30 Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.
1480 Battle of Otranto – Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam
1851 American inventor Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine
1856 Anthony Fass patents accordion
1877 Thomas Edison completes 1st model for the phonograph, a device that recorded sound onto tinfoil cylinders
1908 Henry Ford’s company builds the first Model T car
1920 Battle of Warsaw between Poland and Russia begins
1930 George Soros [György Schwartz], Hungarian-American investor and political activist (Open Society Foundation), is born in Budapest, Hungary
1939 The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland and featuring words and music by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, receives its world premiere in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
1949 Mark Knopfler, British musician (Dire Straits), born in Glasgow, Scotland
1954 François Hollande, 24th President of France (Socialist: 2012-17), born in Rouen, France
1971 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad drops diplomatic relations with Jordan
1981 IBM introduces its first Personal Computer (PC & PC-DOS version 1.0)
1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories
1990 Mario Balotelli, Italian footballer is born
2010 Malta’s President Emeritus Guido de Marco, lawyer and politician died aged 79. He rose from humble beginnings to become a top criminal legal counsel, a highly respected politician and statesman, the sixth president of Malta and, in 1990, the president of the general assembly of the United Nations. (Read more obituary from The Guardian)
On This Day / History Channel
