1881 – The “Gunfight at the OK Corral” took place in Tombstone, AZ. The fight was between Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holiday and the Ike Clanton Gang.
1407 – Mobs attack Jewish community of Kraków
1492 – Lead (graphite) pencils first used
1682 – William Penn accepts area around Delaware River from Duke of York
1749 – Georgia Colony reverses itself & rules slavery is legal
1774 – The First Continental Congress of the U.S. adjourned in Philadelphia.
1822 – King Willem I requires inhabitants of Brussels to use Dutch language
1825 – The Erie Canal opened in upstate New York. The 363-mile canal connected Lake Erie and the Hudson River at a cost of $7,602,000.
1850 – Robert McClure sights the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time (from Banks Island towards Melville Island)
1858 – Hamilton Smith patents rotary washing machine in Pittsburgh
1861 – Pony Express (Missouri to California) ends after 19 months
1864 – Union troops ambush and kill Bill William T. Anderson known as “Bloody Bill” near Albany, Missouri
1868 – White terrorists kill several blacks in St Bernard Parish La
1881 – The “Gunfight at the OK Corral” took place in Tombstone, AZ. The fight was between Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holiday and the Ike Clanton Gang.
1905 – Norway gained independence from Sweden.
1909 – Itō Hirobumi, Resident-General of Korea, and former Japanese Prime Minister is shot and killed by Korean nationalist An Jung-geun in Harbin, China
1916 – American sex educator Margaret Sanger arrested for obscenity (advocating birth control)
1918 – Germany’s supreme commander General Eric Ludendorff resigns, protesting the terms to which the German Government has agreed in negotiating an armistice
1919 – US President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of Prohibition Enforcement Bill is overridden
1922 – Italian government resigns under pressure from fascists & Benito Mussolini
1939 – Polish Jews forced into obligatory work service
1942 – The U.S. ship Hornet was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz during World War II.
1944 – During World War II, the Battle of Leyte Gulf ended. The battle was won by American forces and brought the end of the Pacific phase of World War II into sight.
1949 – U.S. President Harry Truman raised the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour.
1955 – New York City’s “The Village Voice” was first published.
1962 – The Soviet Union made an offer to end the Cuban Missile Crisis by taking their missile bases out of Cuba if the U.S. agreed to not invade Cuba and would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
1965 – Sylvia Likens tortured by teen girl gang
1967 – The Shah of Iran crowned himself and his Queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne.
1972 – U.S. National security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, “Peace is at hand” in Vietnam.
1973 – President Nixon releases first White House tapes on Watergate scandal
1977 – Last natural case of smallpox discovered in Merca district, Somalia. Considered the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination
1977 – The experimental space shuttle Enterprise successfully landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
1979 – South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.
1982 – US budget deficit reaches more than $110 billion for fiscal year 1982
1984 – “Baby Fae” was given the heart of baboon after being born with a severe heart defect. She lived for 21 days with the animal heart.
1985 – Approximately 110,000 people marched past the U.S. and Soviet embassies in London to pressure the two countries to end their arms race.
1988 – Roussel Uclaf, a French pharmaceutical company, announced it was halting the worldwide distribution of RU-486. The pill is used to induce abortions. The French government made the company reverse itself two days later.
1988 – Donald Trump bills Mike Tyson $2,000,000 for 4 months’ advisory service
1990 – The U.S. State Department issued a warning that terrorists could be planning an attack on a passenger ship or aircraft.
1992 – In Canada, voters rejected the Charlottetown accord, which was designed to unify the country.
1993 – Deborah Gore Dean was convicted of 12 felony counts of defrauding the U.S. government and lying to the U.S. Congress. Dean was a central figure in the Reagan-era HUD scandal.
1995 – Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Mossad agents assassinate Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki in his hotel in Malta.
1996 – Federal prosecutors cleared Richard Jewell as a suspect in the Olympic park bombing.
1998 – A French lab found a nerve agent on an Iraqi missile warhead.
2001 – Patriot Act Comes into Effect in the US, Signed into law by President George W. Bush as a result of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the act is formally known as Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The act gave security agencies more power to deal with terrorists and terrorist activities and made it easier for them to monitor and investigate people suspected of aiding and abetting acts of terrorism. It has been criticized for its detrimental effect on civil liberties.
2002 – Russian authorities pumped a gas into a theater where separatist rebels held over 800 hostages. The gas killed 116 hostages and all 50 hostage-takers were killed by the gas or gunshot wounds.
2012 – 41 people are killed and 50 injured by a suicide bombing of a mosque in Maymana, Afghanistan
2017 – US President Donald Trump declares the opioid crisis a public health emergency
2018 – Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc arrested for sending 14 pipe bombs to prominent US Democrats
2019 – Raid by US Special Forces kills ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
