Events

• 532 - Nika riots in Constantinople.
• 888 - Odo, Count of Paris becomes King of the Franks.
• 1328 - Edward III of England marries Philippa of Hainault, daughter of the Count of Hainault.
• 1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey is sentenced to death.
• 1559 - Elizabeth I crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London.
• 1605 - The controversial play Eastward Hoe by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston is performed, landing two of the authors in prison.
• 1607 - The Bank of Genoa fails after announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain.
• 1610 - Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, 4th moon of Jupiter.
• 1733 - James Oglethorpe and 130 colonists arrive in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 1785 - John Walter publishes the first issue of the Daily Universal Register (later renamed The Times).
• 1822 - The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.
• 1830 - The Great fire of New Orleans, Louisiana begins.
• 1832 - President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.
• 1840 - The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
• 1842 - Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.
• 1847 - The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican-American War in California.
• 1869 - National convention of black leaders meets in Washington D.C.
• 1893 - The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting.
• 1893 - U.S. Marines land in Honolulu from the U.S.S. Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
• 1898 - Emile Zola's J'accuse exposes the Dreyfus affair.
• 1908 - Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, PA killing 171 people.
• 1913 - Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated was founded on the campus of Howard University as the second Black Greek Letter Organization for Women. The mission was to make a move towards social activism.
• 1915 - An earthquake in Avezzano, Italy kills 29,800.
• 1934 - The Candidate of Science degree is established in the USSR.
• 1935 - A plebiscite in Saarland shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Nazi Germany.
• 1938 - The Church of England accepts the theory of evolution.
• 1939 - The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.
• 1942 - Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
• 1942 - The United States begins Japanese American internment.
• 1942 - World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
• 1953 - Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen as President of Yugoslavia.
• 1958 - Moroccan Liberation Army ambushes Spanish patrol in the Battle of Edchera.
• 1964 - Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out in the Indian city of Calcutta - now Kolkata - resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.
• 1964 - Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, is appointed archbishop of Krakow, Poland.
• 1966 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
• 1972 - Prime Minister Kofi Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana are ousted in a bloodless military coup by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheamphong.
• 1974 - Seraphim is elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.
• 1982 - Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90 737 jet crashes into Washington, DC's 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists. Coincidentally, a Washington DC Metro Rail train is derailed, killing 3 people.
• 1986 - A month-long violent struggle begins in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad and Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.
• 1990 - L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia.
• 1991 - Soviet Union military troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius.
• 1992 - Japan apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.
• 2001 - An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800.
• 2007 - Two thirds of the Venus's southern hemisphere suddenly brightened as something triggered aerosols to form at a furious rate.

Births