EVENTS
- 1494 – Christopher Columbus lands in Jamaica.
- 1675 – King Charles II of England commissions the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The observatory was built on the prime meridian. The mean solar time at this location is the basis for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Royal Observatory in Greenwich - 1886 – The Haymarket Square Riot occurred in Chicago after 180 police officers advanced on 1,300 persons gathered in the square listening to speeches of labor activists and anarchists. A bomb was thrown. Seven policemen were killed and over 50 wounded. Four anarchists were then charged with conspiracy to kill, convicted and hanged while another committed suicide in jail. Three others were given lengthy jail terms.
- 1904 – Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal.
- 1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize. The American author was awarded the prestigious accolade for his novel “The Old Man and the Sea”. The story about a fisherman and his battle with a large marlin also earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature.
- 1959 – The first Grammy Awards are announced.
- 1970 – At Kent State University, four students – Allison Krause, 19; Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20; Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20; and William K. Schroeder, 19 – were killed by National Guardsmen who opened fire on a crowd of 1,000 students protesting President Richard Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia. Eleven others were wounded. The shootings set off tumultuous campus demonstrations across America resulting in the temporary closing of over 450 colleges and universities.
- 1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- 1994 – Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord to ensure Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho. Together with Shimon Peres, the two leaders received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. A year later, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1654 – Kangxi (Emperor of China)
- 1825 – Thomas Henry Huxley (English biologist)
- 1916 – Jane Jacobs (American/Canadian journalist, author, activist)
- 1928 – Hosni Mubarak (Egyptian president)
Hosni Mubarak - 1929 – Audrey Hepburn (Actress)
- 1956 – Pia Zadora (Actress)
- 1959 – Randy Travis (Country music singer)
- 1979 – Lance Bass (Singer Nsync)
- 1989 – Rory McIlroy (Irish golfer)
DEATHS
- 1799 – Tipu Sultan (Indian army officer, king)
- 1903 – Gotse Delchev (Bulgarian activist)
- 1924 – E. Nesbit (English author)
- 1980 – Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslav marshal, politician, 1st President of Yugoslavia)
Josip Broz Tito - 2014 – Elena Baltacha (Ukrainian/Scottish tennis player)
