77 – Pope Gregory VII pardons German emperor Henry IV
1487 – Bell chimes invented
1806 – The original Lower Trenton Bridge (also called the Trenton Makes the World Takes Bridge), which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened.
1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world’s first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales is opened.
1835 – Richard Lawrence gun misfires at President Andrew Jackson in Washington DC in first attempted assassination of a US President
1889 – John Herschel uses camera obscura to photograph 48″ (120cm) telescope
1894 – Pneumatic hammer patented by Charles King of Detroit
1928 – First radio telephone connection between Netherlands and the U.S.
1931 – Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” premieres at Los Angeles Theater
1933 – Adolf Hitler named German Chancellor, forms government with Von Papen
1946 – First issue of Franklin Roosevelt dime
1948 – Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Nathuram Godse.
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated during an evening prayer ceremony at Birla House in Delhi. Perched atop a gate of Birla House, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced to the world the “light has gone out of our lives”.
1951 – Belgium refuses to allow communists to make speeches on radio
1956 – Martin Luther King Jr’s home bombed
1969 – Beatles perform their last gig together.
1973 – Jury finds Watergate defendants Liddy and McCord guilty on all counts
Births
1615 – Thomas Rolfe, American colonial settler and only child of Pocahontas and John Rolfe (d. 1675)
1882 – Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1933-1945), (d. 1945)
1941 – Dick Cheney, 46th US Vice President
Deaths
1836 – Betsy Ross [Elizabeth Griscom], seamstress widely credited with making the first American flag (b. 1752)
1948 – Orville Wright, US aviation pioneer, dies at 76
1951 – Ferdinand Porsche, German car inventor, dies at 75