Today in History

Today in History

1350 John II, also known as John the Good, succeeds Philip VI as king of France.

1485 Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at Bosworth. This victory establishes the Tudor dynasty in England and ends the War of the Roses.

1642 Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on Parliament at Nottingham.

1717 The Austrian army forces the Turkish army out of Belgrade, ending the Turkish revival in the Balkans.

1777 With the approach of General Benedict Arnold‘s army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger abandons Fort Stanwix and returns to Canada.

1849 The Portuguese governor of Macao, China, is assassinated because of his anti-Chinese policies.

1911 The Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is stolen from the Louvre in Paris, where it had hung for more than 100 years. It is recovered in 1913.

1922 Michael Collins, Irish politician, is killed in an ambush.

1942 Brazil declares war on the Axis powers. She is the only South American country to send combat troops into Europe.

1945 Soviet troops land at Port Arthur and Dairen on the Kwantung Peninsula in China.

1945 Conflict in Vietnam begins when a group of Free French parachute into southern Indochina, in response to a successful coup by communist guerilla Ho Chi Minh.

1952 Devil’s Island‘s penal colony is permanently closed.

1956 Incumbent US President Dwight D. Eisenhower & Vice President Richard Nixon renominated by Republican convention in San Francisco.

1962 OAS (Secret Army Organization) gunmen unsuccessfully attempt to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle; the incident inspires Frederick Forsyth’s novel, The Day of the Jackal.

1962 The world’s first nuclear-powered passengercargo ship, NS Savannah, completes its maiden voyage from Yorktown, Va., to Savannah, Ga.

1968 First papal visit to Latin America; Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogota.

1969 Hurricane Camille hits US Gulf Coast, killing

256 and causing $1.421 billion in damages.

1971 Bolivian military coup: Col. Hugo Banzer Suarez ousts leftist president, Gen. Juan Jose Torres and assumes power.

1971 FBI arrests members of The Camden 28, an antiwar group, as the group is raiding a draft office in Camden, NJ.

1972 International Olympic Committee votes 36–31 with 3 abstentions to ban Rhodesia from the games because of the country’s racist policies.

1975 US President Gerald Ford survives second assassination attempt in 17 days, this one by Sarah Jane Moore in San Francisco, Cal.

1983 Benigno Aquino, the only real opposition on Ferdinand Marcos’ reign as president of the Philippines, is gunned down at Manila Airport.

1989 First complete ring around Neptune discovered.

1995 During 11-day siege at at Ruby Ridge, Id., FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi kills Vicki Weaver while shooting at another target.

2003 Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended for refusing to comply with federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building’s lobby.

2005 Art heist: a version of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

2007 Most runs scored by any team in modern MLB history as the Texas Rangers thump the Baltimore Orioles 30-3.

Born

1647 Denis Papin, inventor of the pressure cooker.

1880 George Herriman, cartoonist, creator of Krazy Kat.

1891 Jacque Lipchitz, sculptor.

1893 Dorothy Parker, poet, satirist and founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.

1904 Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader from 1977 to

1987, held nominal leadership position until his death in

1997.

1908 Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer.

1917 John Lee Hooker, blues singer and guitarist.

1920 Ray Bradbury, science fiction writer whose works include Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.

1934 H. Norman Schwarzkopf, American general and commander of the coalition forces during the Persian Gulf War.

1935 Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author (The Shipping News).

1938 Delmar Allen “Dale” Hawkins, pioneer rockabilly singer/songwriter (“Suzy Q”).

1939 Valerie Harper, actress (Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda).

1940 Anthony Crosthwaite-Eyre, English publisher.

1942 Kathy Lennon, singer, member of the Lennon Sisters.

1943 Masatoshi Shima, Japanese computer scientist who helped develop the Intel 4004, the world’s first commercial microprocessor.

1947 Donna Godchaux, singer with The Grateful Dead and Heart of Gold Band.

History