EVENTS
- 1853 – The first passenger rail opens in India.
- 1862 – Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and appropriated $1 million to compensate owners of freed slaves.
- 1912 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.
Harriet Quimby - 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia from exile. The communist revolutionary became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) later that year. From 1922, he was the first Premier of the Soviet Union.
- 1919 – Mohandas Gandhi’s day of prayer and fasting.
- 1964 – The Rolling Stones release their debut album. The album The Rolling Stones, released in the United States with the added title “England’s Newest Hit Makers”, topped the UK charts for twelve weeks.
- 1995 – Iqbal Masih, a young boy from Pakistan who spoke out against child labor, was shot to death. At age four, he had been sold into servitude as a carpet weaver and spent the next six years shackled to a loom. At age ten, he escaped and began speaking out, attracting worldwide attention as a featured speaker during an international labor conference in Sweden.
- 2003 – Ten new member states are admitted to the European Union. The Treaty of Accession admitted countries including Poland, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic to the EU. Its original title contains 99 words.
- 2012 – The trial of Anders Behring Breivik begins in Oslo. The right-wing extremist had killed 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Oslo with a car bomb and at a youth camp on Utøya island. After doubts about his mental health emerged before the trial, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1867 – Wilber Wright (Airplane Inventor)
- 1889 – Charlie Chaplin (Actor)
- 1896 – Tristan Tzara (Romanian/French poet, critic)
- 1918 – Spike Milligan (Indian/Irish actor, singer, screenwriter, author)
- 1927 – Pope Benedict XVI (Leader of the Roman Catholic Church)
- 1939 – Dusty Springfield (English singer, producer)
Dusty Springfield - 1947 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Basketball Player)
- 1965 – Jon Cryer (Actor)
- 1965 – Martin Lawrence (Actor)
DEATHS
- 1828 – Francisco Goya (Spanish painter)
- 1850 – Marie Tussaud (French sculptor, founded Madame Tussauds Wax Museum)
Marie Tussaud - 1859 – Alexis de Tocqueville (French historian, scientist)
- 1879 – Bernadette Soubirous (French mystic, saint)
- 1958 – Rosalind Franklin (English scientist)
