1787 – Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up US Constitution
1796 – English country doctor Edward Jenner administers the first inoculation against smallpox, using cowpox pus, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire
1804 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson sets out from St Louis for Pacific Coast
1948 – Israel declares independence from British administration
1955 – US performs nuclear test at Pacific Ocean
1962 – Ex-president of Yugoslavia Milovan Djilas sentenced to 5 years in jail
1969 – Abortion & contraception legalized in Canada
1975 – French press reports massive deportation from Cambodia
1982 – Guinea adopts constitution
1986 – Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank’s complete diary
1991 – Winnie Mandela sentenced to 6 years for complicity in kidnapping & beating of four youths, one of whom died, She is freed pending appeal
1995 – Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima 11th reincarnation of Panchen Lama, Tibet’s 2nd most senior spiritual leader
2002 – Ten members of the Darwin-based Network Against Prohibition invade the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory of Australia.
2005 – Pope Benedict XVI observes his first beatification, elevating Blessed Marianne of Molokai on the road to canonization into sainthood
2012 – 1,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons agree to end mass hunger strike
2013 – Brazil becomes the 15th country to legalize same-sex marriage
2018 – Melania Trump, wife of US President Donald Trump, is treated in hospital for a benign kidney condition
2020 – Former pandemic agency head Rick Bright testifies to a US House Committee “without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history”
2020 – Global death toll from COVID-19 passes 300,000 with 4.4 million confirmed infections
Film & TV:
1998 – Seinfeld’s final 2-part episode “The Finale” airs on NBC to 76.3M viewers (commercials priced at $2M for 30 seconds)
Music:
1832 – Felix Mendelssohn’s concert overture “Hebrides” premieres in London
Sport:
1967 – NY Yankee Mickey Mantle hits career HR #500 off Baltimore Oriole’s Stu Miller
2018 – Arsenal finish EPL season in 6th place on 63 points; fail to qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 1997
Via Britannica / On This Day
