EVENTS
- 1612 – The Pendle witch trials begin. 11 people – 9 women and 2 men – are tried for practicing witch craft in one of UK’s most well documented and followed witch trials. The trial lasts for two days and 10 of the accused are found guilty and executed on August 20.
- 1868 – Helium is discovered.
- 1877 – The Martian moon Phobos is discovered.
Phobos - 1920 – The 19th Amendment to the US constitution passes. It guarantees women’s suffrage.
- 1958 – “Lolita” is first published in the US. The highly controversial novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov detailed an adult man’s obsession over 12-year-old Dolores Haze, who he secretly calls Lolita.
- 1982 – Pete Rose sets MLB record with his 13,941st plate appearance.
- 2005 – Indonesia suffers a massive power outage. Thought to be one of the biggest power outages in recent history, the Java-Bali outage affected about 100 million people. Electricity was restored to most areas within 6 hours.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1587 – Virginia Dare (First English child born in America)
- 1750 – Antonio Salieri (Italian composer)
- 1774 – Meriwether Lewis (Explorer of the America west with Clark)
- 1910 – Herman Berlinski (Polish/American composer)
- 1830 – Franz Joseph I (Emperor of Austria)
Franz Joseph I - 1933 – Roman Polanski (French/Polish director, producer, writer, actor)
- 1934 – Roberto Clemente (Baseball player)
- 1936 – Robert Redford (Actor)
- 1952 – Patrick Swayze (Actor)
- 1962 – Felipe Calderón (Mexican politician, 56th President of Mexico)
- 1969 – Edward Norton (Actor)
- 1969 – Christian Slater (Actor)
- 1970 – Malcom-Jamal Warner (Actor )
- 1983 – Cameron White (Australian cricketer)
DEATHS
- 1809 – Matthew Boulton (English businessman, engineer, co-founded Boulton, Watt)
- 1850 – Honoré de Balzac (French author, playwright)
Honoré de Balzac - 1945 – Subhas Chandra Bose (Indian politician, activist)
- 1990 – B. F. Skinner (American psychologist, author)
- 2009 – Kim Dae-jung (South Korean politician, 8th President of South Korea, Nobel laureate)
