1250 – The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured 1598 – Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots 1860 – 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California. 1895 – Accused of selling military secrets to Germany and convicted in an irregular trial against a backdrop of anti-Semitism, French officer Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned this day in 1895 on Devils Island, off French Guiana. 1868 – Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide. 1941 – Japan concluded a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union in World War II. 1960 – France becomes 4th nuclear nation exploding an A-Bomb in Sahara
Births & Deaths:
2015 – German writer Günter Grass—who was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and was known as the literary spokesman for Germans who grew up in the Nazi era and survived World War II—died at the age of 87.
Film: 1964 – 36th Academy Awards: “Tom Jones”, Best Film, Patricia Neal and Sidney Poitier win Best Actor/Actress, Poitier first black actor to win
Sport: 1997 – Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament, becoming the first golfer of African American descent and the youngest player to place first in the event.
Music: 1742 – George Frideric Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” performed for the 1st time at New Music Hall in Dublin
