1997 – Princess of Wales, Diana, Dies in a Car Crash, Diana, the former wife of Charles, the heir apparent to the British Crown, was fatally injured when the driver of her car lost control while speeding away from paparazzi, and crashed in a road tunnel in Paris, France. Diana’s companion Dodi al Fayed and the car’s driver also died as a result of the accident. Her funeral was one of the most watched televised events of the century.
1142 – Possible date for establishment of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) League [disputed date – other research places date between 1450 and 1660]
1310 – German king Heinrich VII makes his son Johan king of Bohemia
1422 – Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months
1778 – British kill 17 Stockbridge indians in Bronx during Revolution
1837 – Ralph Waldo Emerson gives his famous “The American Scholar” speech to Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, declares American literary independence from Europe
1864 – Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Jonesboro Georgia, 1900 casualties
1888 – The body of Jack the Ripper’s first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, is found in Whitechapel in London’s East End
1889 – Second International Electrical Congress adopts the joule as unit of energy (after James Prescott Joule), the watt as unit of power (after James Watt) and the quadrant as unit of electrical inductance (later renamed henry)
1894 – The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act passed by Richard Seddon’s Liberal government, making New Zealand the first country in the world to outlaw strikes in favour of compulsory arbitration
1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope [kinetographic camera], a device which produces moving pictures
1907 – Britain & Russia sign treaty with Afghanistan, Persia & Tibet
1910 – Theodore Roosevelt makes a speech in Kansas advocating a ‘square deal’: property shall be ‘the servant and not the master of the commonwealth’
1911 – The “Sullivan Act” requiring New Yorkers to possess licenses for firearms small enough to be concealed comes into effect
1920 – The first news program to be broadcast on radio was aired. The station was 8MK in Detroit, MI.
1920 – John Lloyd Wright was issued a patent for “Toy-Cabin Construction,” which are known as Lincoln Logs. (U.S. patent 1,351,086)
1929 – Committee chaired by Owen D. Young finalizes the “Young Plan” to reduce German reparations from World War I to 112 billion Gold Marks ($US8 billion) paid over 59 years
1935 – The act of exporting U.S. arms to belligerents was prohibited by an act signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1946 – Foghorn Leghorn, Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Robert McKimson and Warren Foster, (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series), first debuts in “Walky Talky Hawky”
1946 – Superman returned to radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System after being dropped earlier in the year.
1955 – 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated (Chicago, Illinois)
1962 – The Caribbean nations Tobago and Trinidad became independent within the British Commonwealth.
1964 – California officially became the most populated state in America.
1965 – The Department of Housing and Urban Development was created by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
1965 – The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.
1980 – Poland’s Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day strike.
1981 – The 30-year contract between Milton Berle and NBC-TV expired.
1985 – Night Stalker suspect that terrorized California captured in East Los Angeles
1987 – The Great Potato Incident: Minor league Williamsport Bills catcher Dave Bresnahan attempts to lure an opposing baserunner off third base using a potato carved to look like a baseball. Umpire calls runner safe, and the catcher is fined $50 and released by the team
1988 – 5-day power blackout of downtown Seattle begins
1990 – U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to try and negotiate a solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.
1990 – East and West Germany signed a treaty that meant the harmonizing of political and legal systems
1991 – In a “Solidarity Day” protest hundreds of thousands of union members marched in Washington, DC.
1991 – Uzbekistan declares its independence from the Soviet Union
1994 – Russian Troops Leave Estonia 3 years after Estonia declared independence from the Soviet Union
1997 – Princess of Wales, Diana, Dies in a Car Crash, Diana, the former wife of Charles, the heir apparent to the British Crown, was fatally injured when the driver of her car lost control while speeding away from paparazzi, and crashed in a road tunnel in Paris, France. Diana’s companion Dodi al Fayed and the car’s driver also died as a result of the accident. Her funeral was one of the most watched televised events of the century.
1998 – North Korea Announces the Launch of its First Satellite, According to government sources of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the satellite called Kwangmyongsong-1 was successfully launched into lower Earth orbit. Most space agencies around the world, have not been able to confirm whether the launch was successful.
2005 – A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
2015 – Violent protests in Kiev after Ukraine parliament vote leave 1 national guard dead, 100 injured
2015 – President Obama officially re-designates Alaska’s Mt. McKinley as Denali, its native American name
2019 – US missile attack in al-Qaeda jihadist training camp in Idlib province, Syria, kills 40
2019 – Gunman kills seven and injures 22 during high speed chase in Odessa, Texas
2020 – US cases of COVID-19 pass 6 million with 183,300 deaths with California (699.000), Florida (619,000) recording the most (Johns Hopkins)
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
