363 – Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign that brings about his own death
1046 – Persian scholar Naser Khosrow begins the 7 year Middle Eastern journey which he will later describe in his book Safarnama
1496 – English King Henry VII grants John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) a commission to explore for new lands
1770 – Boston Massacre (Incident on King Street): British soldiers kill 5 men in a crowd throwing snowballs, stones and sticks at them. African American Crispus Attucks 1st to die; later held up as early black martyr. Massacre galvanizes anti-British feelings.
1946 – Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri, popularizes the term and draws attention to the division of Europe.
1960 – Elvis Presley ends 2-year hitch in US Army
1960 – Moments before he was shot to death by a soldier of the Bolivian government, the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara told his executioner, “Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!”
1963 – the Hula-Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin.
1968 – US launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun
1979 – Voyager I’s closest approach to Jupiter (172,000 miles)
1981 – US government grants Atlanta $1 million to search for black boy murderer
1983 – Australian Labor leader Bob Hawke defeats sitting Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in a general election
1993 – Boston Celtic Larry Bird undergoes backfusion surgery
1995 – Graves of Tsar Nicholas II and family found in St Petersburg
2001 – In Mecca, 35 Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
2003 – In Haifa, 17 Israeli civilians are killed by a Hamas suicide bomb in the Haifa bus 37 massacre.
2006 – Nature documentary “Planet Earth” narrated by David Attenborough premieres on the BBC
2012 – 27 members of Iraq’s security force are killed by gunmen disguised as police in Haditha
2013 – Venezuelan Vice-President Nicolás Maduro assumes the presidency after the death of Hugo Chávez
2016 – US primary elections: Super Saturday – Republican Donald Trump and Ted Cruz win 2 states, Democratics Bernie Sanders wins 2, Hillary Clinton one
2017 – US President Donald Trump in a tweet accuses former President Obama without offering any evidence of wiretapping Trump Towers during the presidential campaign
2019 – Second-ever person “cured” of HIV after stem cell transplant treatment in London, England results published in “Nature”
2019 – Major study into the MMR vaccine involving over 650,000 children in Denmark finds it does not increase the risk of autism
2019 – Kylie Jenner is the world’s youngest-ever billionaire at 21, according to Forbes
2020 – US senator Elizabeth Warren drops out of the Democratic presidential race
TV & Film: 1956 – “King Kong” 1st televised
2002 – American reality TV program The Osbournes” featuring family of Ozzy Osbourne premieres on MTV
1970 – “Airport” based on the book by Arthur Hailey, directed by George Seaton and starring Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin is released
Births & Deaths:
1953 – Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died in Moscow and was succeeded by Georgy Malenkov.
Music:
1971 – “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin first played live at Ulster Hall, Belfast by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones
