1661 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed whereby the Dutch Republic sells New Holland (Brazil) for 63 tonnes of gold to Portugal
1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the 1st person to be executed by electric chair
1926 – Gertrude Ederle, age 19, of New York became the first woman to swim the English Channel, breaking the men’s record by nearly two hours.
1945 – Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the US B-29 Superfortress “Enola Gay”
1962 – After 300 years of British rule, Jamaica became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations.
1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act prohibiting voting discrimination against minorities
1990 – The UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, ruled by Saddam Hussein, for its invasion of Kuwait four days earlier.
1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet
2012 – NASA’s robotic vehicle Curiosity (also called Mars Science Laboratory) landed on Mars and soon began transmitting images of the planet’s surface.
Births & Deaths: 1911 – American radio and motion-picture actress and television comedian Lucille Ball, who was best remembered for her classic television comedy series I Love Lucy, was born in Celoron, New York.
Sport: 1948 – Dutch super athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen wins London Olympics 200m in 24.4 to become 1st women to claim 3 individual track & field gold at a Games, having already won 100m & 80m hurdles
Music: 1996 – Punk rock band the Ramones perform for the last time at the Palace in Hollywood
TV & Film: 1926 – “Don Juan” starring John Barrymore is released by Warner Bros, the 1st feature-length film to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects
