TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JULY 8
1099 Christian Crusaders march around Jerusalem as Muslims watch from within the city.
1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, becoming the 1st European to reach India by sea
1663 The British crown grants Rhode Island a charter guaranteeing freedom of worship.
1686 The Austrians take Budapest from the Turks and annex Hungary.
1709 Peter the Great defeats Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending the Swedish empire.
1776 Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia.
1777 Vermont introduces new constitution making it the 1st US state to abolish slavery
1815 With Napoleon defeated, Louis XVIII returns to Paris.
1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry sails his frigate Susquehanna into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to Western influence and trade
1865 Four of the conspirators in President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination are hanged in Washington, D.C.
1865 C.E. Barnes patented the machine gun.
1889 Wall Street Journal published for the first time Three financial reporters named Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser created The Wall Street Journal to supersede a previous periodical called the Customers’ Afternoon Letter.
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.
1947 There were a number of reports of a mysterious flying disc (spaceship) landing in Roswell, New Mexico. At first reports were denied by the U.S. military, then a report appeared which stated they had been lucky enough to obtain one of the DISCS which was later denied.
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 , and was considered a successful covert operation against international communism by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
1960 The US Pilot of a U-2 Spy Plane Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage in a Soviet Union court. In August he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison but two years later he was exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
1963 All Cuban-owned assets in the United States were frozen.
1987 Following Sikh terrorist attacks on Hindu bus passengers which left 72 dead, the Indian army has banned public meetings hoping to stop the backlash by Hindu’s on Sikh’s in the city of Chandigarh.
1994 Kim Jong-il takes office as the Supreme Leader of North Korea Popularly known as “Dear Leader” in his country, Kim Jong-il took North Korea’s highest office after the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
1996 A man wielding a machete attacks 3 very young children (3 and 4 yrs old) and 4 parents and staff at a kindergarten in Wolverhampton.
1997 The Mayo Clinic and the U.S. government warned that the diet-drug combination known as “fen-phen” could cause serious heart and lung damage.
2008 Gas prices around the US hit new highs as the demand for oil increases and the price of a barrel of oil reaches new highs resulting in much higher gas prices, the price of a gallon of gas ranges between $4.20 and $4.85 in different states.
2009 Government websites in both the United States and South Korea faced cyber attack attempts on this day. The United States was able to ward off most attacks, while South Korea was unable to. The attacks were believed to be carried out by North Korea, or North Korean sympathizers.
2011 The US state of Texas executed Humberto Leal Garcia, a thirty-eight year old Mexican citizen who had been convicted of raping and killing an American girl in 1994. Despite pleas to hold off on the execution from US Officials, Mexican Officials, and the UN, Texas carried out the sentence of death by lethal injection.
2011 The space shuttle Atlantis launches into space for the last time from the Kennedy Space Center. It is the 135th and final flight of the space shuttle program, which started in 1981. For its final mission, the Atlantis is carrying 8,000 lbs of spare parts and supplies to the International Space Station. The space shuttle program officially ends when the Atlantis returns two weeks later.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
