1588 – The Battle of Gravelines – Spanish Armada damaged and scattered by the English fleet
1609 – Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York setting the stage for French-Iroquois conflicts for the next 150 years
1848 – Irish Potato Famine: Tipperary Revolt – an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule put down by police
1905 – US Secretary of War William Howard Taft makes secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura agreeing to Japanese free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines
1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party
1949 – Moscow ends the blockade of West Berlin
1957 – International Atomic Energy Agency formed by UN
1975 – Ford became 1st US President to visit Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz
1980 – David Bowie stars in dramatic stage play “The Elephant Man” at the Auditorium Theater in Denver, Colorado
1990 – South Africa Communist Party begins 1st legal conference
1994 – 200,000 Muslims demand the death of feminist writer Taslima Nasrin in Bangladesh
2005 – Astronomers announce their discovery of dwarf planet Eris
2013 – 300 prisoners are freed after a Taliban attack in Dera Ismal Khan, Pakistan
2014 – France contributes 8 million Euros in aid to Gaza
2015 – Part of missing airline MH370 is found on the island of Reunion
2016 – Hillary Clinton accepts the Democratic nomination for US President at Democratic convention in Philadelphia – first woman by a major US party
2018 – Ethiopian state funeral for murdered dam engineer Simegnew Bekele in Addis Ababa prompts unrest
2020 – Scaled back Hajj pilgrimage begins in Saudi Arabia with no foreigners
Film & TV:
1928 – Test footage first created for Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie” with Mickey Mouse
Music:
1973 – Led Zeppelin have more than $200,000 in cash stolen from a safety-deposit box at the New York Hilton
Sport:
1751 – 1st international world title prize fight: Jack Stack of England, beats challenger M. Petit of France in 29 mins in England
Via Britannica / On This Day
