708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America
1609 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Company
1655 – Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan (Saturn’s largest moon)
1807 – First railway passenger service began in England
1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
1851 – Yosemite Valley discovered in California
1882 – First demonstration of pancake making in a department store in New York City
1916 – Women are allowed to attend a boxing match
1937 – It is revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads
1937 – Washington Daily News is first US newspaper with perfumed advertising page
1944 – RAF Flight Sgt Nicholas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute; his fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow, and he suffered only a sprained leg.
1946 – First performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “Ebony Concerto”
1954 – RCA manufactures first color TV with a 12½” screen at $1,000
1961 – Sputnik 10 carries a dog named Zvezdouchka (Little Star) into a single Earth orbit; after once around and reentering the atmosphere, the capsule landed in snow and took a day to find it. Good dog!
1970 – Concorde makes its first supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)
1990 – Fire in illegal NYC social club, kills 87
Birthdays
1133 – Henry II, King of England (1154-89)
1867 – Gutzon Borglum, sculptor (Mt Rushmore)
1881 – Béla Bartok, Hungary, composer/pianist (Concerto for Orchestra)
1911 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967)
1934 – Gloria Steinem, Toledo Ohio, publisher (Ms Magazine)
1947 – Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], England, singer
Deaths
1918 – Claude Debussy, dies in Paris at 55
1973 – Edward Steichen, pioneer of US photography, dies at 93
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