EVENTS
- 1756 – The Seven Years’ War is started when Frederick the Great attacks Saxony.
- 1792 – In one of the worst maritime disasters, 900 men drowned on the British battleship Royal George. As the ship was being repaired, a gust of wind allowed water to flood into open gun ports. The ship sank within minutes.
- 1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
- 1885 – The world’s first motorcycle is patented by Gottlieb Daimler.
Gottlieb Daimler - 1949 – Soviet Union Tests its First Atomic Bomb. Code named Izdeliye 501 or First Lightening, the 22 kiloton atomic bomb was detonated at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. It is thought that the bomb was a replica of the Fat Man bomb, the plans for which were brought to USSR by spies at the Manhattan project. The US called the Soviet bomb, Joe-1.
- 1958 – The US Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- 1966 – Beatles’ Last Commercial Performance. Popular British rock group, the Beatles, played their last live concert in front of a paying public at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California. The band came together one last time for an unannounced performance in January 1969 on the rooftop of the Apple building in London.
- 1982 – Meitnerium is synthesized for the first time. The radioactive synthetic element with an atomic number of 109 and the symbol Mt was first created at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany. Named after Austrian physicist and discoverer of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner, the element, which is not found naturally, was discovered by a team headed by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg.
- 1988 – Abdul Mohmand becomes the first person from Afghanistan to visit space. Mohmand, an Afghan Air Force pilot was a crew member of the Soyuz TM-6, a Soviet spacecraft. He was in space for 9 days, which were spent at the Mir Space Station.
- 1991 – Following the unsuccessful coup of August 19-21, the Soviet Communist Party was suspended, thus ending the institution that ruled Soviet Russia for nearly 75 years.
- 2005 – Hurricane Katrina hits land and begins to devastate much of the U.S. Gulf Coast
BIRTHDAYS
- 1632 – British philosopher and pioneer in modern political thinking, John Locke (1632-1704) was born in Wrington, England
- 1809 – Oliver Wendell Holmes (Author)
- 1915 – Ingrid Bergman (Actress)
Ingrid Bergman - 1923 – Richard Attenborough (English director)
- 1936 – Johh McCain (Arizona Senator that ran for president)
- 1941 – Robin Leach (TV Host)
- 1958 – Michael Jackson (Singer)
- 1959 – Rebecca De Mornay (Actress)
- 1977 – Roy Oswalt (Baseball player)
- 1986 – Lea Michele (Actress)
- 1993 – Liam Payne (Singer)
DEATHS
- 1877 – Brigham Young (American religious leader)
- 1966 – Sayyid Qutb (Egyptian theorist, author, poet)
- 1975 – Éamon de Valera (Irish politician, 3rd President of Ireland)
Éamon de Valera - 1976 – Kazi Nazrul Islam (Indian flute player, poet)
- 1982 – Ingrid Bergman (Swedish actress)
