EVENTS
- 1613 – Mikhail Romanov becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1795 – The 11th Amendment to the US Constitution is passed.
- 1900 – The British Labour Party is formed.
- 1940 – The movie Pinocchio is released by Walt Disney.
- 1964 – The Beatles first come to the United States.
- 1984 – NASA astronauts take the first untethered spacewalk. The photographs of Bruce McCandless and Robert L. Stewart hovering freely in space became some of the most iconic images of the 1980s.
- 1986 – Haiti’s president, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, flees the country, ending 28 years of family rule. On the same day 5 years later, the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sworn in.
- 1990 – Collapse of the Soviet Union.
- 1992 – The European Union is formed.
- 2005 – Ellen MacArthur breaks the speed record for sailing solo around the world. The journey took her 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, and 33 seconds.
- 2009 – The Black Saturday bushfires in Australia kill 173 people. The fires were the worst natural disaster in Australian history.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1478 – Thomas More (1478-1535) was born in London, England. He was a lawyer, scholar, and held the title Lord Chancellor of England. As a devout Catholic, he refused to acknowledge the divorce of King Henry VIII from Queen Catherine, thereby refusing to acknowledge the King’s religious supremacy. He was charged with treason, found guilty and beheaded in 1535, with his head then displayed from Tower Bridge. Four hundred years later, in 1935, he was canonized by Pope Pius XI.
- 1812 – Charles Dickens (Author)
- 1867 – Laura Ingalls Wilder (Author)
- 1885 – Sinclair Lewis (Author)
- 1906 – Oleg Antonov (Soviet aircraft designer, founded the Antonov Aircraft Company)
- 1906 – Puyi (The Last Emperor of China)
- 1960 – James Spader (Actor)
- 1962 – Garth Brooks (Singer)
- 1962 – Eddie Izzard (Yemeni/English actor, comedian)
- 1966 – Chris Rock (Actor)
- 1978 – Ashton Kutcher (Actor)
DEATHS
- 1938 – Harvey Samuel Firestone (American businessman, founded the Firestone Tire, Rubber Company)
- 1959 – Nap Lajoie (American baseball player)
- 1986 – Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist)
- 1994 – Witold Lutosławski (Polish composer, conductor)
- 2015 – Dean Smith (American basketball player, coach)
