Sunday, July 31, 2011

31st of July

The 212th day of the year is today, and there are only 153 days remaining.

30 BC - The Battle of Alexandria occurs, where Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.

781 AD - The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji happens.

1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

1726 - Nicolaus II Bernoulli, the famous Swiss mathematician dies at the early age of 31.

1777 - The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States.

1790 - The very first United States patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1800 - German chemist and founder of organic chemistry, Friedrich Wohler is born.

1875 - The 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, dies at the age of 66.

1919 - The German national assembly adopts the Weimar Constitution, the document that governs Germany from this date until 1933, and it technically remained in effect throughout the existence of the Third Reich.

1932 - The Nazi Party (NSDAP) wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.

1941 - Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Goring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish population."

1961 - At the famous Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain.

1965 - J. K. Rowling, British author and creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, is born today.

1975 - Jimmy Hoffa, American labor leader, disappears from the parking lot of a restaurant, Machus Red Fox, in suburban Detroit. 

1987 - A rare, class F4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, that kills 27 people and causes $330 million in damages.

1992 - Thai Airways International Flight 311 rashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing all 113 people on board.

1999 - NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the moon, thus endings its mission to detect frozen water on the surface of the celestial body that orbits our home.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

30th of July

Today is the 211th day of the year with only 154 days remaining.

1608 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs.  This event will set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next hundred years.

1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses convenes for the first time.

1629 - An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills almost 10,000 people.

1733 - The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States is constituted in Massachusetts.

1818 - English novelist Emily Bronte is born on this day.

1863 - American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford is born today.

1864 - Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by digging a tunnel and planting gunpowder underneath Rebel positions.  The gunpowder explodes and then begins the Battle of the Crater.

1865 - The steamboat Brother Jonathan sinks off the coast of Crescent City, California, killing 225 passengers.  It is the deadliest shipwreck on the Pacific Coast of the United States, at the time.

1866 - New Orlean's Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.

1875 - Confederate general, known for the infamous charge at Gettysburg, George Edward Pickett, died at theage of 50.

1890 - Famed Major League Baseball manager Casey Stengel is born today.  He is known for his eleven years as manager of the New York Yankees, and served baseball with a 53 year career as player and manager.

1898 - First Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, dies at the age of 83.

1945 - Japanese submarine, I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, leading to the greatest single loss of life at sea in the history of the United States Navy.  300 men went down with the ship, and over 880 faced exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks.  Only 316 sailors survived the ordeal.

1947 - Austrian-born American actor, bodybuilder and politician --- 38th Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is born.

1965 - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1970 - English-American film director, screenwriter, and producer Christopher Nolan, was born today.

1971 - David Scott and James Irwinon the module Falcon, land on the moon with the first Lunar Rover.

1974 - President Richard Nixon finally releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so.

1997 - Bao Dai, the puppet head-of-state under Japanese rule named his country Vietnam, he was then chief of state of South Vietnam until 1955.  He died at the age of 83, while in exile in Paris, France.

Friday, July 29, 2011

29th of July

Today is the 211th day of the year with 155 days remaining until the new year.

238 - The Praetorian Guard stormed the palace and capture Pupienus and Balbinus.  They are dragged through the streets of Rome and executed.  On the same day Gordian III, age 13, is proclaimed emperor.

615 - Pakal ascends the throne of Palenque, the Maya city state in Southern Mexico, at age 12.  The site was later absorbed and taken over by the jungle.

1588 - Battle of Gravelines occurs, when English naval forces under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada off the French coast.

1848 - During the Irish Potato Famine, in Tipperary, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police.

1864 - Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.

1883 - Italian fascist dictator, who later befriends Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini is born.

1890 - Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh dies at the age of 37, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

1909 - The newly formed General Motors Corporation acquires the Cadillac Automobile Company for $4.5 million.

1921 - Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

1953 - American producer and director Ken Burns is born on this day.

1958 - Dwight D. Eisenhower, signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which essentially creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

1965 - The first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.

1981 - A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

1987 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France Francois Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel.

2005 - Astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

28th of July

1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason.  Henry then marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

1741 - Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi passes away.

1750 - German composer Johann Sebastian Bach passes away.

1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is executed by guillotine in Paris during the French Revolution.

1844 - Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon I, passes away.

1864 - Battle of Ezra Church, Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.

1868 - The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is certified, establishing African-American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.

1901 - Freddie Fitzsimmons, American baseball pitcher, known for his mastery of the knuckle curve is born.

1914 - Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, after the latter rejects the conditions of an ultimatum.

1929 - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States, wife of John F. Kennedy, is born.

1932 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans.

1935 - The first flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.

1942 - Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227.  Under the order, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be immediately executed.

1943 - The British bomb the city of Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians, in Operation Gomorrah.

