This Day in History
1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea
1609 Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe
1639 Dorchester Massachusetts forms 1st school funded by local taxes
1862 US President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900)
1864 Spotsylvania campaign in US Civil War ends after 10,920 killed or injured
1867 British parliament rejects John Stuart Mills’ proposals on women’s suffrage
1873 Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis patent the first blue jeans with copper rivets
1896 The six ton chandelier of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris falls on the crowd resulting in the death of one and the injury of many others
1916 Saturday Evening Post cover features Norman Rockwell painting
1927 At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris, aboard Spirit of St Louis (1st non-stop flight)
1927 Saudi Arabia becomes independent of Great Britain in the Treaty of Jeddah
1932 Amelia Earhart leaves Newfoundland on her journey to become the 1st woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic
1990 Hubble Space Telescope sends its 1st photographs from space
2013 The Church of Scotland votes to allow openly gay men and women to be ministers
2013 Yahoo purchases Tumbler for $1.1 Billion
2015 Journal Nature publishes findings of the oldest human-made tools from Kenya’s Turkana basin - 3.3 million years, 1st found to pre-date the Homo genus
2015 5 major world banks (JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, RBS and UBS) fined US$5.7bn for manipulating currency markets - some of the largest ever fines
Movies & TV
1891 History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope to members of the National Federation of Women’s Club
1973 25th Emmy Awards: Waltons, All in the Family & Mary Tyler Moore win
1993 274th & final “Cheers” episode on NBC
1995 CBS News fires co-anchor Connie Chung
2015 David Letterman, after 33 years, hosts the “Late Show with David Letterman” for the last time
Music
1967 BBC bans the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” because of drug references
1979 Elton John is the 1st western pop star to tour USSR
1983 “Every Breath You Take” single released by The Police (Billboard Song of the Year 1983)
1992 Rap singer raps 597 syllables in under 60 seconds
Sports
1900 II Summer (Modern) Olympic Games open in Paris (last 5 months)
1920 Policemen raid the Cubs’ bleachers & arrest 24 fans for gambling
1930 University of California dedicates $1,500 to research on prevention & cure of athlete’s foot
1960 Baseball game in Milwaukee postponed due to dense fog
1983 American heavyweight boxer Larry Holmes beats countryman Tim Witherspoon by split decision to retain his WBC title at the Dunes Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas
1991 Chicago Bull Michael Jordan, named NBA’s MVP
2003 The reality series “America’s Next Top Model”, created by Tyra Banks, debuts on UPN
Birthdays
1908 Jimmy Stewart, American actor (Mr Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life), born in Indiana, Pennsylvania (d. 1997)
1913 William Hewlett, American engineer and businessman (co-founder Hewlett-Packard), born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (d. 2001)
1915 Moshe Dayan, Israeli Military Leader and politician, born in Degania Alef, Ottoman Empire (d. 1981)
1944 Joe Cocker, English rock vocalist (With a Little Help from My Friends), born in Sheffield England, (d. 2014)
1944 Dietrich Mateschitz, Austrian businessman and co-creator of Red Bull energy drink, born in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Styria, Austria
1946 Cher [Cherilyn Sarkisian], American singer and actress (I Got You Babe, Jack Lalane, Mask), born in El Centro, California
1958 Ronald Prescot Reagan Jr, LA, TV host (Ron Reagon Show) and son of Ronald and Nancy Reagon
1958 Mike Stefanik, American auto racer (9 NASCAR Modified Championships), born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts (d. 2019)
1959 Bronson Pinchot, American actor (Perfect Strangers, Beverly Hills Cop), born in NYC, New York
1966 Mindy Cohn, LA, actress (Facts of Life)
1971 Tony Stewart, American race car driver
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