Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1866

President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, even though the fighting had stopped months earlier.

1914

German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.

1918

Britain opened its offensive on the Western front during World War I.

1940

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, ''Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.''

1953

The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

1955

Hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.

1964

President Johnson signed a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure.

1968

The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek's regime.

1977

The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.

1980

Italian Reinhold Messner made the first successful solo ascent of Mount Everest and without oxygen

1986

In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

1988

8 British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.

1998

Retaliating 13 days after the deadly embassy bombings in East Africa, U.S. forces launched cruise missile strikes against alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan and what was described as a chemical plant in Sudan.

2000

Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year.

2002

A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin, Germany for 5 hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

2006

Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.

2008

Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and 8 more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.

2011

Two US Hikers who were accused of spying and illegally entering Iran were sentenced to 8 years in jail by a Tehran court. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal both deny the charges, saying they accidentally entered the country while hiking near the border.

2013

A radioactive water leak was found at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant. After being damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami the plant has had several dangerous issues including melt downs, fires and other leaks.

2014

72 people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day

2016

54 people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey

2016

Fifty-four people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.

2020

Joe Biden gives his acceptance speech virtually for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

1833

Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio.

1942

Isaac Hayes, American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor

1948

Robert Plant, English singer-songwriter. Plant was lead signer of the rock band Led Zeppelin

1956

Joan Allen, American actress

1992

Demi Lovato, American singer-songwriter and actor

2007

United States billionaire Leona Helmsley died from heart failure. Helmsley owned many large properties in New York including upscale hotels. She served 21 months in prison in 1992 after being convicted for tax evasion.

2012

Comedian Phyllis Diller died at the age of ninety-five in Los Angeles. Diller came into comedy in the Fifties and was known for her hair, crazy costumes and cackling laugh.

2013

Elmore Leonard, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Born 1925.

2017

Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (b. 1926)

2021

Igor Vovkovinskiy, Ukrainian-American law student and actor, American tallest person at 7'8" (b. 1982)