1945 - A B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 14 and injuring 26.

1957 - Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, western Kyushu, Japan essentially killing 992.

1965 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Jonhson, announces his order to increase the number of troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.

1976 - The Tangshan earthquake flattens the city in the People's Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.

1996 - The remains of prehistoric man are discovered near Kennewick, Washington.  The remains will be known as the Kennewick Man.

2002 - Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania are rescued after being trapped 77 hours underground.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

27th of July

Today is the 208th day of the year with 157 days remaining.

1054 - Siward, Earl of Northumbria, decides to invade Scotland and defeats Macbeth, the King of Scotland somewhere north of the Firth of Forth.

1663 - The English Parliament passes the second Navigation Act.  This requires that all goods bound for the American colonies have to be sent in English ships flying the Union Jack, and set sail from English ports.

1789 - The first United States federal government agency is established.  The agency is the Department of Foreign Affairs and it will later be renamed the Department of State.

1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of nearly 17,000 "enemies of the French Revolution."

1900 - Kaiser Wilhelm II that compares Germans to Huns.  For many decades afterward, Hun would be a disparaging name to the German people.


1917 - Allied forces reach the Yser Canal during the Battle of Passchendaele.

1929 - The Geneva Convention is signed by fifty-three nations.  The document deals with the treatment of prisoners-of-war.

1940 - The animated short film, A Wild Hare is released, introducing the world to the character of Bugs Bunny.

1942 - Allied forces inevitably halt the final Axis advance into Egypt.

1953 - The Korean War ends with the signing of an armistice agreement by the United States, People's Republic of China, and North Korea.  The South does not sign but pledges to observe the treaty.

1964 - 5,000 American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam, bringing the total number to 21,000.

1974 - The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon.  The first article is a summation of obstruction of justice.

1987 - The RMS Titanic Inc., begins the first expedited process of salvaging the wreckage of the Titanic.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

26th of July

1309 - Henry VII is recognized as King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.

1469 - The Battle of Edgecote Moor, during the War of the Roses, pits the forces of Richard Neville the 16th Earl of Warwick, against those of Edward IV of England.

1758 - The Siege of Louisbourg, during the French and Indian War, ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1788 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.

1791 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, the youngest child of the famous composer is born.

1847 - Celebrating the independence of Liberia from the United States.

1861 - George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 - Morgan's Raid ends at Salineville, Ohio.  Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured.

1863 - Sam Houston, the President of the Republic of Texas, dies at the age of 70.

1925 - William Jennings Bryan, American politician standing three times as the Democratic Party candidate for President (1896, 1900, and 1908), dies at 65.

1928 - Famed American film director Stanley Kubrick is born.

1932 - Frederick Duesenberg, the famous German-born American automobile pioneer, designer, and manufacturer dies.

1941 - In response to Japanese occupation of French Indochina, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

1943 - Mick Jagger, the English singer of The Rolling Stones is born.

1944 - The Soviet Red Army enters Lviv, a major city in the Ukraine.  It is liberated fro the Nazis and only three hundred Jews survive out of 160,000 that were living their prior to the war.

1944 - The first V-2 German rocket makes contact in Great Britain.

1945 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide.  The election removes Winston Churchill from power.

1945 - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.  The document outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan.  The ultimatum stated that, If Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."  The Declaration was Mokusatsu, or ignored by the Japanese high command.

1947 - Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into the country's law.  The declaration creates the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council.

1948 - President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, that desegregates the United States military.

1953 - Fidel Castro and his followers attack on the Moncada Barracks.  This event sparks the Cuban Revolution.

1963 - An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia (now in the Republic of Macedonia), kills over 1,100 people.

1971 - The launch of Apollo 15 and the first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.

1984 - The serial killer Ed Gein, dies at the age of 77 at the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris Jr. for releasing a worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Monday, July 25, 2011

25th of July

Today is the 206th day of the year, with 159 days remaining.

306 - Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.

864 - The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald, orders defensive measures against the oncoming Vikings.

1261 - The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the great Byzantine Empire.

1536 - Sebastian de Belalcazar, on his search for El Dorado, founds the city of Santiago de Cali.

1603 - James VI of Scotland is crowned as the King of England.  This brings the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland into personal union.  There will not be political union until 1707.

1759 - In Western New York, during the French and Indian War, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, and they subsequently abandon Fort Rouille.

1780 - General Horatio Gates takes over command of the southern army based in North Carolina during the American Revolution.

1788 - Wolfgang Mozart finally completes Symphony No. 40 in G minor.

1797 - Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt on Tenerife.

1814 - Battle of Lundy's Lane, during the War of 1812.  Reinforcements arrive near Niagara Falls for General Riall's British and Canadian forces, and bloody, all-night battle ensues with Jacob Brown's American troops.  The Americans will retreat to Fort Erie.

