On This Day

[Raistlin]

Events

1536 Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded for adultery.

1585 English shipping in Spanish ports was confiscated as a reprisal for depredations across the Line; this served as a declaration of war on England.

1604 The town of Montreal was founded.

1643 The Confederation of New England was formed by Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay.

1649 England was declared a Commonwealth.

1662 The Act of Uniformity gave consent to the revised English Prayer Book and denied the right to take up arms against the king; Presbyterianism in the Church was destroyed and many ministers who did not confirm were ejected. A Licensing Act forbade imports of literature contrary to Christian faith.

1930 White women were enfranchised in South Africa.

1964 The NSA complained to Moscow about microphones concealed in its Moscow embassy.

1997 A cyclone battered coastal areas of Bangladesh, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands and triggering a nationwide disaster alert. Nearly 400,000 houses were damaged and 15,000 cattle were killed.

1997 The newly elected Sinn Fein MPs, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, visited and enjoyed the facilities at the British House of Commons for 24 hours, before the Speaker's ruling denying them the privileges of MPs in the Palace of Westminster came into effect.

Births

1762 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher

1861 Nellie Melba, Australian singer

1890 Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader

1914 Max Perutz, Austrian-born British molecular biologist

1924 Sandy Wilson, British composer and playwright

1925 Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator

1946 André the Giant, French wrestler and actor

Deaths

804 Alcuin of York, English poet

1795 James Boswell, Scottish biographer and diarist

1864 Nathaniel Hawthorne, US novelist

1898 William Ewart Gladstone, British politician

1935 T E Lawrence, English soldier and writer

1954 Charles Ives, US composer

1971 Ogden Nash, US poet

1984 John Betjeman, English poet

1994 US publisher and former first lady Jackie Onassis

[Raistlin]

Events

1662 England's Charles II married Catherine de Braganza, daughter of John IV of Portugal.

1674 John Sobieski was elected King of Poland as John III.

1767 Townshend introduced taxes on imports of tea, glass, paper, and dyestuffs in American colonies to provide revenue for colonial administration.

1840 Britain claimed complete sovereignty over New Zealand.

1851 Gold was first discovered in Australia.

1894 The official opening of the Manchester Ship Canal tool place.

1932 Amelia Earhart landed in Northern Ireland, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

1946 A world wheat shortage led to bread rationing in Britain.

1991 Former Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated by a Tamil suicide bomber during India's general elections campaign.

1996 After the failure of EU representatives to take steps to ease the ban on British beef, John Major announced that the British government would adopt a policy of noncooperation with the EU.

1996 Nearly 1,000 people were killed when a ferry built to take only 425 capsized on Lake Victoria.

1997 The British government announced a complete ban on anti-personnel landmines.

Births

1527 King Philip II of Spain

1688 Alexander Pope, English poet and satirist

1736 Francis Egerton, Duke of Bridgwater, builder of Britain's first canal

1780 Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer

1904 Fats Waller, US jazz pianist and composer

1916 Harold Robbins, US novelist

Deaths

1471 King Henry VI of England

1639 Tomaso Campanella, Italian philosopher

1650 James, Marquess of Montrose, Scottish general

1671 Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester, Parliamentarian leader in the English Civil War

1724 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, British politician

1786 Karl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist

1965 Geoffrey de Havilland, British aircraft designer

1994 Giovanni Goria, Italian Christian Democrat politician

2000 Sir John Gielgud, British actor

[Raistlin]

Events

1059 - Henri I crowns his son compassionate King Philip I of France

1275 - King Edward I of Engld orders cessation of persecution of French Jews

1420 - Jews of Syria & Austria expelled

1421 - Jews of Austria imprisoned & expelled

1430 - Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne & sold to the British

1493 - King Charles VIII & Maximilian I of Austria signs Peace of Senlis

1533 - King Henry VIII & Catherine of Aragon marriage declared null & void

1536 - Pope Paul III installs Portugese inquisition

1544 - German emperor Charles V recognizes king Christian III of Denmark

1555 - Giampietro Caraffa elected Pope Paul IV

1568 - Battle at Heiligerlee: Dutch rebels beat Spanish, 100s killed

1568 - The Netherlands declare their independence from Spain.

