Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1429

In the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign by Joan of Arc.

1453

In the Battle of Castillon, The last battle of the Hundred Years' War, the French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.

1771

Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit in what is called the Bloody Falls massacre.

1791

Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing scores of people.

1794

The 16 Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne are executed ten days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

1821

Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

1821

The Kingdom of Spain cedes the territory of Florida to the United States.

1850

Vega became the first star (other than the Sun) to be photographed.

1867

Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.

1898

Spanish troops in Santiago, Cuba, surrendered to U.S. forces during the Spanish-American War. Nine days later, Spain sought peace terms.

1899

NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.

1902

Willis Carrier creates the first air conditioner in Buffalo, New York.

1917

With the British at war with Germany, King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will change its name from the German Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor.

1918

The RMS&#160;<i>Carpathia</i>, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS&#160;<i>Titanic</i>, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM&#160;<i>U-55</i>; five lives are lost.

1918

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are executed by Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

1936

An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the Spanish civil war.

1938

Aviator Douglas Corrigan took off from New York, saying he was headed for California. He ended up in Ireland, earning the nickname ''Wrong Way Corrigan.''

1944

At Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery in Normandy, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is seriously injured by allied aircraft during World War II while returning to his headquarters.

1944

Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.

1945

The main three leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam during World War II to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

1948

Southern Democrats opposed to the nomination of President Truman met in Birmingham, Ala., to endorse South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond.

1953

The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida, killing 44.

1955

Disneyland opened for the very first time in Anaheim, California. The admission price was $1.00

1962

The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last Nuclear weapons atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.

1968

Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.

1973

King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, while having surgery in Italy, is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan.

1975

An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1976

The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the games because of New Zealand's participation. Contrary to rulings by other international sports organizations, the IOC had declined to exclude New Zealand because of their participation in South African sporting events during apartheid.

1979

Nicaraguan dictator General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees in exile to Miami, Florida, United States.

1981

A pair of walkways above the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel collapsed during a dance, killing 114 people.

1981

A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.

1984

The minimum legal drinking age in the United States was raised to 21 as President Ronald Reagan signed a law requiring states to prohibit people under 21 from purchasing alcohol, or risk losing federal highway funds.

1985

Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).

1989

First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

1996

TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 bound for Paris, exploded and crashed off Long Island, N.Y., shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 230 people aboard were killed.

1996

Off the coast of Long Island, New York, Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 Flight 800 explodes, killing all 230 on board.

1997

After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 five-and-dime stores, laying off 9,200 employees.

1997

After takeoff from Husein Sastranegara International Airport, Sempati Air Flight 304 crashes into a residential neighborhood in Bandung, killing 28 people.

1998

Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov czars, was buried in Russia - 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.

1998

A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing the permanent international court in The Hague, to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

1998

The 7.0 Papua New Guinea earthquake triggers a tsunami that destroys ten villages in Papua New Guinea, killing up to 2,700 people, and leaving several thousand injured.

2000

During approach to Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Airport, Alliance Air Flight 7412 suddenly crashes into a residential neighborhood in Patna India, killing 60 people.

2006

The 7.7 Pangandaran tsunami earthquake severely affects the Indonesian island of Java, killing 668 people, and leaving more than 9,000 injured.

2007

TAM Airlines Flight 3054, an Airbus A320, crashes into a warehouse after landing too fast and missing the end of the São Paulo-Congonhas Airport runway, killing 199 people.

2014

A French regional train on the Pau-Bayonne line crashes into a high-speed train near the town of Denguin, resulting in at least 25 injuries.

2014

Eric Garner is killed by police officer Daniel Pantaleo in New York City, after the latter put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him.

2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, crashes near the border of Ukraine and Russia after being shot down. All 298 people on board are killed.

2015

At least 120 people are killed and 130 injured by a suicide bombing in Diyala Governorate, Iraq.

2018

Scott S. Sheppard announces that his team has discovered a dozen irregular moons of Jupiter.

1959

Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day", Holiday made a significant contribution to jazz music and pop singing. (b. 1915)

1961

Ty Cobb, nicknamed "the Georgia Peach", was an American professional baseball center fielder. A native of rural Narrows, Georgia, Cobb spent 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). (b. 1886)

1967

John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. (b. 1926)

1974

Dizzy Dean, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1910)

1996

"Chas" Chandler was an English musician, record producer and manager, best known as the original bassist in The Animals, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. (b. 1938)

2001

Katharine Graham was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of President Nixon. (b. 1917)

2003

Walter Zapp was a Baltic German inventor. His best-known creation was the Minox subminiature camera. Over the course of his life, he was granted over 60 patents. (b. 1905)

2003

Rosalyn Tureck was an American pianist and harpsichordist who was particularly associated with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. (b. 1914)

2006

Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, called the "king of pulp fiction". His stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. (b. 1918)

2006

Sam Myers was an American blues musician and songwriter. He was an accompanist on dozens of recordings by blues artists over five decades. (b. 1936)

2009

Walter Cronkite was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years, from 1962 to 1981. He was often cited as "the most trusted man in America". (b. 1916)

2010

Larry Keith was an American actor who was a cast member on the ABC soap opera All My Children. (b. 1931)

2012

William Raspberry was an American syndicated public affairs columnist. He was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. (b. 1935)

2015

John Taylor was a British jazz pianist, born in Manchester, England, who occasionally performed on the organ and the synthesizer. (b. 1942)

2019

Marie Sophie Hingst, German historian and blogger who falsely claimed to be descended from Holocaust survivors.

2020

John Lewis, civil rights activist and politician known for his participation in the Freedom Rides and Selma to Montgomery marches, died at the age of 80. He was the last living speaker from the 1963 March on Washington. (b. 1940)