1675 – Russian Tsar Alexis banned foreign hair styles to those below the nobility.

1787 – Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States were delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1819 – Norwich University was founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States.

1856 – The Great Bell was cast for the Great Clock of Westminster, London (Big Ben).

1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas was scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering catastrophic engine failure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler became the first person to be executed by electric chair.

1909 – Alice Ramsey and three friends became the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip.

1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats left their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

1914 – World War I: Serbia declared war on Germany; Austria declared war on Russia.

1914 – Denis Patrick Dowd Jr. enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, and became the first American to fight in World War I.

1923 – Henry Sullivan became the third person and first American to swim the English Channel (27 hours 25 minutes from Dover to Calais).

1926 – Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

1926 – In New York City, the Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone system premiered with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.

1939 – First broadcast of the “Dinah Shore Show” on NBC-radio.

1942 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands became the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan was devastated when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” was dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people were killed instantly, and some tens of thousands died in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network made its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York.

1960 – Chubby Checker performed his version of “The Twist” on “The Dick Clark Show” and started a worldwide dance craze.

1960 – Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalized American and foreign-owned property in the nation.

1962 – Jamaica became independent from the United Kingdom.

1964 – Prometheus, the world’s oldest tree aged at least 4,862 years old, was accidentally cut down in Nevada.

1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

1965 – Beatles released “Help” album in the UK.

1973 – Stevie Wonder was involved in a car crash and remained in a coma for four days.

1990 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council ordered a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuted as a publicly available service on the Internet.

1996 – The Ramones played their farewell concert at The Palace, Los Angeles, CA.

1996 – NASA announced that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contained evidence of primitive life-forms.

2011 – War in Afghanistan: A United States military helicopter was shot down, killing 30 American special forces members and a working dog, seven Afghan soldiers, and one Afghan civilian. It was the deadliest single event for the United States in the War in Afghanistan.

2012 – NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on the surface of Mars.

2018 – Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify removed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their platforms.

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