1576 - Tycho Brahe given Hveen Island to build Uraniborg Observatory

1609 - Official ratification of the Second Charter of Virginia takes place.

1611 - Matthias von Habsburg chosen king of Bohemia

Deaths

1125 - Hendrik V, Roman catholics German king/emperor (1098/1111-25), dies

1153 - David I, king of Scotland (1124-53), dies at about 68

1304 - Jehan de Lescurel, French poet and composer

1423 - Benedict XIII, [Pedro the Luna], Spanish Pope (1394-1423), dies

1498 - Girolamo Savonarola, dictator of Florence (1494-98), hanged at 45

1523 - Ashikaga Yoshitane, Japanese shogun (b. 1466)

1524 - Ismail I, Shah of Persia (b. 1487)

1568 - Adolf van Nassau, German son of Willem the Rich, dies in battle at 27

1627 - Luis de Gongora y Argote, poet/writer, dies

1648 - Luis de Nain, painter, dies

1662 - John Gauden, English bishop and writer (b. 1605)

1668 - Philips Wouwerman, Haarlems painter, buried

1670 - Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1610)

1684 - Adriaen Backer, Amsterdams painter buried at about 48

1691 - Adrien Auzout, French astronomer (b. 1622)

Births

1052 - King Philip I of France (d. 1108)

1100 - Emperor Qinzong of China (d. 1161)

1598 - Claude Mellan, French engraver/cartoonist/painter, baptized

1606 - Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish writer (d. 1682)

1617 - Elias Ashmole, antiquary

1620 - Pieter Neefs, the Younger, Flemish painter, baptized

1644 - Thomas Eisenhut, composer

1696 - Johann Caspar Vogler, composer

1707 - Carolus Linneus, Sweden, biological classifier

1707 - Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist (d. 1778)

1710 - Francois-Gaspard Adam, French sculptor (garden sculptures)

1718 - William Hunter, obstetrician/medal writer

1729 - Giuseppe Parini, Italian priest/poet (Il Giorno)

1734 - Friedrich Anton Mesmer, Austria, physician/hypnotist (Mesmerism)

1735 - Charles Joseph, prince the Ligne, Belgian fieldmarshal/author

[Bizarra]

It isn't really a comfort, but every day we see that Kings, Queens, Emperors, Popes and Mass Murderers die like the rest of us mere mortals :o

My bet is that we will all be equal at the Pearly Gates :D Who ever thought that Pearly Gates could stop a Spirit/Soul/Ghost from entering ?

[Raistlin]

It has a quantum forcefield to keep out the plebs...

[Bizarra]

It has a quantum forcefield to keep out the plebs...

Glad [?] to know that before arrival! <_<

[Raistlin]

Births

1713 John Stuart, Earl of Bute, Britain's first Scottish prime minister

1803 Edward George Bulwer Lytton, Lord Lytton, English novelist

1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson, US poet and essayist

1818 Jacob Burckhardt Swiss historian

1881 Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer

1892 Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavian soldier and president

1926 Miles Davis, US jazz trumpeter

1939 Ian McKellen, English actor

Deaths

735 Bede, English monk and historian

1510 Georges D'Amboise, French cardinal and politician

1675 Gaspard Poussin, French painter

1681 Pedro Caldéron de la Barca, Spanish playwright

1703 Samuel Pepys, English diarist

1934 Gustav Holst, English composer

Events

1234 The Mongols took Kaifeng and destroyed the Chin dynasty.

1521 The Edict of Worms declared Martin Luther an outlaw.

1524 England's Henry VIII and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, formed a new league to support the Duke of Bourbon in a fresh attack on France.

