1682 – William Penn founded Philadelphia, US

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British troops abandoned Philadelphia.

1812 – The United States declaration of war upon the United Kingdom was signed by President James Madison, which began the War of 1812.

1815 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo resulted in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.

1847 – American photographer Thomas Martin Easterly took the earliest known photograph of lightning using the daguerreotype process in St. Louis, Missouri.

1858 – Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.

1864 – Battle of Petersburg: Ulysses S. Grant ended four days of assaults and began a nine month siege.

1873 – Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

1900 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China ordered all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families.

1912 The Chicago national Republican Convention split between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt; after Taft was nominated, Roosevelt and progressive elements of the Party formed the Progressive Party (also known as the ‘Bull Moose Party’).

1923 – Checker Taxi put its first taxi on the streets.

1928 – Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger; Wilmer Stultz was the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).

1940 – Winston Churchill’s “this was their finest hour” speech urging perseverance during Battle of Britain was delivered to British House of Commons.

1948 – Columbia Records introduced the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

1959 – First telecast transmitted from England to US.

1959 – Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long was committed to a state mental hospital; he responded by having the hospital’s director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeded to proclaim him perfectly sane.

1965 – Vietnam War: The United States used B-52 bombers to attack guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.

1967 – Closing day of the Monterey International Pop Festival, Southern California. First major US appearances of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The WHO and Otis Redding.

1969 – “The Wild Bunch”, directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, was released.

1980 Indian “human computer” Shakuntala Devi set a world record by mentally multiplying two random 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds; She correctly answered that 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 = 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.

1981 – The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational aircraft initially designed around stealth technology, made its first flight.

1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

1991 – “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” single released by Bryan Adams (Billboard Song of the Year 1991).

1996 – Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, was indicted on ten criminal counts.

2001 – “The Fast and the Furious” film directed by Rob Cohen starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez premiered.

2005 – David Tennant’s first appearance as the Tenth Doctor in BBC “Doctor Who” episode “The Parting of the Ways”.

2010 – “Recovery” 7th studio album by Eminem was released (best selling album worldwide 2010).

2014 – Ian McKellen was awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University, becoming a Doctor of Letters.

2019 – China had been forcefully harvesting organs from marginalized groups in prison camps on a significant scale according to International Tribunal in London.

2019 – Two 14 year-old boys became the youngest in Irish history to be convicted of murder when found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl in Dublin.

---

To report an issue or typo with this article – CLICK HERE