585 BC – The first known prediction of a solar eclipse was made in Greece.
1085 – Alfonso VI took Toledo, Spain from the Moslems.
1787 – The Constitutional convention opened in Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.
1810 – Argentina declared independence from Napoleonic Spain.
1844 – The gasoline engine was patented by Stuart Perry.
1844 – The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, MD, appeared in the Baltimore “Patriot.”
1953 – In Nevada, the first atomic cannon was fired.
1961 – America was asked by U.S. President Kennedy to work toward putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
1970 – Boeing Computer Services was founded.
1977 – An opinion piece by Vietnam verteran Jan Scruggs appeared in “The Washington Post.” The article called for a national memorial to “remind an ungrateful nation of what it has done to its sons” that had served in the Vietnam War.
1979 – An American Airlines DC-10 crashed during takeoff at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. 275 people were killed.
1997 – In Sierra Leone a military coup overthrew the popularly elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. He was replaced with Major Johnny Paul Koromah.
2008 – NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander landed in the arctic plains of Mars.
2009 – North Korea announced that it had conducted a second successful nuclear test in the province of North Hamgyong. The United Nations Security Council condemned the reported test.