1657 New Humble Petition and Advice created a new House of Lords, and increased Cromwell's power.

1657 Louis XIV of France put forward his name as a candidate for the Holy Roman Empire.

1659 England's Richard Cromwell resigned; the Rump Parliament re-established the Commonwealth.

1694 The ministry in England was remodelled when William III dismissed Tories, except Godolphin and Danby, and introduced Whig Junta of Somers, Russell, Montague, and Wharton.

1768 James Cook sailed on his first voyage of discovery, on which he explored the Society Islands and charted the coasts of New Zealand and West Australia (-June 1771).

1911 Porfirio Diaz resigned as president of Mexico.

1914 The British House of Commons passed the Irish Home Rule bill.

1923 The independence of Transjordan under Amir Abdullah was proclaimed.

1953 Denationalization of road transport in Britain.

1961 President Kennedy presented an extra-ordinary State of the Union message to Congress for increased funds urgently needed for US space, defence, and air programmes.

1997 Mutinous troops ousted Sierra Leone President Kabbah's civilian government in a bloody coup.

[Raistlin]

Births

1391 Charles of Orléans, French poet

1613 Henry Vane the younger, English politician

1623 William Petty, English economist

1689 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer

1822 Edmond de Goncourt, French novelist

1859 A E Housman, English poet

1867 Princess Mary of Teck (Queen Mary, consort of George V)

1886 Al Jolson, US singer

1907 John Wayne, US film actor

1913 Peter Cushing, British actor

Deaths

604 St Augustine, first archbishop of Canterbury

1595 Philip Neri, Italian priest, founder of the Oratory

1922 Charles Mayo, US surgeon

1924 Victor Herbert, US composer and conductor

1951 Lincoln Ellsworth, US scientist and polar explorer

Events

1520 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V visited Henry VIII at Dover and Canterbury, England.

1521 The Edict of Worms imposed on Martin Luther the ban of the Empire.

1538 Jean Calvin was expelled from Geneva and settled in Strasbourg, France.

1659 Aurangzeb formally became Mogul Emperor.

1805 Napoleon was crowned king of Italy in Milan Cathedral.

1834 Sikhs captured Peshawar.

1846 Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws (royal assent given 26 June), splitting the Conservative Party.

1865 The surrender of the last Confederate army at Shreveport, near New Orleans, ended the American Civil War.

1924 Calvin Coolidge signed a bill limiting immigration into the USA and entirely excluding the Japanese.

1994 The 46th meeting of the IWC voted to establish a whale sanctuary in Antarctic waters which will protect 80% of the world's surviving whales.

1994 In the USA, the Freedom of Access Act declared that the obstruction of abortion clinics and places of worship was a federal offence.

1997 President Kabila's administration banned all activities of political parties and public demonstrations in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa, citing a need to ensure security.

[Raistlin]

Births

1818 Amelia Bloomer, US feminist and dress reformer

1819 Julia Ward Howe, US writer

1851 Vincent d'Indy, French composer

1867 Arnold Bennett, English novelist

1897 John Cockcroft, English physicist

1911 Hubert Humphrey, US politician

1911 Vincent Price, US film actor

1923 Henry Kissinger, US politician

Deaths

1564 John Calvin, French religious reformer

1661 Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, Scottish Covenanter, beheaded

1707 Marquise de Montespan, mistress of the French King Louis XIV

1840 Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist

1910 Robert Koch, German bacteriologist

1964 Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politician

Events

1063 Harold of Wessex began to conquer Wales.

1199 Pope Innocent III imposed the first direct papal taxation of Clergy.

1199 Death of Minamoto Yoritomo, first Shogun of Japan; his followers retained control of government but fought for supremacy.

1299 Peace was negotiated between Genoa and Venice, ending their war (since 1261) to control trade with the Byzantine Empire.

1719 Emperor Charles VI founded the Oriental Company in Vienna to compete with Dutch trade in the Orient.

1813 US forces occupied Fort St George, and the British abandoned the entire Niagara frontier.

1941 The German battleship Bismarck was sunk by the Royal Navy west of Brest.

1994 Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia after 20 years in exile.

