1568 – Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace.
1865 – Columbia, South Carolina, burns down during American Civil War.
1876 – Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine.
1969 – Golda Meir sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
1972 – British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market.
1979 – After the Vietnam War, Vietnam bolstered its ties with the Soviet Union rather than with China, and, following a series of anti-Chinese, pro-Soviet maneuvers by Vietnam, China invaded its southern neighbour this day in 1979.
1983 – Netherlands adopts constitution
1989 – 6-week study of Arctic atmosphere shows no ozone “hole”
2008 – Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, though a number of countries refused to recognize the new republic; the International Court of Justice later ruled that Kosovo had not violated international law, but Serbia rejected that decision.
2012 – Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece
2016 – Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman’s remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA
2017 – Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in research journal “GSA Today.
2018 – 3 suicide bombers kill 18 in Konduga, north-east Nigeria
2019 – Protests continue by thousands in streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, against government corruption and inflation
Birth & Deaths:
1963 – Michael Jordan, American Basketball Hall of Fame forward, owner (5-time NBA MVP, 6-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls), born in Brooklyn, New York.
1991 – Bonnie Wright, British actress (Ginny Weasley in “Harry Potter” franchise), born in London, England.
1991 – Ed Sheeran, English singer-songwriter (Shape of You, Thinking Out Loud), born in Halifax, England.
2017 – Alan Aldridge, British artist, graphic designer and illustrator whose artwork was used in record covers for The Beatles and The Who, dies at 73.
Music:
1904 – Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” premieres in Milan.
Via Britannica / On This Day