1832 - The first recorded railroad accident occurs.  Four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts.  During their return trip to their boarding location, a cable snapped and flipped the car throwing the riders off of a 34-foot cliff.  One man is killed and the others are seriously injured.

1861 - The United States Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and thus not to put an end to slavery.

1866 - Congress passes legislation authorizing the military rank of Five-star General of the Army.  Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first man promoted to this rank.

1868 - Wyoming becomes a United States territory.

1898 - After over two months of heavy bombardment, the United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at the harbor of Guanica.

1909 - Louis Bleriot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a light and sleek monoplane.  He travels from Calais to Dover in thirty-seven minutes.

1915 - Royal Flying Corps Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross.  He shot down two German two-seat observation aircraft in one day.

1917 - In Paris, France, the exotic dancer Mata Hari, is sentenced to death by a French court for spying on behalf of Germany during the First World War.

1934 - The Nazis assassinate the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, because of his involvement in a failed coup attempt.

1943 - Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.

1944 - Operation Spring occurs, in one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army losing 1,000 men wounded or missing, and 500 troops killed.

1946 - An atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini atoll, codenamed Operation Crossroads.

1954 - Walter Peyton, National Football League running back with the Chicago Bears, was born today.

1965 - Bob Dylan decides to use an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival.  He plugs in, and signals a major change for both folk and rock music.

1969 - President Richard Nixon declares his Nixon Doctrine.  Thus stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense.  This is essentially the start of the "Vietnamization" part of the war.

1978 - Louise Brown, the world's first "test-tube baby" is born in a Oldham General Hospital, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.  The development came from the process of "in vitro fertilisation." 

1987 - A Salyut 7 cosmonaut, named Svetlana Savitskaya, becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

24th of July

Today is the 205th day of the year and only 160 days are remaining until the new year.

1148 - Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.

1411 - One of the bloodiest battles in Scotland takes place, known as the Battle of Harlaw.

1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and is therefore replaced at the throne by her one-year-old newborn.

1715 - A Spanish treasure fleet of ten ships under the order of Admiral Ubilla leaves the port of Havana, Cub in order to return to the home country.  One week later, nine of them sink in a horrific storm off the coast of Florida.  Centuries later, the treasure will be found and salvaged.

1783 - Simon Bolivar, the famed Venezuelan military commander is born.  He played a key role in Latin America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire.  He is easily considered one of the most influential politicians in all of South American history.

1823 - The institution of slavery is abolished in the South American expanse of Chile.

1847 - after nearly seventeen months of continuous travel, Brigham Young arrives in the Valley of Utah.  He leads one-hundred forty-eight Mormon pioneers to the site and establish Salt Lake City.

1862 - The 8th President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, passes away at the age of 79.

1864 - Battle of Kernstown is fought between Confederate General Jubal A. Early and Union General George Cook.  It is a Union defeat and a successful hold, in order to keep the bluecoats out of the Shenandoah Valley.

1866 - During the beginning phases of Reconstruction, Tennessee becomes the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the great American Civil War.

1897 - Famed American aviator and well-known woman flier Amelia Earhart is born.

1911 - Hiram Bingham III discovers the site of Machu Picchu, "The Lost City of the Incas."

1915 - S. S. Eastland, a passenger ship, capsizes while tied to the dock on the Chicago River, and kills 844 people.  It is the largest loss of life, from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.

1943 - Operation Gomorrah commences, where British and Canadian airplanes bomb the city of Hamburg, Germany by night, and the Americans bomb by day.  By the end of November, the operation reaches its conclusion and 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed 30,000 people and destroyed nearly 280,000 buildings.

1949 - American comedian, Michael Richards, well known for his portrayal of the character known as Kramer on Seinfeld.

1964 - American baseball outfielder and home-run hitter Barry Bonds is born.

1969 - The famed flight of Apollo 11 ends with the safe splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

1974 - The United States Supreme Court rules that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1982 - A severely heavy rain causes a mudslide the destroys a bridge in Nagasaki, Japan.  The disaster kills 299 people.

1983 - George Brett batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, hits a game-winning home run, to score two runs and make the score 5 to 4.  However, what would ensure would be known as the "Pine Tar Incident."

Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further eighteen inches from the knob.  The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about twenty-four inches.  The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled the player out, ending the game in a Yankees win.  An angry Brett charged out of the dugout and was immediately ejected.  The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail uphewld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not be nullified.  Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 of the same year, from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.

2005 - Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

23rd of July

There are 161 days remaining until the end of the year.  Here are some of the events that played out throughout history:

1793 - Prussia re-conquers Mainz from France, after an eighteen-week siege of the city.

1862 - Henry W. Halleck takes command of the Union Army.  He becomes General-in-Chief and will hold the position until replaced by Ulysses S. Grant in 1864.  Halleck is then relegated to chief of staff.

