1561 – Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Leith Scotland to assume throne after spending 13 years in France

1692 – 5 women executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts

1796 – Spain & France sign anti-English alliance

1839 – Details of Louis Daguerre’s 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris

1849 – NY Herald reports gold discovery in California

1888 – 1st beauty contest (Spa, Belgium), 18 yr old West Indian wins

1891 – William Huggins describes astronomical application of spectrum

1895 – American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

1897 – 1st electric taxi’s drive in London

1912 – Percy Aldridge Grainger’s “Shepherd’s Key,” premieres

1913 – Frenchman Pégoud makes 1st parachute jump in Europe

1914 – German army executed 150 Belgians by firing squad

1915 – Rationing laws go into effect in Netherlands

1915 – World War I: the Battle of Van begins

1919 – Afghanistan declares independence from UK

1942 – Over 4,000 Canadian & British soldiers killed, wounded or captured raiding Dieppe, France

1943 – Belgian church excommunicates nazi Leon Degrelle

1947 – J Arens & D van Dorpen synthetise vitamin A

1953 – England regained cricket Ashes after winning series 1-0

1955 – Hurricane Diane kills 200 & 1st billion $ damage storm (N.E. US)

1955 – US raises import duty on bicycles 50%

1955 – WINS radio, announces it will not play “copy” white cover versions of R&B (DJs must play Fats Domino’s “Ain’t It A Shame,” not Pat Boone’s)

1960 – Francis Gary Powers convicted of spying by USSR (U-2 incident)

1960 – Sputnik 5 carries 2 dogs, 3 mice into orbit (later recovered alive)

1965 – Auschwitz trials end with 6 life sentences

1966 – Earthquake strikes Varko Turkey: 2,400 killed

1967 – Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” single goes to number 1

1973 – France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island

1973 – Kris Kristofferson weds Rita Coolidge

1977 – USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR

1978 – 422 die in an arson fire at a movie theater in Iran

1979 – “My Sharonna” by the Knack hits number 1 (stays for 42 days)

1980 – Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita,” premieres in London

1984 – Republican convention in Houston nominates Ronald Reagan for president

1985 – Japan launches its 2nd probe of Halley’s Comet, Suisei

1986 – Car bomb kills 20 in Tehran Iran

1987 – Hungerford Massacre: in the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with an assault rifle and then commits suicide.

1988 – Iran-Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT)

1989 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki, elected 1st non-communist president of Poland

1991 – Hurricane Bob hits US

1991 – Janajev & KGB coup in Russia deposes Mikhail Gorbachev

1993 – Actress Kim Basinger weds actor Alec Baldwin

1993 – Dow Jones hits record high of 3612.13

1993 – George Tiller, abortion doctor, shot in his arms by Rachelle Shannon

1993 – Mattel & Fisher Price toys merge

1993 – Sally Gunnell runs lady world record 400m hurdles (52.74″)

1995 – After 5 days Shannon Faulkner quits as 1st woman at the Citadel

1995 – Bruce Seldon TKOs Joe Hipp in 10 for heavyweight boxing title

1995 – Mike Tyson returns to the ring & DQs Peter McNeeley in 38 seconds

2002 – A Russian Mi-26 helicopter carrying troops is hit by a Chechen missile outside of Grozny, killing 118 soldiers.

2003 – A Hamas planned suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem kills 23 Israelis, 7 of them children in the Jerusalem bus 2 massacre.

2003 – A car-bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Iraq kills the agency’s top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employees.

2005 – The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005 begins.

2009 – A series of bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kills 101 and injures 565 others.

2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

1342 – Katharine of Bohemia, Duchess of Bavaria (d. 1395)

1398 – Marqués de Santillana, Spanish poet (d. 1458)

1521 – Lodovico Guicciardini, Italian historian (Descrittione di Tutti)

1557 – Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg (d. 1608)

1558 – Paulus Merula, Dutch lawyer/historian

1590 – Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland, English soldier (d. 1649)

1596 – Elisabeth Stuart, English daughter of James I

1596 – Elizabeth Stuart, Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia (d. 1662)

1621 – Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch painter (d. 1674)

1631 – John Dryden, 1st poet laureate of England (All for Love)

1646 – John Flamsteed, 1st astronomer royal of England

1686 – Antonio Tonelli, composer

1686 – Eustace Budgell, English writer (d. 1737)

1689 – Samuel Richardson, English novelist (Pamela) (baptized)

1711 – Edward Boscawen, British admiral (d. 1761)

1737 – Johann Georg Christoph Schetky, composer

1743 – Marie Jeanne Becu comtesse du Barry, last mistress of Louis XV

1743 – Madame du Barry, French courtesan (d. 1793)

1756 – Anthony FRE Haersolte, member of Executing Regime

1780 – Baranger, writer

1785 – Seth Thomas, pioneer in mass production of clocks

1813 – William Henry Fry, composer

1815 – John Porter McCown, Major General (Confederate Army), died in 1879

1816 – Julius PJA van Zuylen van Nyevelt, Dutch minister of Foreign affairs

1824 – Georg Goltermann, composer

1831 – Stephen Gano Burbridge, Bvt Major General (Union volunteers)

1839 – Oskar Brefeld, German botanist

1913 – Richard Simmons, American actor (d. 2003)

1920 – Lucila Engels-Boskaljon, Curacao painter

1921 – Gene Roddenberry, El Paso Texas, executive producer (Star Trek)

1924 – William Marshall, actor (Blacula, Something of Value)

1940 – Johnny Nash, Houston, Tx, rocker (I Can See Clearly Now)

1945 – Ian Gillian, heavy metal rocker (Deep Purple-Knocking at Backdoor)

1946 – Dawn Steel, film maker

1947 – Gerald McRaney, Collins Miss, actor (Simon & Simon, Major Dad)

1947 – Dave Dutton, English actor

1950 – Jennie Bond, British journalist

1952 – Jonathan Frakes, actor (Commander William T Riker-Star Trek Next Gen)

1953 – Nanni Moretti, Italian film actor, director and producer

1955 – Peter Gallagher, Armonk NY, actor (Player, Summer Lovers, Dreamchild)

1956 – Adam Arkin, Bkln, actor (Busting Loose, Pearl, Northern Exposure)

1957 – Ian Gould, England cricketer

1959 – Susan Cummings, Monegasque-born American heiress and convicted murderer

1962 – Valerie Kaprisky, Paris France, actress (Breathless, Public Woman)

1963 – Joey Tempest, rocker (Europe-The Final Countdown)

1963 – John Stamos, actor

1965 – Kevin Dillon, actor

1965 – Kyra Sedgwick, actress

1966 – Lee Ann Womack, American musician

1967 – Jason Starkey, son of Beatle Ringo

1969 – Matthew Perry, actor

1969 – Nate Dogg, American rapper

1969 – Patrick Van Horn, American actor

1970 – Fat Joe, American rapper

1971 – João Vieira Pinto, Portuguese football player

1973 – Callum Blue, British actor

1973 – Marco Materazzi, Italian footballer

1975 – Tracie Thoms, American actress

1980 – Paul Parry, Welsh footballer

1980 – Darius Danesh, Scottish singer-songwriter & actor

1982 – Erika Christensen, American actress

1983 – Mike Conway, British racing driver

1984 – Alessandro Matri, Italian footballer

1984 – Ryan Taylor, English footballer

1987 – Richard Stearman, English footballer

1988 – Travis Tedford, American actor

1989 – Romeo, American rapper

1998 – Ella Guevara, Filipino actress