1996 President Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev reached a cease-fire agreement that would take effect from 31 May.

1997 A string of powerful tornadoes hit central Texas leaving at least 32 people dead and wide swaths of devastation. The storms were the worst to strike Texas for a decade.

[Raistlin]

Births

1660 King George I of Great Britain

1738 Joseph Guillotin, French physician and revolutionary

1759 William Pitt the Younger, British politician

1779 Thomas Moore, Irish poet

1803 Prosper Mérimée, French novelist

1850 F W Maitland, English historian

1908 Ian Fleming, English novelist

1916 Thora Hird, English actress

1925 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German baritone

Deaths

1089 Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury

1672 Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, English admiral

1779 Thomas Chippendale, English cabinet-maker

1807 Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, Swiss oceanographer and marine zoologist

1843 Noah Webster, US lexicographer

1862 Henry Thomas Buckle, English historian

1878 John, 1st Earl Russell, British politician

1937 Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist

1995 Jean Muir, English fashion designer

Events

1358 In France the uprising known as the Jacquerie broke out - the peasants were protesting at their impoverished state after the ravages of the Hundred Years' War.

1539 Royal assent was given to an act (the Six Articles of Religion) 'abolishing diversity of opinions' in England, after Henry VIII personally intervened in the Lords' debate to argue with the Reforming bishops.

1932 The ijselmeer was formed in the Netherlands, by the completion of a dam which enclosed the former Zuider Zee.

1956 France ceded former French settlements in India to the Indian Union.

1959 Britain announced the removal of controls on imports of many consumer goods from the dollar area, with increased import quotas of other goods.

1961 The last journey of the 'Orient Express' train, from Paris to Bucharest; it had been in operation for 78 years.

1985 The European Court of Human Rights found Britain guilty of sex discrimination in immigration policy.

1995 A powerful earthquake struck the large island of Sakhalin, off Russia's east coast. As of one week after the quake, the disaster's reported death toll had reached 866, with more than 1,100 others believed dead and hundreds more injured.

[bothwell_buyer]

I never realised that William Pitt the Younger was so old - and still in the UK Cabinet... Foreign Secretary or something.

[Bizarra]

I never realised that William Pitt the Younger was so old - and still in the UK Cabinet... Foreign Secretary or something.

He wasn't THAT old- (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806). Only a lad compared to some :(

I often wonder why they didn't call him "Junior" or "Minor"

[Raistlin]

Events

862 Riurick (of Jutland) founded the first dynasty of Princes of Russia at Novgorod.

1218 The Fifth Crusade landed outside Damietta, N Egypt.

1453 Mohammed II, founder of the Ottoman empire, captured Constantinople; the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI was killed and the Greek Empire finally extinguished. Constantinople became the Ottoman capital.

1458 Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, defeated a Castilian fleet in the Channel.

1848 Wisconsin became a US state.

1940 In the Second World War, the first British forces were evacuated from Dunkirk in France.

1947 The Indian constituent assembly outlawed 'untouchability'.

1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, from John Hunt's expedition climbing Mt Everest, reached the summit.

1996 The trial of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, charged with plotting to blow up 11 US airliners and masterminding the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in Feb 1993, opened in New York.

1996 In Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud, defeated the incumbent Labour prime minister Shimon Peres by a 1% margin.

1997 The human rights organization Amnesty International criticized the state of Texas for the number of executions it carried out. Texas accounts for one-third of US executions.