1885 - Ulysses S. Grant, famous Civil War general and 18th President of the United States, passed away at the age of 63.

1900 - John Babcock was born today.  He was the last known surviving veteran of the Canadian military to have served in the First World War.  He passed away in 2010 at the age of 109.

1903 - The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.

1914 - Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding the allowance to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  Serbia will reject those demands and Austria will declare war a few days later.

1918 - Baseball player and Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese is born.  He played shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and is known for his support of teammate Jackie Robinson. 

1926 - Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system, this will allow recording sound onto film.

1936 - Don Drysdale, right-handed pitcher for the Dodgers was born today.

1942 - The Treblinka extermination camp is officially opened according to the records of the German Nazi Party.

1942 - The German offensives codenamed Operation Edelweiss and Operation Braunschweig are authorized to commence.  The former was a plan to control the Caucasus nad capture oil fields in Baku.  The latter was the advance in order to mobilize troops in order to take the Russian city of Stalingrad.

1948 - D.W. Griffith, American film director famous for his controversial and groundbreaking film The Birth of Nation, passed away at 73.

1962 - Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted live trans-Atlantic television program.  The program featured Walter Cronkite.

1967 - In Detroit, Michigan. one of the most violent riots breaks out on 12th Street, in the predominantly African-American inner city section.  It will leave 43 people killed, 342 injured, and over 1,400 buildings destroyed by fire.   

1973 - American figher ace in World War I and founder of Rickenbacker Motors, Eddie Rickenbacker passed away.  He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and had a verified 26 aerial victories.

Friday, July 22, 2011

22nd of July

Today is the 203rd day of the year.

1099 - During the First Crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the defender of the Holy Sepulchre of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

1298 - Battle of Fallkirk during the Wars of Scottish Independence, King Edward I of England and his highly skilled longbowmen defeat the famous William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons.

1478 - King Philip I of Castile is born.  He was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and inherited the Duchy of Burgundy and the Burgundian Netherlands. He was the first Habsburg monarch in Spain. 

1499 - The Battle of Dornach occurs, where the Swiss decisively defeat the the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I.

1510 - Alessandro de Medici, believed to be the illegitimate son of Giulio de Medici, future Duke of Florence, and commonly referred to as "il Moro" is born.

1587 - A second group of English settlers arrive at the Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, to re-establish the deserted village.

1726 - Hugh Drysdale, British Colonial Governor of Virginia, passed away this day.

1797 - Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife during the French Revolutionary War.  Conflict between Spanish and British naval forces on the high seas.  Famed Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson was wounded in the arm and the arm had to be partially amputated.

1812 - During the Napoleonic Wars, occurred the Battle of Salamanca, where British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeat French forces near Spain.

1832 - Napoleon II, son of Napoleon Bonaparte, became Emperor of the French in 1815 and named King of Rome since birth, died.

1864 - Outside the city of Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood attacks Union General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill. The assault was unsuccessful and fighting would continue for the major city for less than two months.  During the above battle, James B. McPherson, was killed during the conflict.  He was the second highest ranking Union officer to be killed during the war and the only Army commander to die on the field of battle.

1903 - The American emancipationist, Cassius Marcellus Clay, died at the age of 92.

1923 - American politican and the 1996 Republican Presidential Candidate, Bob Dole was born today.

1933 - Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world.  He traveled 15,596 miles or 25,099 km in only seven days, eighteen hours, and forty-five minutes. (7 d, 8 h, 45 m)

1934 - Outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, the infamous "Public Enemy Number 1," John Dillinger is mortally wounded, and would die a few minutes later.

1940 - Alex Trebek, famed game show host of Jeopardy!, was born this day.

1942 - During World War II, the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins. 254,000 residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp over the course of two months.

1943 - Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.

1946 - African-american actor and film director, Danny Glover, was born.

1951 - Dezik and Tsygan were the first dogs to make a sub-orbital flight.  Sent up by the Russians, both dogs returned unharmed after traveling to a maximum altitude of 110 km or 68 miles (360, 892 feet).

1955 - Willem Dafoe, famed American film, stage, and voice actor was born.

1964 - American actor, comedian, and television personality David Spade was born.  He is known for his stint on Saturday Night Live, as well as, comedic performances alongside Chris Farley. 

2003 - Members of the 101st Airborne, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq.  The teams killed Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son and bodyguard.

Ratcatcher's Day is celebrated today, commemorating the myth of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Germany leading the children out of the town.  Based off of Robert Browning's poem, giving the event this date in 1376.

Lawrence of Brindisi - born Giulio Cesare Russo on this date in 1559, in the Kingdom of Naples to Venetian Merchants.  He was a Roman Catholic Priest and a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.  He passed away this day at the age of 60 in Lisbon.