1194 – Sverre is crowned King of Norway.
1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island.
1613 – The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground.
1659 – At the Battle of Konotop the Ukrainian armies of Ivan Vyhovsky defeat the Russians led by Prince Trubetskoy.
1786 – Alexander Macdonell and over five hundred Roman Catholic highlanders leave Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario.
1807 – Russo-Turkish War: Admiral Dmitry Senyavin destroys the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Athos.
1874 – Greek politician Charilaos Trikoupis publishes a manifesto in the Athens daily Kairoi entitled “Who’s to Blame?” leveling complaints against King George. Trikoupis is elected Prime Minister of Greece the next year.
1880 – France annexes Tahiti.
1881 – In Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad declares himself to be the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer of Islam.
1888 – George Edward Gouraud records Handel’s Israel in Egypt onto a phonograph cylinder, thought for many years to be the oldest known recording of music.
1889 – Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships vote to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest United States city in area and second largest in population at the time.
Hundreds of consumers camped outside Apple and AT&T stores days before the iPhone finally launched on June 29, 2007.
1916 – British diplomat turned Irish nationalist Roger Casement is sentenced to death for his part in the Easter Rising.
1956 – The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.
1972 – The United States Supreme Court rules in the case Furman v. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
1974 – Isabel Perón is sworn in as the first female president of Argentina.
1974 – Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.
1975 – Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of Apple I computer.
1976 – The Seychelles become independent from the United Kingdom.
2006 – Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush’s plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law.
2007 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.
Births
1861 William James Mayo, surgeon/co-founder of the Mayo clinic
1876 Nellie Taylor Ross, first U.S. woman to serve as a governor (Wyoming, 1925-27)
Deaths
1852 Henry Clay, American politician known as “the Great Compromiser”
2003 Katharine Hepburn, American actress (Adam’s Rib, On Golden Pond)