1597 - 1st Dutch East India Company ships return from the Far East
1619 - 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia. They are then sold or traded into servitude.
1741 - Alaska first sighted by Danish explorer Vitus Bering at head of Russian expedition
1866 - President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War over
1905 - Sun Yat-sen, Chinese revolutionary, forms the first chapter of T’ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus
1968 - During the night 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia in response to the Prague Spring
1975 – The robotic U.S. spacecraft Viking 1, built to explore the surface of Mars, was launched this day in 1975 and nearly one year later landed on Chryse Planitia, a flat lowland region in the northern hemisphere of the planet.
1993 - Oslo Peace Accords signed, after secret negotiations in Norway, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month
Births & Deaths: 2012 – American comedienne and actress Phyllis Diller—who was one of the first female stand-up comics, noted for her raucous personality and self-deprecating humour—died in Los Angeles.
2014 – Indian teacher B.K.S. Iyengar, who helped popularize Yoga (a system of Indian philosophy) in the West, died at the age of 95. 2017 – American comedian and actor Jerry Lewis, who was known for his unrestrained comic style and his numerous movies with Dean Martin, died at age 91.
Film & TV: 1951 - 12th Venice Film Festival: “Rashomon” directed by Akira Kurosawa wins the Golden Lion
Sport: 1920 - American Professional Football Association forms, which would later become the National Football League (NFL)
2000 - PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Valhalla GC: Tiger Woods becomes first since Ben Hogan (1953) to win 3 majors in a calendar year; wins back-to-back PGA titles in 3-hole playoff with Bob May
