Today In History

453 Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire falls to the Turks under Muhammad II; ends the Byzantine Empire

1592 Battle of Sacheon: Korean navy led by Admiral Yi Sun Shin repels a Japanese fleet - first use of Korean Turtle ship

1660 On his 30th birthday Charles II returns to London from exile in the Netherlands to claim the English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth comes to an end

1765 Patrick Henry’s historic speech against the Stamp Act, answering a cry of “Treason!” with, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”

1790 Rhode Island becomes last of original 13 colonies ratifying US Constitution

1851 Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio

1861 Dorothea Dix offers help in setting up hospitals for the Union Army

1886 American chemist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola

1919 Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, that when light passes a large body, gravity will bend the rays confirmed by Arthur Eddington’s expedition to photograph a solar eclipse on the island of Principe, West Africa

1943 Meat and cheese rationed in US

1953 Edmund Hillary (NZ) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepal) are first to reach the summit of Mount Everest as part of a British Expedition

1987 Michael Jackson attempts to buy Elephant Man’s remains

1989 Student pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, China construct a replica of the Statue of Liberty, naming it the Goddess of Democracy

1990 Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian Republic

1996 Space Shuttle STS 77 Endeavour 11), lands

2011 Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism started by Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam

2014 President Obama approves US military training of ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels to fight the regime of Bashar al-Assad and al Qaeda-linked groups

2018 Starbucks closes more than 8,000 US stores early for racial bias training after two black men wrongly arrested in a store in April

2019 US Special Counsel Robert Mueller says charging President Donald Trump with a crime never an option as no legal means to charge a sitting president; and that his report does not exonerate the president

2019 Transgender no longer classified as a mental health illness by the World Health Organization

Music

1989 Student pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, China construct a replica of the Statue of Liberty, naming it the Goddess of Democracy

1913 Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score “The Rite of Spring” premieres in Paris, provoking a riot

1942 Bing Crosby records “White Christmas”, world’s best-selling single (estimated 100 million copies sold)

1960 Everly Brothers “Cathy’s Clown” hits #1

1976 “One Piece At A Time” by Johnny Cash hits #29

Movies & TV

1942 “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, based on life of George M. Cohan, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring James Cagney and Joan Lesley, premieres in NYC (Academy Awards Best Actor 1943)

1962 Barbra Streisand appears on “Garry Moore Show”

2015 “Jurassic World”, directed by Colin Trevorrow and starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard premieres in Paris

2018 ABC TV network cancels TV comedy “Roseanne” after its star Roseanne Barr posts a racist tweet

Sports

1922 US Supreme Court rules organized baseball is a sport and not a business and thus not subject to antitrust laws

1977 Indianapolis 500: A. J. Foyt wins for a record 4th time

1980 Larry Bird beats out Magic Johnson for NBA rookie of year

1990 Rickey Henderson steals record 893rd base, breaking Ty Cobb’s record

2017 Tiger Woods is arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Jupiter, Florida

Birthdays

1736 Patrick Henry, American Revolutionary and Founding Father famous for his “Give me liberty or give me death” speech

1903 Bob Hope, British born American entertainer, born in London, England (d. 2003)

1917 John F. Kennedy, 35th US President (1961-1963) and Senator (D-Mass), born in Brookline, Massachusetts (d. 1963)