EVENTS
- 1587 – Sir Francis Drake sinks the French fleet.
- 1775 – Start of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1919 – Leslie Irvin makes the world’s first free-fall parachute jump. The jump was executed to test a new kind of parachute, which was also the first featuring a ripcord. The Hollywood stuntman broke a leg on landing.
- 1943 – Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto staged an armed revolt against Nazi SS troops attempting to forcibly deport them to death camps.
Warsaw Ghetto - 1971 – The Soviet Union launches the world’s first manned space station. Salyut 1 was 23 meters long and offered 100 cubic meters of pressurized space.
- 1987 – The first installment of “The Simpsons” is aired. The hugely popular animated sitcom debuted on the Tracey Ullman Show in the form of one-minute shorts.
- 1989 – Forty-seven U.S. sailors were killed by an explosion in a gun turret on the USS Iowa during gunnery exercises in the waters off Puerto Rico.
- 1993 – At Waco, Texas, the compound of the Branch Davidian religious cult burned to the ground with 82 persons inside, including 17 children. The fire erupted after federal agents battered buildings in the compound with armored vehicles following a 51-day standoff.
- 1995 – The Oklahoma City bombing – A federal building is bombed killing 168 people.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1903 – Elliot Ness (FBI Agent)
- 1933 – Jayne Mansfield (American model, actress, singer)
- 1935 – Dudley Moore (Actor)
- 1937 – Joseph Estrada (Filipino actor, producer, politician, 13th President of the Philippines)
- 1952 – Alexis Argüello (Nicaraguan boxer, politician)
- 1962 – Al Unser (Race Car Driver)
- 1968 – Ashley Judd (Actress)
- 1978 – James Franco (Actor)
James Franco - 1979 – Kate Hudson (Actress)
- 1981 – Hayden Christenson (Actor)
- 1981 – Troy Polamalu (NFL Footbal Player)
- 1987 – Maria Sharapova (Tennis player)
DEATHS
- 1824 – Lord Byron (English poet)
- 1882 – Charles Darwin (English scientist, theorist)
- 1914 – Charles Sanders Peirce (American philosopher, mathematician, scientist)
Charles Sanders Peirce - 1967 – Konrad Adenauer (German politician, Chancellor of West Germany)
- 2004 – John Maynard Smith (English biologist)
