Minister/19th Prime Minister (June 25, 1993-November 4, 1993)
1952 - Oupa J. Gqozo, South African warden/army commandant (Ciskei)
1961 - Laurel B. Clark, Lieutenant Commander USN/astronaut

Passings
0037 - Tiberius Claudius Nero, Roman emperor (14-37), dies at 78
0483 - Simplicius, Italian Pope (468-83), dies
1546 - Thomas Elyot, dies at 46
1735 - Dirk T. van Cloon Dutch lawyer/Governor-General of E. Indies, dies at about 46
1792 - John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute/English premier (1760-63), dies at 78
1826 - Johan VI M L J King of Portugal (1816-26), dies at 56
1864 - Maximilian II Jozef, King of Bayern (1848-64), dies at 52
1865 - William Henry "Little Billy" Chase Whiting, Confederate General-Major, dies at 48
1872 - Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian revolutionary (Giovane Italy), dies at 66
1892 - Otto van Raised, Governor-General of Netherland Indies (1884-88), dies at 69
1910 - Karl Lueger Austrian anti-semite/mayor of Vienna, dies at 65
1913 - Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, conductor on Underground RR, dies in New York
1944 - David Vogel, Ukrainian author, dies in Auschwitz at 52
1948 - Jan Masaryk, Czechoslovakian Foreign minister, commits suicide or is murdered
1953 - Charles Gordon Curtis, inventor of (Curtis-steam turbine), dies at 92
1966 - Frederik "Frits" Zernike, Dutch physicist (Nobel 1953), dies at 77
1973 - Sir Richard Sharples Governor of Bermuda, assassinated
1977 - Willem Schermerhorn, Dutch premier (1945-46), dies at 82
1980 - Scarsdale diet doctor Herman Tarnower, killed by Jean Harris
1985 - Konstantin Chernenko, Communist party leader/President of USSR (1984-85), dies at 73
1990 - Michael Stewart, UK Secretary of State (1965-66, 68-70)
1996 - Lucius E. Burch, Jr., US civil rights leader, dies at 84

Reported Missing in Action
1966
Taylor, James L., US Army SF (WV); KIA, body not recovered

Xavier, Augusto Maria, USMC (CA); A4C shot down, KIA, body not recovered

1967
Luna, Jose D., USAF (CA); F105F shot down - released by DRV March, 1973 - alive as of 1999

1969
Luna, Carter P., USAF (MS); F4D shot down, KIA, body not recovered

1971
Smoot, Curtis R., US Army (LA); OH6A shot down

1975
Smith, Linda; escaped to Saigon March, 1975

Smith, Michelle L.; escaped to Saigon March, 1975

Struharik, Paul A.; released from Hanoi October, 1975