Births

1630 King Charles II of Great Britain

1716 Louis Jean Marie Daubenton, French naturalist

1736 Patrick Henry, US politician

1851 Léon Bourgeois, French politician

1874 Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English novelist and critic

1903 Bob Hope, US actor and comedian

1917 John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the USA

Deaths

1500 Bartholomew Diaz de Novaes, Portuguese navigator

1546 David Beaton, Scottish politician

1691 Cornelius Van Tromp, Dutch sailor

1829 Humphry Davy, English scientist who invented a safety lamp for miners

1877 John Lothrop Motley, US historian and diplomat

1911 W S Gilbert, English playwright and librettist

1993 Sidney Bernstein, English entrepreneur and film producer

1994 Eric Honecker, German communist politician

[Raistlin]

Births

1672 Peter the Great, tsar of Russia

1757 Henry Addington, British politician

1846 Peter Carl Fabergé, Russian goldsmith and jeweller

1896 Howard Hawks, US film director

1909 Benny Goodman, US bandleader

Deaths

1593 Christopher Marlowe, English playwright

1640 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter

1744 Alexander Pope, English poet and satirist

1770 François Boucher, French painter

1778 Voltaire, French author and philosopher

1960 Boris Pasternak, Russian novelist and poet

1967 Claude Rains, British-born film actor

1993 Ra Sun, US jazz keyboard player and bandleader

1994 Juan Onetti, Uruguyan novelist

Events

1431 Joan of Arc was burnt as a heretic at Rouen, France.

1536 English king Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, his third wife.

1592 The Spanish defeated an English force under Sir John Norris at Cranon, Brittany.

1913 A peace treaty between Turkey and the Balkan states was signed in London.

1925 The shooting of Chinese students by municipal police in Shanghai and other incidents in Canton provoked a Chinese boycott of British goods.

1929 The British Labour Party won the general election with 287 seats.

1948 The British Citizenship Act conferred the status of British subjects on all Commonwealth citizens.

1954 Diane Leather of Birmingham University, England, was the first woman to run a mile in under 5 minutes.

1997 More than 900 US and other Western citizens were airlifted to safety from Freetown, in Sierra Leone, as the US embassy urged all Americans to leave the country.

[Raistlin]

Births

1443 Margaret Beaufort, consort of Henry VII of England

1443 Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary

1443 Rudolphus Agricola, Dutch humanist

1664 Guilio Alberoni, Italian cardinal and politician

1750 Karl August von Hardenberg, Prussian politician

1819 Walt Whitman, US poet

1863 Francis Younghusband, English explorer

1872 William Heath Robinson, English illustrator

1908 Don Ameche, US film actor

1930 Clint Eastwood, US film actor and director

1939 Terry Waite, religious adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury

Deaths

1594 Jacopo Tintoretto, Italian painter

1740 Frederick William I of Prussia

1740 Jean Cavalier, French Huguenot preacher and leader

1809 Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer

1837 Joseph Grimaldi, English clown

1960 Walther Funk, German Nazi economist

1962 Adolf Eichmann, Nazi leader, hanged as a war criminal

Events

1287 The Genoese defeated the Venetian fleet off Acre and blockaded the coast of Outremer.

1902 The Peace of Vereeniging ended the Boer War, in which British casualties numbered 5,774 killed (and 16,000 deaths from disease) against 4,000 Boers killed in action.

1916 The Battle of Jutland began, in which Royal Navy losses exceeded those of the German fleet.

1942 Czech patriots assassinated Gestapo leader Heydrich.

1952 In the USSR, the Volga Don Canal was opened.

1961 South Africa became an independent republic outside the Commonwealth, with C R Swart as president.

1974 Henry Kissinger secured an agreement between Syria and Israel to disengage forces on Golan Heights.

1997 Ghana dispatched troops to join a Nigerian-led force already in Sierra Leone, urging the coup leaders to respond to diplomatic efforts and warning that if they do not, West African countries might have to use force to restore civilian rule.

[Raistlin]

Births

1796 Nicolas Carnot, French founder of thermodynamics

1801 Brigham Young, US Mormon leader

1803 Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer

1882 John Drinkwater, English poet

1907 Frank Whittle, English inventor who developed the jet engine

1926 Marilyn Monroe, US actress

1937 Morgan Freeman, US film actor

Deaths

1815 James Gillray, English caricaturist

1868 James Buchanan, 15th president of the USA

1941 Hugh Walpole, English novelist

1943 Leslie Howard, British film actor

1946 Ion Antonescu, Romanian dictator, executed

1985 Eric Partridge, British lexicographer

Events

836 Viking raiders sacked London.

1485 Matthias of Hungary took Vienna in his conquest of Austria (from Frederick III) and made the city his capital.

1666 An English fleet under Lord Albemarle fought an inconclusive battle with the Dutch off the Dunes of Dunkirk.

1679 The Scottish Covenanters defeated Royal troops under Claverhouse at Drumclog.

1792 Kentucky became the 15th US state.

1796 Tennessee became the 16th US state.

1915 In World War I the first Zeppelin attack on London took place.

1946 Television licences were issued in Britain for the first time; they cost £2.

1957 ERNIE drew the first premium bond prizes in Britain.

1958 Iceland extended its fishery limits to 12 miles.

1988 Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty at the Moscow Summit (29 May-2 June).

1994 South Africa rejoins the Commonwealth.

1997 The Left won a sweeping victory in French parliamentary elections, plunging the country into another period of power-sharing ('cohabitation').

[Raistlin]

Births

1624 John Sobieski, King of Poland

1840 Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet

1857 Edward Elgar, English composer

1887 Julian Huxley, English biologist

1903 Johnny Weissmuller, US swimmer who played Tarzan in films

1942 Barry Levinson, US film director

Deaths

1581 James Douglas, Earl of Morton

1882 Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian nationalist

1886 Alexander Ostrovsky, Russian playwright

1913 Alfred Austin, English poet

1962 Vita Sackville-West, English writer

1987 Andrés Segovia, Spanish classical guitarist

1990 Rex Harrison, British actor

1997 Adolphus 'Doc' Cheatham, US jazz trumpeter.

Events

1619 A treaty was signed between England and Holland, regulating the trade in the East between the English and Dutch East India Companies.

1627 British king Charles I granted a charter of incorporation to the Guiana Company.

1627 The Duke of Buckingham sailed from Portsmouth with a fleet to aid the Huguenots in the defence of La Rochelle.

1780 The Gordon riots began in London, when Lord George Gordon headed a procession for presenting a petition to Parliament for repealing the Catholic Relief act of 1778; Roman Catholic chapels were pillaged.

1793 The final overthrow of Girondins and arrest of Jacques Brissot began the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.

1949 Transjordan was renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

1953 The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place in Westminster Abbey, London.

1995 Hansjörg Vogel, the youngest bishop in Switzerland, resigned after announcing that he had made his girlfriend pregnant, hitting the Roman Catholic church with yet another episcopal sex scandal.

1997 The ruling prime minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party was re-elected with a majority of four in the Canadian general election.

[Raistlin]

Births

1652 William Dampier, English navigator and adventurer

1726 James Hutton, Scottish geologist

1771 Sydney Smith, English clergyman and journalist

1804 Richard Cobden, English economist and political reformer

1853 William Flinders Petrie, English archaeologist

1865 George V, King of Great Britain

1910 Wilfrid Thesiger, English explorer and writer

Deaths

1594 John Aylmer, bishop of London

1657 William Harvey, English physician who described the circulation of the blood

1875 Georges Bizet, French composer

1899 Johann Strauss, Austrian composer

1924 Franz Kafka, Austrian novelist

1946 Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, Russian politician

1967 Arthur Ransome, English children's writer

1995 John Eckert Jr, US electronics engineer and mathematician

1996 Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge.

Events

1098 The Crusaders took Antioch.

1162 Thomas à Becket was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.

1665 The English fleet defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Lowestoft.

1942 US and Japanese naval forces began the Battle of Midway, in the Pacific.

1946 King Umberto II left Italy and Alcide de Gasperi, the premier, became provisional head of state.

1959 Singapore became self-governing.

1982 Israel's Ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot and wounded in a London street.

1989 In China, People's Army tanks moved into Tiananmen Square in Beijing, killing 2,000 pro-democracy protesters.

1996 29 people were arrested in Bahrain, foiling what was thought to be an Iranian-backed coup attempt against the minority Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa family that has ruled Bahrain since the late 18th century.

1997 US computer scientists announced the construction of logic gates from DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Rather than responding to an electronic signal, the DNA gates respond to nucleotide sequences.

1997 US geneticist Huntington F Wilard constructed the first artificial human chromosome, which was successfully passed on to all daughter cells.

1997 The Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin became prime minister of France following the general election.

[Raistlin]

Births

1694 François Quesnay, French economist and physician

1738 George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland

1751 John Scott, later Earl of Eldon, English lawyer and politician

1811 Harriet Beecher Stowe, US novelist

1833 Garnet Wolseley, English soldier

1910 Christopher Cockerell, English engineer who invented the hovercraft

Deaths

1663 William Juxon, archbishop of Canterbury

1798 Giovanni Casanova, Italian adventurer

1864 Nassau William Senior, English economist

1913 Emily Davidson, English suffragette who threw herself in front of the King's horse during the Derby

1941 Kaiser William II

Events

1039 Gruffydd ap Llewellyn, King of Gwynedd and Powys, defeated an English attack.

1210 King John embarked on an expedition to Ireland, enforcing his authority there.

1520 Henry VIII and Francis I met at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, between Guînes and Ardres; on 6 June they signed a treaty confirming the marriage contract of Mary Tudor and the Dauphin and ending French interference in Scotland.

1878 A secret Anglo-Turkish agreement was made to check Russian advance in Asia Minor, by which Britain promised to defend Turkey against further attack and Britain was allowed to occupy Cyprus.

1944 The Fifth Army entered Rome.

1956 Egypt declared it would not extend the Suez Canal Company's concession after its expiry in 1968.

1959 US-owned sugar mills and plantations in Cuba were expropriated.

1989 Solidarity achieved a landslide victory in Polish parliament elections.

1996 The European Space Agency's Ariane 5 rocket had to be blown up one minute after liftoff because it had veered off course. The payload was uninsured, typical French.

[Raistlin]

Events

70 The walls of Jerusalem are seized by the Emperor Titus.

1832 Parisian student uprisings of 1832 began.

1912 US marines landed in Cuba.

1916 HMS Hampshire sank off the Orkneys, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard.

1945 The Allied Control Commission assumed control throughout Germany, which was divided into four occupation zones.

1947 US Secretary of State George Marshall called for a European Recovery Programme (Marshall Aid).

1967 The Six-Day War broke out between Israel and the Arab states...

1970 Tonga became independent within the Commonwealth.

1975 The Suez Canal was reopened after being closed for eight years.

1975 The UK held its only referendum on remaining in the EEC.

1982 Israeli armed forces invaded Lebanon.

1997 US astronomer Jane Luu and colleagues discovered a 'worldlet', a new type of object within the solar system.

1997 Kim Hyun Chul, son of the South Korean president Kim Young Sam, was charged with bribery and corruption relating to the awarding of government contracts.

2003 Heat waves in Pakistan and India. Temperatures exceed 50°C.

Births

1594 Nicolas Poussin, French painter

1723 Adam Smith, Scottish economist

1878 Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary

1883 John Maynard Keynes, English economist

1898 Federico Garca Lorca, Spanish playwright and poet

1939 Margaret Drabble, English novelist

1947 David Hare, British playwright

Deaths

1625 Orlando Gibbons, English organist and composer

1724 Henry Sacheverell, English political preacher

1826 Carl von Weber, German composer

1900 Stephen Crane, US poet and novelist

1916 Horatio, Lord Kitchener, English soldier

1916 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, French artist

1921 Georges Feydeau, French dramatist

1997 Ronnie Lene, English pop singer and songwriter.

2004 Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States

[Raistlin]

Events

1042 Harthacnut, King of England and Denmark, died; he was succeeded in England by his adopted heir, Edward the Confessor, and in Denmark by Magnus, King of Norway.

1536 The English Parliament met and settled the succession on the future children of Henry VIII by Jane Seymour; the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth were declared illegitimate.

