Check out all of the really cool stuff that happened on my birthday. Some pretty cool stuff actually. Considering the length of time the world has been around, I would venture to say virtually all days have some pretty cool stuff that happened on it but my day is obviously more cool than any other. Believe that sucker.
* 68 – Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, imploring his secretary Epaphroditos to slit his throat to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging.
* 721 – Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
* 1310 – Duccio’s Maestà Altarpiece, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled and installed in the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
* 1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the St. Lawrence River.
* 1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.
* 1667 – The Raid on the Medway by the Dutch fleet begins. It lasts for five days and results in a decisive victory by the Dutch over the English in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
* 1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia.
* 1772 – The British ship Gaspee is burned off the coast of Rhode Island.
* 1815 – End of the Congress of Vienna: New European political situation is set.
* 1856 – 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
* 1863 – American Civil War: the Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia.
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Seriously, Hackensack is like 2 minutes from my house and dad is from just outside SF. How cool is this?
* 1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, in fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York, to San Francisco, California.
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* 1915 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns over a disagreement regarding the United States’ handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
* 1922 – First ringing of the Harkness Memorial Chime at Yale University.
* 1923 – Bulgaria’s military takes over the government in a coup.
* 1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.
* 1930 – Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by the Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a $100,000 USD gambling debt owed to Al Capone.
* 1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
* 1935 – Ho-Umezu Agreement: the Republic of China, under KMT administration, recognizes Japanese occupations in Northeast China.
* 1944 – World War II: the Soviet Union invades East Karelia and the previously Finnish part of Karelia, occupied by Finland since 1941.
* 1946 – King Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends to the throne of Thailand. He is currently the world’s longest reigning monarch.
* 1953 – Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: a tornado spawned from the same storm system as the Flint tornado hits in Worcester, Massachusetts killing 94.
* 1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army – giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
* 1957 – First ascent of Broad Peak (the world’s 12th highest mountain).
* 1958 – HM Queen Elizabeth II officially opens London Gatwick Airport, (LGW), Crawley, West Sussex, United Kingdom.
* 1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.
* 1967 – Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day War.
* 1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
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Mom LOVES horses
* 1973 – Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
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* 1974 – Diplomatic relations between Portugal and the Soviet Union are established.
* 1978 – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to “all worthy men”, ending a 148-year-old policy excluding black men.
* 1985 – Thomas Sutherland is kidnapped in Lebanon (he is not released until 1991).
* 1986 – The Rogers Commission releases its report on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
* 1991 – The congress of the Italian party Proletarian Democracy decides to merge with the Communist Refoundation Party.
* 1999 – Kosovo War: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization sign a peace treaty.
* 2008 – In the town of Lake Delton, Wisconsin, Lake Delton drained as a result of heavy flooding breaking the dam holding the lake back.
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