1964 – U.S. President Johnson signed the “Civil Rights Act of 1964” into law. The act made it illegal in the U.S. to discriminate against others because of their race.
626 – Incident at Xuanwu Gate: in fear of assassination, Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng
963 – The imperial army proclaims Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea
1505 – After an encounter with a violent thunderstorm, Martin Luther declares that he will become a monk
1625 – The Spanish army took Breda, Spain, after nearly a year of siege.
1679 – Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth
1776 – New Jersey gives the right to vote to all adults who could show a net worth of 50 pounds
1776 – Richard Henry Lee’s resolution that the American colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States” was adopted by the Continental Congress.
1822 – Denmark Vesey (aka Telemaque), accused of planning a slave rebellion in South Carolina, dies by hanging at approximately 55
1850 – Benjamin Lane patented a gas mask with a breathing apparatus. (Patent US7476 A)
1858 – Czar Alexander II freed the serfs working on imperial lands.
1865 – One-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth and his wife Catherine found the East London Christian Mission, now known as the Salvation Army
1881 – Charles J. Guiteau fatally wounded U.S. President James A. Garfield in Washington, DC.
1890 – The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.
1901 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rob train of $40,000 at Wagner, Montana
1900 – The Zeppelin Takes Off for the First Time
1917 – Labor disputes lead to race riot in East St Louis, Illinois – Black neighborhood attacked and burned, 40-200 killed and 6000 left homeless
1926 – US Army Air Corps created; Distinguished Flying Cross authorized, to award “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight”
1937 – American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared in the Central Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
1939 – At Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt’s face was dedicated.
1941 – Nazi mass murder in Lvov/Lemberg (7,000 dead)
1962 – Wal-Mart Discount City opened in Rogers, Arkansas. It was the first Walmart store.
1964 – U.S. President Johnson signed the “Civil Rights Act of 1964” into law. The act made it illegal in the U.S. to discriminate against others because of their race.
1968 – An El Al Israeli airliner is hijacked and diverted to Algeria by three armed members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
1976 – US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel or unusual
1976 – Ramble Inn attack: the Ulster Volunteer Force killed 6 civilians (5 Protestants, 1 Catholic) in a gun attack at a pub near Antrim; the pub was targeted because it was owned by Catholics
1976 – North Vietnam and South Vietnam were reunited.
1982 – Larry Walters (“Lawnchair Larry”) took flight in his homeade airship that consisted of a lawnchair with 45 helium-filled weather balloons attached to it. He stayed in flight for about an hour.
1986 – US Supreme Court upholds affirmative action in 2 rulings
1989 – Tiananmen Square student leader Wang Dan arrested and imprisoned for spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement (trial not till 1991)
1990 – 1,426 pilgrims trampled to death after a panic in a tunnel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
1998 – Cable News Network (CNN) retracted a story that alleged that U.S. commandos had used nerve gas to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War.
2001 – Bush Administration announce that it will seek to let oil companies drill on about 1,500,000 acres of the Gulf of Mexico
2001 – 59-year old American Robert L. Tools became the first person to receive the a self-contained artificial heart transplant called the AbioCor at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. The AbioCor is an artificial heart that is not connected to wires or an external pump.
2013 – 16 people are killed and 200 are injured in protest clashes at Cairo University against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi
2015 – BP agrees to compensate US government & gulf states $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
2019 – Air strike kills at least 40 people at Libyan migrant center in Tripoli, with Libyan National Army blamed
2020 – Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes wearing face masks mandatory as cases of coronavirus soar in the state
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
