1611 – Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, oldest existing university in Asia and largest Catholic university in the world
1770 – British Captain James Cook, aboard the endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia
1789 – Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh in the South Pacific
1910 – First night air flight by Claude Grahame-White in England
1937 – 1st commercial flight across Pacific operated by Pan Am
1952 – The Allied occupation of Japan came to an end after seven years of rapid social and economic change following the country’s surrender in World War II.
1969 – French leader Charles de Gaulle resigned his presidency.
1977 – Andreas Baader and members of terrorist group the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang) jailed for life after a trial lasting nearly 2 years in Stuttgart, Germany
1983 – Argentine government declares all 15-30,000 missing persons dead
1986 – Soviet TV news program Vremya announces a nuclear accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station, 2 days after the event
2001 – Millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world’s first space tourist
2003 – Apple launched the iTunes Store, which gave users the ability to purchase and download music from the Internet directly to their iTunes library; in 2010 the store sold its 10 billionth song.
2004 – Shrek the sheep from Tarras, Central Otago, New Zealand, is finally shorn live on TV after 6 years avoidance; the fleece weighed 27 kg (60 lb)
2004 – American television network CBS broadcast photographs depicting harsh treatment of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in U.S.-occupied Iraq, initiating a national debate on torture and the Geneva Conventions.
2018 – World’s largest child sacrifice, 140 remains uncovered by archaeologists near Trujillo, Peru, dating back 550 years to Chimú civilisation
2020 – US confirmed cases of COVID-19 pass 1 million, while death toll of 58,365 surpasses that of US soldiers killed in Vietnam War (Johns Hopkins)
2020 – Argentina bans all commercial domestic and international flights until September 1 because of COVID-19
Births & Deaths:
1926 – American author Harper Lee—who won national acclaim for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)—was born.
1945 – Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, “Il Duce,” who, after a series of military misadventures, became unpopular even among his fellow Fascists, was captured while trying to flee Italy and was executed on this day in 1945.
1996 – Australian gunman Martin Bryant began a killing spree that left 35 people dead and some 18 others wounded in the Port Arthur area of Tasmania, Australia; it was the country’s worst mass shooting and led to stricter gun controls.
Film:
1965 – Barbra Streisand stars on “My Name is Barbra” special on CBS
2019 – Disney says Marvel film “Avengers: Endgame” made estimated $1.2 billion worldwide, first film to make more than 1 billion on opening Music:
