364 – Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother Flavius Valens co-emperor. 845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving. 1854 – Britain and France declare war on Russia during the Crimean War. 1930 – Built as Byzantium about 657 , then renamed Constantinople in the 4th century after Constantine the Great made the city his capital, the Turkish city of Istanbul officially received its present. 1939 – Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to Francisco Franco. 1946 – Cold War: The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power. 1979 – At 4:00 an automatic valve mistakenly closed at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, culminating in radioactive leakage.
Births & Deaths: 1941 – Virginia Woolf, a British writer best known for her novelsMrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), died. 2004 – Sir Peter Ustinov, an English filmmaker, writer and humanitarian, whose career spanned more than 60 years, died.
Sport: 1891 – 1st world weightlifting championship won by Edward Lawrence in London, England.
Music: 1896 – Umberto Giordano’s opera “Andrea Chenier” premieres at La Scala, Milan with Giuseppe Borgatti singing the title role.
TV & Film: 1969 – Greek poet and Nobel Prize laureate Giorgos Seferis makes a famous statement on the BBC World Service opposing the junta in Greece.
