TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: JULY 8
1099 First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on
1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, becoming the 1st European to reach India by sea
1608 The first French settlement at Quebec is established by Samuel de Champlain.
1663 The British crown grants Rhode Island a charter guaranteeing freedom of worship.
1709 Peter the Great defeats Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending the Swedish empire.
1796 US State Dept issues 1st American passport
1800 Dr Benjamin Waterhouse gives 1st cowpox vaccination in the US to his son to prevent smallpox
1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry sails his frigate Susquehanna into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to Western influence and trade
1870 Congress authorizes registration of trademarks
1889 Wall Street Journal published for the first time
1905 The mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin surrenders to Romanian authorities.
1918 Ernest Hemingway is wounded in Italy while working as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross
1949 South Africa’s Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act commences, prohibiting marriage or a sexual relationship between White people and people of other races
1950 General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of the United Nations forces in Korea.
1954 The US backed Castillo Armas takes over as leader of Guatemala from the communist leader President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
1960 The US Pilot of a U-2 Spy Plane Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage in a Soviet Union court
1988 Stevie Wonder announces he will run for mayor of Detroit in 1992
1994 Kim Jong-il takes office as the Supreme Leader of North Korea
2006 The ex-president of Mexico, Luis Echeverria was cleared of charges of genocide
2009 Government websites in both the United States and South Korea faced cyber attack attempts on this day
2011 Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched for the last time
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
