935 – Saint Wenceslas is murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I of Bohemia
1066 – William the Conqueror invades England landing at Pevensey Bay, Sussex
1542 – Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, known as the “discoverer” of California, landed this day in 1542 near what is now San Diego and became the first European to set foot on the west coast of what would become the United States.
1781 – 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops begin siege of Yorktown
1887 – Yellow River or Huáng Hé floods in China, killing between 900,000 and 2 million people, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history
1939 – German-Soviet Frontier Treaty is signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov; redraws German and Soviet spheres of influence in central Europe and transfers most of Lithuania to the USSR
1961 – Syria withdraws from United Arab Republic
1970 – Anwar Sadat replaces Gamal Abdel Nasser as acting Egyptian President
2008 – SpaceX successfully launched Falcon 1, becoming the first privately owned company to send a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit.
2015 DNA controllers for the age women go into menopause announced in “Nature Genetics” by research team from Exeter and Cambridge universities
2019 Hurricane Lorenzo becomes 1st category 5 storm to be recorded so far north and east, 1,420 miles southwest of the Azores
2020 COVID-19 recorded global death toll passes 1 million with over 33 million known cases (Johns Hopkins)
Births & Deaths:
1934 – French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was an international sex symbol in the 1950s and ’60s, was born.
2003 – Tennis player Althea Gibson—the first African American to win singles titles at the French Open (1956), Wimbledon (1957–58), and the U.S. Open (1957–58)—died in New Jersey.
2016 – Polish-born Israeli statesman Shimon Peres—who served as prime minister (1984–86 and 1995–96) and president (2007–14) of Israel and shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994 – for helping to negotiate the Oslo Accords (the historic Israeli-PLO peace agreement of 1993)—died in Ramat Gan.
2018 – 7.5 magnitude earthquake hits just off island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, setting off a tsunami that hits cities of Donggala and Palu, at least 1649 people killed
2018 – Cristiano Ronaldo accused of rape in 2009 in US lawsuit filed in Nevada
2019 – Elon Musk unveils SpaceX spacecraft Starship, designed to travel to Mars and the solar system and land back on earth
Film & TV:
1945 – “Mildred Price” starring Joan Crawford opens at Strand
1994 – “Ed Wood” film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp premieres
Music:
1956 – RCA Records reports Elvis Presley sold over 10 million records
1968 – Beatles’ “Hey Jude” single goes #1 and stays #1 for 9 weeks
1976 – “Songs in the Key of Life” 18th studio album by Stevie Wonder is released (Billboard Song of the Year 1977)
1978 – Metal band Black Sabbath release their 8th album “Never Say Die”, last to feature Ozzy Osbourne before he was fired
Sport:
1976 – Muhammad Ali beats Ken Norton in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