1919 Nicaragua asked the US for protection against Costa Rica.

1934 Oswald Mosley addressed a mass meeting of the British Union of Fascists at Olympia.

1939 George VI visited the USA at the end of his tour of Canada; he was the first British monarch to do so.

1941 British and Free French Forces invaded Syria to prevent the establishment of Axis bases.

1953 The US Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.

1965 US troops were authorized to engage in offensive operations in Vietnam.

1968 James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

1978 Naomi James completed her solo round-the-world sailing voyage, taking two days fewer than Sir Francis Chichester in 1967.

1981 Israeli air force bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction near Baghdad.

1997 Gustavo Kuerten won the men's singles title at the French Open tennis championships in Paris, France, to become the first Brazilian to win a men's Grand Slam singles tournament.

Births

1625 Giovanni Cassini, Italian astronomer

1724 John Smeaton, English engineer

1772 Robert Stevenson, English engineer

1810 Robert Schumann, German composer

1829 John Everett Millais, English painter

1869 Frank Lloyd Wright, US architect

1955 Sir Tim Berners- Lee, English inventor of the World Wide Web

Deaths

1695 Christiaan Huygens, Dutch physicist and astronomer

1809 Thomas Paine, English author of The Rights of Man

1831 Sarah Siddons, English actress

1865 Joseph Paxton, English architect

1876 George Sand (pen name of Amandine Dudevant, born Dupin), French novelist

1889 Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet

1946 Gerhart Hauptmann, German novelist and playwright

1997 Amus Tutola, Nigerian novelist

[Raistlin]

Events

68 Suicide of the Roman Emperor Nero.

1572 A new Turkish fleet put to sea against Don John of Austria to complete the capture of Cyprus.

1788 English botanist Joseph Banks founded the Africa Association for arousing interest in exploration and trade.

1885 The Treaty of Tientsin between France and China recognized the French protectorate in Annam.

1934 Cartoon character Donald Duck first appeared.

1959 The USS George Washington was launched, the first submarine to be armed with ballistic missiles.

1967 Israel attacked Syria after a breach of ceasefire.

1997 At the tenth Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) convention in Harare, Zimbabwe, the elephant was downlisted to CITES Appendix II (vulnerable)

1997 The Haitian prime minister Rosny Smarth stepped down after months of unrest on the island.

Births

1672 Peter the Great, tsar of Russia

1781 George Stephenson, English locomotive engineer

1836 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, English physician

1893 Cole Porter, US composer of musicals

1963 Johnny Depp, American actor

Deaths

68 Nero, Roman Emperor

597 St. Columba, Christian missionary, patron saint of the other Island

1573 William Maitland of Lethingdon, Scottish politician

1681 William Lilly, English astrologer

1870 Charles Dickens, English novelist

1874 Cochise, American Apache leader

1964 Maxwell William Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-born politician and newspaper proprietor

1976 Sybil Thorndike, English actress

[Bizarra]

Sorry for daring to venture my humble opinion, Your Mightiness

But , I have been under the impression that St Patrick was the Patron Saint of Ireland.

St Columba was an unfortunate Missionary who tried to bring the ignorant & pagan inhabitants of Scotland towards the light

[Raistlin]

Sorry for daring to venture my humble opinion, Your Mightiness

But , I have been under the impression that St Patrick was the Patron Saint of Ireland.

St Columba was an unfortunate Missionary who tried to bring the ignorant & pagan inhabitants of Scotland towards the light

Tweaked, I don't write this stuff you know..

[Bizarra]

Sorry for daring to venture my humble opinion, Your Mightiness

But , I have been under the impression that St Patrick was the Patron Saint of Ireland.

St Columba was an unfortunate Missionary who tried to bring the ignorant & pagan inhabitants of Scotland towards the light

Tweaked, I don't write this stuff you know..

Big Brother has his beady eye on you <_<

I also know that I'm leaving myself wide open to retaliation if/when I make a slip

The "other" Island doesn't cut it, you know. It amounts to the same thing if read in the UK :lol2: